1959 Tibetan uprising

The 1959 Tibetan uprising (also known by other names) began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951.

 

 

 

On March 10, 1959, several thousand Tibetans, fearing that the Chinese might abduct the Dalai Lama, gathered at the Norbulingka summer palace to protect the Tibetan spiritual leader.Credit...The Office of Tibet, Washington, D.C.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15

By Luo Siling

• Aug. 14, 2016

Generations of Chinese have been taught that the Tibetan people are grateful to China for having liberated them from “feudalism and serfdom,” and yet Tibetan protests, including self-immolations, continue to erupt against Chinese rule. In “Tibet in Agony: Lhasa 1959,’’ to be published in October by Harvard University Press, the Chinese-born writer Jianglin Li explores the roots of Tibetan unrest in China’s occupation of Tibet in the 1950s, culminating in March 1959 with the People’s Liberation Army’s shelling of Lhasa and the Dalai Lama’s flight to India. In an interview, she shared her findings.

 

You’ve drawn parallels between the killings in Lhasa in 1959 and the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing.

 

What happened in 1959?

The crisis began on the morning of March 10, when thousands of Tibetans rallied around the Dalai Lama’s Norbulingka palace to prevent him from leaving. He had accepted an invitation to a theatrical performance at the People’s Liberation Army headquarters, but rumors that the Chinese were planning to abduct him set off general panic. Even after he canceled his excursion to mollify the demonstrators, they refused to leave and insisted on staying to guard his palace. The demonstrations included a strong outcry against Chinese rule, and China promptly labeled them an “armed insurrection,” warranting military action. About a week after the turmoil began, the Dalai Lama secretly escaped, and on March 20, Chinese troops began a concerted assault on Lhasa. After taking over the city in a matter of days, inflicting heavy casualties and damaging heritage sites, they moved quickly to consolidate control over all Tibet.

1959 Tibetan uprising

 

The 1959 Tibetan uprising (also known by other names) began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China (PRC) since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951. The initial uprising occurred amid general Chinese-Tibetan tensions and a context of confusion, because Tibetan protesters feared that the Chinese government might arrest the 14th Dalai Lama. The protests were also fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment and separatism.  At first, the uprising mostly consisted of peaceful protests, but clashes quickly erupted and the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) eventually used force to quell the protests, some of the protesters had captured arms. The last stages of the uprising included heavy fighting, with high civilian and military losses. The 14th Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa, while the city was fully retaken by Chinese security forces on 23 March 1959. Thousands of Tibetans were killed during the 1959 uprising, but the exact number of deaths is disputed.

 

Earlier in 1956, armed conflict between Tibetan guerillas and the PLA started in the Kham and Amdo regions, which had been subjected to socialist reform. The guerrilla warfare later spread to other areas of Tibet and lasted through 1962. Some regard the Xunhua Incident in 1958 as a precursor of the Tibetan uprising.

 

The annual 10 March anniversary of the uprising is observed by exiled Tibetans as Tibetan Uprising Day and Women's Uprising Day.  On 19 January 2009, The PRC-controlled legislature in the Tibetan Autonomous Region chose 28 March as the national anniversary of Serfs Emancipation Day. American Tibetologist Warren W. Smith Jr. describes the move as a "counter-propaganda" celebration following the 10 March 2008 unrest in Tibet.

 

Names

• 1959 Tibetan uprising (used by the Central Tibetan Administration) 1959年西藏起義
• 1959 Tibetan armed rebellion (used by the government of the People's Republic of China) 1959年西藏武裝叛亂
• 1959 Tibetan anti-riot movement (used by the government of the Republic of China) 1959年西藏抗暴運動
• 1959 Tibetan unrests (commonly used in Chinese historiography) 1959年藏區騷亂
• 1959 anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet
• Lhasa uprising

 

 

On the 10th of March 1959, after nearly a decade of repression by the occupying Chinese army, Tibetans in their thousands rose up in protest. They gathered in the streets of their capital Lhasa and surrounded the Potala Palace to protect the Dalai Lama, who they feared was in danger of assassination.

