A few days before his death, Pema Tashi told his best friend, Leki Dhondup, that “Tibet has given me so much and I want to give back to the cause. If necessary, I will contribute my life to the struggle.” On May 10, Pema drowned in the Kosi River at Kakri Ghat, Uttarakhand, during the March to Tibet.
Born in Arunachal Pradesh to non-Tibetan parents, he decided to become a monk by the age of six. Pema delighted his parents with his decision and journeyed down to Sera Mae Monastery to take his vows of monkhood. When he saw the announcement about the March to Tibet, he said, “I was happy because I had always wanted to see Tibet. I have lived in a Tibetan community for a long time and have always viewed Tibetans as compassionate people and this motivated me to join the march. Since I have made up my mind to go on this march, I am fearless.”
When arrested with the other 100 Core Marchers at Dehra, Himachal Pradesh, Pema said “I felt the agony and the status of a homeless refugee.” Once released from house arrest, Pema rejoined the march only to develop problems walking. They allowed him to switch to the tent building crew where he earned the reputation as a hard worker and a joker. In fact, everyone knew of Pema’s infectious joking and his friend Leki said, “he couldn’t be quiet for a minute.” He eventually got the nickname “Man of the March.” Other marchers would never refer to him as Pema. In fact, most didn’t even know that name. They simply called him “the Man.” It was said that without him on the march, there would be no joking.
As they approached what was to be Pema’s last campsite, he marveled at “the beauty of newly entered hills and felt a sensation of coming to his homeland.” After building the tents at the campsite, Pema jumped into the cold and cloudy water of the river, apparently hitting his head on a rock. He spent too long underwater and passed away a few hours later at the Almora Hospital. The entire march spent several hours in prayer for his soul and a team of monks stayed up all night praying over his body. His body was cremated the next morning with a mountain of katas.
To a hard worker, a lover of jokes and a warm person with a brave heart who died before he reached his home, everyone on the March to Tibet sends our prayers with you, Pema.
Gedun Gyatso, 27, grew up in the idyllic village of Podma in the Kham province of Tibet. He would spend his summers at the top of a mountain with five others young men protecting the village yaks from wolves and foxes with stones and slings. Gedun learned about Tibetan culture and history from his grandfather who had one relative killed and another imprisoned by the Chinese. Gedun grew up filled with anger at the Chinese and used his sling to break out the windows of Chinese military vehicles as they entered Tibet with soldiers and left with timber.
At 13, he fulfilled his childhood dream and entered the Podma Monastery near his village. After protests for independence at the nearby Sevo Monastery, the government intensified their “patriotic reeducation” campaign with the monks, stressing:
- The monks should not follow the Dalai Lama.
- They should not follow the Tibetan government-in-exile.
- They must listen to Chinese officials.
- The monks must love the People’s Republic of China. (more…)
At the age of 16 with his political awareness already resolved, Gyaltsen Wangchuk set out for Lhasa on the morning of March 3, 1989, with three fellow student monks from Nyethang Monastery. They started marching around the Tibetan capital waving the banned Tibetan flag. People began joining them in droves. This was the beginning of the Tibetan People’s Uprising of March 1989 - the most broad-based and significant citizen’s revolt by Tibetans against Chinese rule until the uprising of this year. For three days, these four teenage monks from a rural monastery roamed the sacred city, stirring up the emotions of the people. By day four, with a police station burned, police vehicles vandalized, rocks being hurled at Chinese security police and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, Gyaltsen and his companions slipped back to their monastery. They were arrested there on April 3, 1989 by local police with submachine guns who recognized him from photographs from the protests. Six jeeps came to take them away in handcuffs. (more…)
The Daily News Journal
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
May 5, 2008
Pema Richeson and her parents moved to Rutherford County in 1996. These days, the 2003 Oakland High School graduate is thousands of miles away in India, marching to Tibet with a group of freedom marchers.
The 23-year-old is involved with Tibetan Freedom Movement and is a communications/media team member for the March to Tibet. As China prepares to host the Olympics this summer, international attention and activism has increased surrounding Tibet, a region that has long sought freedom from China’s control.
“The March to Tibet is an initiative launched by five leading Tibetan non-governmental organizations in Dharamsala, India, exiled-home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile,” said Richeson from India. “(It) currently has 250 core members who are committed to walking to Tibet, and eight Western support marchers. The aim of the march is to raise awareness about Tibetans’ plight.” (more…)
At 17 years old, Tenzin Dawa is the youngest member of the March to Tibet, and represents well the young generation of Tibetans concerned about their future. He grew up in the Dekyiling Tibetan Settlement in Dehradun with his mother and two older siblings. His mother supports them by weaving Tibetan aprons. Tenzin attended Tibetan schools with a focus on the language and culture of his homeland. He has traveled throughout India and Nepal singing Tibetans songs at concerts. Tenzin plans to join the orchestra division of the Indian army to improve his skills while earning money for his mother.
With an easy laugh and a passion for football, he has made many friends since he joined the march at New Delhi, especially among the monks. Tenzin says he joined the march because while in India, “You’re not in your own country and you haven’t seen your own country. I always wonder when I can see Tibet and often pray that I can see Tibet as soon as possible. If I am able to cross the border, I would be able to see Tibet. But on both side there’s a possibility of prison but I will bear any suffering.” Tenzin is an inspiring and determined young man who’s fun to be around.
