March 10, 1959

March 10, 1959  was the day that native Tibetans protested the Chinese Invasion and occupation of Tibet.  By March 20, the Tibetan Capital was mostly destroyed.  It was estimated that 800 shells were used to destroy Tibet’s three major monasteries.  Chinese soldiers rounded up the remaining monks and nuns.  They executed many.  China’s response to the protest was a mass genocide of Tibetans. This genocide continues today.

By the time of the 1964 census, 300,000 Tibetans had gone “missing” in the previous five years, either secretly imprisoned, killed, or in exile.

In the days after the 1959 Uprising, the Chinese government revoked most aspects of Tibet’s autonomy, and initiated resettlement and land distribution across the country. The Dalai Lama has remained in exile ever since.

China’s central government, in a bid to dilute the Tibetan population and provide jobs for Han Chinese, initiated a “Western China Development Program” in 1978.

As many as 300,000 Han now live in Tibet, 2/3 of them in the capital city. The Tibetan population of Lhasa, in contrast, is only 100,000.

Ethnic Chinese hold the vast majority of government posts.

His Holiness, the 14th Dali Lama and a small entourage made a difficult journey across the Himalyas to seek refuge in India.  They are still in exhile.  Tibetan Monks, Nuns, and loyalists are still imprisoned, tortured, and murdered.  The aftermath of  the invasion is documented by Wikipedia.

According to the Tibetan Government in Exile and captured Chinese documents an estimated 86,000 Tibetans died in the events surrounding the 1959 uprising. The Norbulingka was struck with an estimated 800 shells, killing an unknown number of Tibetans within and camped around the palace. Lhasa’s three major monasteries- Sera, Ganden, and Drepung– were seriously damaged by shelling, with Sera and Drepung being damaged nearly beyond repair. Members of the Dalai Lama’s bodyguard remaining in Lhasa were disarmed and publicly executed, along with Tibetans found to be harboring weapons in their homes. Thousands of Tibetan monks were executed or arrested, and monasteries and temples around the city were looted or destroyed.

In April 1959, the 19 year old 10th Panchen Lama, the second ranking spiritual leader in Tibet, residing in Shigatse, called on Tibetans to support the Chinese government. However, after a tour through Tibet, in May 1962, he met Zhou Enlai to discuss a petition he had begun writing at the end of 1961, criticizing the situation in Tibet. The petition was a 70,000 character document that dealt with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In this document, he criticized the suppression that the Chinese authorities had orchestrated in retaliation for the 1959 Tibetan uprising.  But in October 1962, the PRC authorities dealing with the population criticized the petition. Chairman Mao called the petition “… a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords.” In 1967 he was formally arrested and imprisoned. He was released in 1977 and died suddenly after a mysterious illness in 1989.

I would like to ask for you to visit the Tibetan Government in Exile’s website and to consider helping Tibetan refugees and any other efforts that might interest you.