The protests were followed by a brutal crackdown, both in the city and across Tibet, claiming tens of thousands of lives. The Dalai Lama was also forced to flee into exile, where he has remained ever since.

Since then, the tragedy and the defiance of the Tibetan 1959 Uprising has been marked with events around the world every March 10th.

 

1959Tibetans revolt against Chinese occupation

 

On March 10, 1959, Tibetans band together in revolt, surrounding the summer palace of the Dalai Lama in defiance of Chinese occupation forces.

China’s occupation of Tibet began nearly a decade before, in October 1950, when troops from its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country, barely one year after the Communists gained full control of mainland China. The Tibetan government gave into Chinese pressure the following year, signing a treaty that ensured the power of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the country’s spiritual leader, over Tibet’s domestic affairs. Resistance to the Chinese occupation built steadily over the next several years, including a revolt in several areas of eastern Tibet in 1956. By December 1958, rebellion was simmering in Lhasa, the capital, and the PLA command threatened to bomb the city if order was not maintained.

The March 1959 uprising in Lhasa was triggered by fears of a plot to kidnap the Dalai Lama and take him to Beijing. When Chinese military officers invited His Holiness to visit the PLA headquarters for a theatrical performance and official tea, he was told he must come alone, and that no Tibetan military bodyguards or personnel would be allowed past the edges of the military camp. On March 10, 300,000 loyal Tibetans surrounded Norbulinka Palace, preventing the Dalai Lama from accepting the PLA’s invitation. By March 17, Chinese artillery was aimed at the palace, and the Dalai Lama was evacuated to neighboring India. Fighting broke out in Lhasa two days later, with Tibetan rebels hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. Early on March 21, the Chinese began shelling Norbulinka, slaughtering tens of thousands of men, women and children still camped outside. In the aftermath, the PLA cracked down on Tibetan resistance, executing the Dalai Lama’s guards and destroying Lhasa’s major monasteries along with thousands of their inhabitants.

China’s stranglehold on Tibet and its brutal suppression of separatist activity has continued in the decades following the unsuccessful uprising. Tens of thousands of Tibetans followed their leader to India, where the Dalai Lama has long maintained a government-in-exile in the foothills of the Himalayas.

 

 

HISTORY LEADING UP TO MARCH 10, 1959

 
 
Compiled by: Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

 

Immediately after the communist party took power in China in 1949 it began asserting its claim that Tibet was part of Chinese territory and its people were crying out for "liberation" from "imperialist forces" and from the "reactionary feudal regime in Lhasa".

By October 1950 the People’s Liberation Army had penetrated Tibet as far as Chamdo the capital of Kham province and headquarters of the Tibetan Army’s Eastern Command. The region was routed and the Governor, Ngawang Jigme Ngabo, taken prisoner. Chinese forces were also stealthily infiltrating Tibet’s north-eastern border Province, Amdo, but avoiding military clashes which would alert international interest.

That year the 15-year-old Dalai Lama, his entourage and select government officials, evacuated the capital and set up a provisional administration near the Indian border at Yatung. In July 1951 they were persuaded by Chinese Officials to return to Lhasa. On September 9, 1951, a vanguard of 3,000 Chinese "liberation forces" marched into the capital.

By 1954, 222,000 members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were stationed in Tibet and famine conditions became rampant as the country’s delicate subsistence agricultural system was stretched beyond its capacity.

In April 1956, the Chinese inaugurated the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet (PCART) in Lhasa, headed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and ostensibly convened to modernise the country. In effect, it was a rubber stamp committee set up to validate Chinese claims.

In the later fifties, Lhasa became increasingly politicised and a non-violent resistance evolved, organised by Mimang Tsongdu, a popular and spontaneous citizens’ group. Posters denouncing the occupation went up. Stones and dried yak dung were hurled at Chinese street parades. During that period, when the directive from Beijing was still to woo Tibetans rather than oppress them, only the more extreme Mimang Tsongdu leaders and orators faced arrest.