Michael Bramadat Willcock, a 22 year old support marcher from Quebec, Canada, grew up hearing about the Tibet issue. His parents took him to protest the illegal occupation in front of the Chinese embassy in Ottawa every year and he saw the Dalai Lama during His Holiness’ visit to Canada. In 2007, the family took a trip to Ladakh where they stayed with a Tibetan family. He trekked to a place near the border where he saw the Rooftop of the World for the first time in his life and swore to cross those mountains someday. (more…)
Kunsang, 60, has a loving genuine smile that glows in her beautiful wrinkled face. This tough lady doesn’t talk about the ailments and setbacks in her life with any rancor. She just smiles sadly.
At nine years old, Kunsang fled from Lho Dongkar, a village near Lhasa, with her parents. She remembers the sound of machine gun fire and bombs falling as the Chinese attacked the crowd outside the Potala Palace recently vacated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama after his escape to India. They walked most of the way to the border and crossed into Bhutan where her stepfather died of old age. Kunsang’s mother supported her for the next three years in Bumdela, Aruncahal Pradesh by woodworking until finally succumbing to a long and painful stomach ailment.
Her mother’s family sent her to school in Orissa for the next three years and then arranged a marriage to a man in the Indian Army. Unfortunately, she fell sick with same disease as her mother and had to go to Rajpur where it took her three years to fully recover. She stayed in Rajpur to work as a carpet maker and only got to see her husband on holidays. They had four children together but one little girl died after a month from boils. They lost their 13 year old son after he collapsed at school one day and died instantly from unknown causes. Her remaining daughter now sells sweaters and her son sold cosmetics in Rikikesh until he came down with jaundice. (more…)
In 1959, Tenpa, the son of semi-nomadic farmers from Kham Dege, Tibet, heard of the danger to the His Holiness the Dalai Lama and left his home in the dead of night to travel to Lhasa. He never saw his mother again and twenty-five years passed before he reunited with his father in Karnataka, India. He rode two nights and one day on horseback to Lhasa. “I went to defend His Holiness and all the Tibetans there.”
Upon reaching the city, Tenpa joined Chushi Gangdruk (”four rivers six ranges”), the group of freedom fighters named after the four river gorges and six mountain ranges that cross the Tibetan region of Kham where the anti-Chinese revolt started. A few days after Tenpa’s arrival, the Dalai Lama fled into exile. In the days that followed, Tenpa witnessed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacking Tibetan demonstrators with machine gun fire and tank shelling from the two mountains overlooking the city. According to Chinese sources, the PLA killed 86,000 Tibetans during the invasion. Tenpa witnessed many Tibetans drowning in the river or mud trying to escape. He fled to a resistance camp being formed at Meldrogongkar between Dekung country and Reting. About one thousand Tibetans from all walks of life met there: soldiers, old men, monks and teenagers. With limited resources, they were determined to fight. (more…)
Ngawang Tendol, 38, is the daughter of Tibetan subsistence farmers in Maldol outside Lhasa. She “always wanted to be a nun” and so she joined the Nichung Nunnery in Lhasa. When the nunnery was destroyed by the Chinese, Ngawang solicited donations from local supporters and carried dirt and rocks to help the construction. It took 90 nuns over two years to rebuild it.
Ngawang did not know about Tibet’s political situation until she reached the nunnery because under Chinese occupation, her teachers and her parents were forbidden from mentioning it. She learned about Tibet’s independence as she saw her fellow nuns arrested for “agitation” after protesting against Chinese rule. They inspired her to protest in the name of religious freedom.
At the beginning of April 1989, Ngawang went to Norbulingka, the summer palace of the Dalai Lama, with seven other nuns. In the middle of a cultural dance, they started shouting “Free Tibet” and “China get out of Tibet.” Within two minutes, two police officers approached her, handcuffed her and led her to a waiting police jeep. They took her to Gutsa Detention Center in Lhasa, about which she said, “I wasn’t afraid. Just sad.”
As soon as she arrived at Gutsa with the other nuns, they got off the jeeps and all of the police started beating them. They spent the next several minutes being punched and kicked by the many officers while still being held in their handcuffs. Then they spent the next two hours with their hands on their heads as the police forced them to stare at the sun. Before any questioning, the officers separated the nuns in small groups for more calculated beatings. As she stood there, Ngawang could hear the others screaming in pain and felt very nervous. When her turn came, the police used thumbscrews to lock her arms behind her back and then hung her from a tree with ropes around her body. Two guards beat her with sticks until she was unconscious and woke her with a splash of cold water. Ngawang says, “I can never forget what happened that day. I will remember the whole scene.” (more…)
Pema Tashi is not a Tibetan, but he decided to march with the Tibetan monks that he has spent the last eight years with at Sera Monastery in Karnataka. “I have lived in a Tibetan community for a long time and have always viewed Tibetans as compassionate people and this motivated me to join the march.”
Pema grew up in a Buddhist family of vegetable farmers in Arunachal Pradesh. He delighted his parents when he decided to take the vows of a monk. In 2000, Pema joined Sera Monastery in Karanataka in the South of India because of their reputation of providing excellent education.
When the five NGOs announced the six month March to Tibet, Pema knew right away that he would join. He said, “Since I made up my mind to go on this march, I am fearless.” On March 13th, Pema was arrested at Dehra in the Kangra Valley with the 100 other Core Marchers and spent ten days in judicial custody with his comrades. Once freed, he joined the second wave of marchers who continued the march from where Pema’s group was arrested. “If I am able to cross into Tibet, I would love to stay there for two months to examine the place and then my dream is fulfilled.”
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