Tibetan Refugee: Dolkar Kyap
After the film, I had dinner at a place called Khana Nirvana and sat in on one of their weekly lectures by a Tibetan refugee. I was amazed at the compsure that Dolkar Kyap had as he spoke through an interpreter about being hung from his handcuffed hands for hours upon hours, being beaten, his eyesight destroyed, denied food and water and forced to work. He talked about how prisoners' kidneys were ripped out and sold on the black market. If I weren't hearing the words of the interpreter, I would have thought this well-groomed man in camo pants, tan polo shirt and hiking boots was giving a lecture on local hikes rather than the horrors of being a political prisoner. His lecture was peppered with occasional laughter and his voice remained calm, never rising in anger, but I could feel angr and disgust rigins in my own chest as he spoke.
He was sentenced to five years in prison for posting freedom and environmental awareness posters in his town. One of his main causes was to expose the natural resources being stipped from Tibet and the severe degradation of the natural landscape. He noted that after being released, you are never truly free because you can never hold a job and people avoid you out of fear of becoming a suspect as well. Since 9/11, some of the Tibetan political dissidents have been labled terrorists by the government. He has written a book about his ordeal that is currently being translated into English and he's researching a second based on the sale of prisoners' organs on the black market.
One woman at the lecture pointed out that she has specifically not visited China or Tibet because she does not want to support China in anyway, espeically by giving the country her money. She asked Mr. Kyap if boycotting the country was a good way to show support for the Tibetan people. He answered that while he understood why she was avoiding the country, visits by Westerners could help raise awareness among the Chinese people, most of whom are not fully aware of the plight of the Tibetans or have been educated to see benefits in the occupation. Mr. Kyap expressed that he was not blaming the Chinese population, only the government and its human rights abuses. The vast majority of individuals support human rights and freedoms. He also pointed out that there is virtually no way to avoid supporting China and the governments' treatment of prisoners with our dollars. He said that many of the prisons are given factory names to disguise their real identity, and many of the goods China produces, from shoes to car parts, are produced by prisoners (both Tibetan political prisoners and Chinese criminals) who are working for free.
Even in this age of information and communication, there are still so many things we have such limited knowledge about. We hear stroies from these refugees that are denied by the government, and we see few photos or documented film evidence that might be able to evoke more action. This is only my account of what I learned yesterday from one man and one film. There is a lot of literature about the history and personal accounts from refugees if you want to learn more. I would recommend the book Fire Under the Snow, by Palden Gyatso, an imprisioned monk who escaped to India and smuggled out some of the torture devices used against him.
After the film, I had dinner at a place called Khana Nirvana and sat in on one of their weekly lectures by a Tibetan refugee. I was amazed at the compsure that Dolkar Kyap had as he spoke through an interpreter about being hung from his handcuffed hands for hours upon hours, being beaten, his eyesight destroyed, denied food and water and forced to work. He talked about how prisoners' kidneys were ripped out and sold on the black market. If I weren't hearing the words of the interpreter, I would have thought this well-groomed man in camo pants, tan polo shirt and hiking boots was giving a lecture on local hikes rather than the horrors of being a political prisoner. His lecture was peppered with occasional laughter and his voice remained calm, never rising in anger, but I could feel angr and disgust rigins in my own chest as he spoke.
He was sentenced to five years in prison for posting freedom and environmental awareness posters in his town. One of his main causes was to expose the natural resources being stipped from Tibet and the severe degradation of the natural landscape. He noted that after being released, you are never truly free because you can never hold a job and people avoid you out of fear of becoming a suspect as well. Since 9/11, some of the Tibetan political dissidents have been labled terrorists by the government. He has written a book about his ordeal that is currently being translated into English and he's researching a second based on the sale of prisoners' organs on the black market.
One woman at the lecture pointed out that she has specifically not visited China or Tibet because she does not want to support China in anyway, espeically by giving the country her money. She asked Mr. Kyap if boycotting the country was a good way to show support for the Tibetan people. He answered that while he understood why she was avoiding the country, visits by Westerners could help raise awareness among the Chinese people, most of whom are not fully aware of the plight of the Tibetans or have been educated to see benefits in the occupation. Mr. Kyap expressed that he was not blaming the Chinese population, only the government and its human rights abuses. The vast majority of individuals support human rights and freedoms. He also pointed out that there is virtually no way to avoid supporting China and the governments' treatment of prisoners with our dollars. He said that many of the prisons are given factory names to disguise their real identity, and many of the goods China produces, from shoes to car parts, are produced by prisoners (both Tibetan political prisoners and Chinese criminals) who are working for free.
Even in this age of information and communication, there are still so many things we have such limited knowledge about. We hear stroies from these refugees that are denied by the government, and we see few photos or documented film evidence that might be able to evoke more action. This is only my account of what I learned yesterday from one man and one film. There is a lot of literature about the history and personal accounts from refugees if you want to learn more. I would recommend the book Fire Under the Snow, by Palden Gyatso, an imprisioned monk who escaped to India and smuggled out some of the torture devices used against him.
posted by Lindsey at 7:45 AM
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