In February 1956, revolt broke out in several areas in Eastern Tibet and heavy casualties were inflicted on the Chinese occupation army by local Kham and Amdo guerrilla forces. Chinese troops were relocated from Western to Eastern Tibet to strengthen their forces to 100,000 and "clear up the rebels." Attempts to disarm the Khampas provoked such violent resistance that the Chinese decided to take more militant measures. The PLA then began bombing and pillaging monasteries in Eastern Tibet, arresting nobles, senior monks and guerrilla leaders and publicly torturing and executing them to discourage the large-scale and punitive resistance they were facing.

In Lhasa, 30,000 PLA troops maintained a wary eye as refugees from the fighting in distant Kham and Amdo swelled the population by around 10,000 and formed camps on the city’s perimeter.

By December 1958, a revolt was simmering and the Chinese military command was threatening to bomb Lhasa and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s palace if the unrest was not contained. To Lhasa’s south and north-east 20,000 guerrillas and several thousand civilians had been engaging with Chinese troops.

On March 1, 1959, while His Holiness the Dalai Lama was preoccupied with taking his Final Master of Metaphysics examination, two junior Chinese army officers visited him at the sacred Jokhang cathedral and pressed him to confirm a date on which he could attend a theatrical performance and tea at the Chinese Army Headquarters in Lhasa. His Holiness replied that he would fix a date once the ceremonies had been completed.

This was an extraordinary occurrence for two reasons: one, the invitation was not conveyed through the Kashag (the Cabinet) as it should have been; and two, the party was not at the palace where such functions would normally have been held, but at the military headquarters – and His Holiness the Dalai Lama had been asked to attend alone.

March 7, 1959. The interpreter of General Tan Kuan-sen – one of the three military leaders in Lhasa rang the Chief Official Abbot demanding the date His Holiness the Dalai Lama would attend their army camp. March 10 was confirmed.

March 8, 1959. This was Women’s Day, and the Patriotic Women’s Association was treated to a harangue by General Tan Kuan-sen in which he threatened to shell and destroy monasteries if the Khampa guerrillas refused to surrender. "… we knew that the ordinary people of Lhasa were being driven to open rebellion against the Chinese though they would have to fight machine-gunners with their bare hands", writes Mrs. Rinchen Dolma (Mary) Taring in her autobiography, Daughter of Tibet.

March 9, 1959. At 8.00 am two Chinese officers visited the commander of His Holiness the Dalai Lama bodyguards’ house and asked him to accompany them to see Brigadier Fu at the Chinese military headquarters in Lhasa. Brigadier Fu told him that on the following day there was to be no customary ceremony as His Holiness the Dalai Lama moved from the Norbulinka summer palace to the army headquarters, two miles beyond. No armed bodyguard was to escort him and no Tibetan soldiers would be allowed beyond the Stone Bridge – a landmark on the perimeter of the sprawling army camp.

By custom, an escort of twenty-five armed guards always accompanied His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the entire city of Lhasa would line up whenever he went. Brigadier Fu told the commander of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s bodyguards that under no circumstances should the Tibetan army cross the Stone bridge and the entire procedure must be kept strictly secret.

The Chinese camp had always been an eyesore for the Tibetans and the fact that His Holiness the Dalai Lama was now to visit it would surely create greater anxiety amongst the Tibetans.

March 10, 1959. The invitation provoked 300,000 loyal Tibetans to surround the Norbulinka palace, forming an human sea of protection for their Yeshe Norbu (nickname for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, meaning "Precious Jewel"). They feared he would be abducted to Beijing to attend the upcoming Chinese National Assembly. This mobilisation forced His Holiness the Dalai Lama to turn down the army leader’s invitation. Instead he was held a prisoner of devotion.

March 12, 1959. 5,000 Tibetan women marched through the streets of Lhasa carrying banners demanding "Tibet for Tibetans" and shouting "From today Tibet is Independent". They presented an appeal for help to the Indian Consulate-General in Lhasa.

Mimang Tsongdu members and their supporters had erected barricades in Lhasa’s narrow streets while the Chinese militia had positioned sandbag fortifications for machine guns on the city’s flat rooftops. 3000 Tibetans in Lhasa signed their willingness to join the rebels manning the valley’s ring of mountains.

On March 15, 3000 of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s bodyguards left Lhasa to position themselves along an anticipated escape route. Khampa rebel leaders moved their most trusted men to strategic points. Stalwarts of the Tibetan Army merged with civilians to cover the chosen route. By this time the Tibetans were out-numbered 25 to 2. An estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Chinese troops wielded modern weapons and had 17 heavy guns surrounding the city. While the Chinese manned swivelling howitzers, the Tibetans were wielding cannons into position with mules.

March 16, 1959. Chinese heavy artillery was seen being moved to sites within range of Lhasa and particularly the Norbulinka. Rumours were rife of more troops being flown in from China. By nightfall Lhasa was certain that His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s palace was about to be shelled.

March 17, 1959 4 pm. The Chinese fired two mortar shells at the Norbulinka. They landed short of the palace walls in a marsh. This event triggered His Holiness the Dalai Lama to finally decide to leave his homeland.

"… when the Chinese guns sounded that warning of death, the first thought in the mind of every official within the Palace, and every humble member of the vast concourse around it, was that my life must be saved and I must leave the Palace and leave the city at once", recalls His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in his autobiography, My Land and My People "There was no certainty that escape was physically possible at all – Ngabo had assured us it was not.. If I did escape from Lhasa, where was I to go, and how could I reach asylum? Everything was uncertain, except the compelling anxiety of all my people to get me away before the orgy of Chinese destruction and massacre began".

At 10 pm on the night of March 17, wearing a soldier’s uniform with a gun slung over his shoulder, His Holiness the Dalai Lama marched out of the Norbulinka and onto the danger-filled road to India and freedom His mother and elder sister had preceded him.

March 19, 1959. Fighting broke out in Lhasa late that night and raged for two days of hand-to-hand combat with odds stacked hopelessly against the Tibetan resistance.

At 2.00 am the Chinese started shelling NorbuLingka. The Norbulinka was bombarded by 800 shells on March 21 Thousands of men, women and children camped around the palace wall were slaughtered and the homes of about 300 officials within the walls destroyed. In the aftermath 200 members of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s bodyguard were disarmed and publicly machine-gunned. Lhasa’s major monasteries, Gaden, Sera and Drepung were shelled -the latter two beyond repair – and monastic treasures and precious scriptures destroyed. Thousands of their monks were either killed on the spot, transported to the city to work as slave labour, or deported. In house-to-house searches the residents of any homes harbouring arms were dragged out and shot on the spot. Over 86,000 Tibetans in central Tibet were killed by the Chinese during this period.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his party crossed the Indian border at Khenzimane Pass on March 31. Pandit Nehru announced on April 3 in the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) that the Government of India had granted asylum to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The party took a couple of days to reach Tawang the headquarters of the West Kameng Frontier Division of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now known as the Tawang District of Arunachal Pradesh.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama stayed four days in Tawang and then spent about ten days there recovering from dysentery. In Bomdila His Holiness the Dalai Lama was officially received by an envoy of the Indian Government a welcome message from Nehru.

On April 18, 1959 morning, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, his mother, sister, brother, three ministers and around 80 other Tibetans left for Tezpur, Assam. There he was greeted by Indian officials and a Press corps of nearly 200 correspondents, all eager for what they called "The Story of the Century".

From Tezpur His Holiness made His famous statement known as the Tezpur Statement in which he repudiated the 17 Point Agreement signed "under duress" in May 1951 in Beijing.