Tibet's Hunger for Freedom

Six months before I found myself in New Delhi, India in a sweltering slum photographing an "unto the death" Tibetan hunger strike I didn't even know where Tibet was. The protest was held by six exiled Tibetans to convince the United Nations to resume the debate on Tibet's right to self-determination.

I made a personal commitment to bring attention to the plight of the Tibetan people because I was touched by the gentle-unique culture of Tibet. Their pious nature and daily devotion to their religion impressed me. Tibetan Buddhism's basic tenet is compassion - a theme I first recognized in W. Eugene Smith's photographs as a high school student. His photographs ultimately inspired me to forgo pursuit of a master's degree in clinical social work to become a photojournalist.

The producers of the movies, "Seven Years in Tibet," and "Kundun," must have had me in mind as their target audience. The movies inspired me to learn about the people who live on the "Roof of the World," and how badly the Chinese government has treated them.

What I discovered horrified me. The communist Chinese invaded Tibet about fifty years ago. During their occupation, an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed, more than 6,000 monasteries and their ancient contents destroyed. Tibetan people are routinely imprisoned and tortured for exercising free speech. Even possession or display of the Dalai Lama's picture is illegal.

Lhasa, Tibet's capital, looks like any other Chinese big city due to "population transfer," a policy of cultural genocide which encourages Han Chinese to move to and work in Tibet. The government encourages these Chinese settlers to move to Tibet's harsh environment by paying them much higher wages than what the locals receive. I can't help comparing the behavior of the Chinese to the mission of the Borg, the bad guys on the science fiction series Star Trek, resistance is futile, and you wlll be absorbed.

Children in Tibet are taught Mandarin Chinese, their native language is not allowed in school. Religious pursuits are discouraged. The similarities between China's attitude toward Tibetans and frontier America's treatment of indigenous American Indians is frightening. It is not an exaggeration to say Tibet is an endangered culture.

As Tibet's situation grows bleaker, many Tibetans wonder if the 40-year-strategy of non-violence will ever win their country back. The Tibetan movement has become a symbol of hope for those who long for a global political culture of non-violence and dialogue.

However, living daily life as a moral example may be too high a price to pay for a generation of frustrated Tibetans who have seen little progress; even though they have played according to the rules of international law. There is an entire generation living in exile who has never even set foot on native soil. This is a generation with nothing to lose; and this is the generation which makes up the Tibetan Youth Congress, the radical political party which set out to raise world public opinion by holding a suicide hunger strike.

This is the prologue which led me to the tent of six Tibetan Youth Congress volunteers. Previously, the UN had promised to debate Tibetan autonomy in resolutions dated in: 1959, 1961 and 1965. United Nation's international jurists condemned China's human rights abuses in Tibet in those decisions. These six radical Tibetans were determined to remind the world of those promises, even if it meant acts of self-violence to create martyrs.

I stayed with the hunger strike for the final three weeks when New Delhi police ended the fast on the 50th day. China's Minister of Defense was scheduled to arrive in New Delhi and the Indian government did not want to offend the visitng official with an "in your face" issue as sensitive as Tibetans starving themselves to death for freedom. In an early morning surprise raid, the police destroyed the camp arresting the remaining protesters and force feeding them intravenously in a hospital.

During the police raid, Thupten Nogdup, a former-monk who helped take care of the six fasting Tibetans during the strike, made the ultimate sacrifice. Without telling anyoe, Nogdup hid a small container of kerosene near the outdoor toilets. As police arrested the final hunger striker, Nogdup retreated to his stash, poured the kerosene over his body and lit himself on fire.

He re-emerged into the middle of the camp as a human torch. An English woman was heard screaming, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" Nogdup was pulled to the ground and people begin beating the flames out with blankets, but it was too late. After lighting himself on fire, Nogdup paused to allow the flames to cover his entire body before revealing himself to police. He suffered burns over 90 percent of his body.

Nogdup apparently committed suicide because he did not want the sacrifice of the first six hunger strikers to be in vain. His act seemed to reflect a strong need in this community to produce a martyr from this specific protest. He was willing to become that martyr.

Nogdup was taken to the same hospital his comrades were, but he was not expected to live. He was wrapped in bandages and made as comfortable as possible. The next day, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to the hospital from Dharamsala to give Thupten Nogdup a final blessing. Nogdup died hours later.

Back to top

The Moment Not Captured

I have never suffered as much anguish and guilt over missing a picture as when Thupten Nogdup poured gasoline over himself and set himself on fire.

Nogdup was a quiet man. I hardly noticed him when I first arrived at the makeshift camp in New Delhi, where six Tibetans were fasting--"unto death," they said--in a desperate plea to the United Nations for a discussion of their people's fate.

He cared for the fasters, sprinkling water outside their tent to keep the dust down, helping them walk to the outdoor toilet, shampooing their hair in the morning at a common water pump. He told no one about his plan, or his stash of gasoline.

On the evening of April 27, the mood at the camp was tense. The night before, New Delhi police had abducted three of the hunger strikers, forcibly ending their fast by feeding them intravenously at a hospital. And no one could understand why they left the remaining three behind.

To protect them, a hundred supporters settled down to sleep in front of the tent's entrance. A Belgian photographer, a video documentary crew and I decided to wait for the raid we felt sure would come in the night.

At 2 a.m., the Belgian left. At 3 a.m., the documentary crew left. I nodded off several times but was awakened by passing cars and stray noises. A uniformed Delhi policeman carrying a walkie-talkie walked by several times.

At 5 a.m., the sun rose, and the sleeping camp began to wake. It appeared the hunger strikers were safe for another day. I headed back to my hotel.

Apparently the media savvy New Delhi police had been waiting for that moment. Minutes after I reached my room, I received a frantic call from Hansa Natola, an Italian volunteer at the camp. She shouted into a cell-phone, "Come quick, it was a mess!"

I grabbed my cameras and ran.

At the camp, I saw about 200 police officers with guns and sticks, many in full riot gear. One restrained me, groping for my camera and shouting , "No pictures!" Inside the hunger strikers' compound, everything was in disarray.

Women sat in groups, weeping, and a framed picture of Mahatma Gandhi lay broken on the ground, Somebody asked if I had gotten pictures of the fire. "What fire?" I asked.

A man had set himself on fire and been rushed to the hospital.

I felt numb, and profoundly ashamed. I had taken up this cause, come to help raise awareness, and even paid for the trip out of my own pocket. Yet I had missed the most dramatic event in the 49-day-hunger strike. Forget journalism's lust for prizes and prize winners; I wanted the world to see--really see--Thupten Nogdup's sacrifice.

Like the Saigon monk whose self-immolation was seared into our consciousness to help end the Vietnam War, Nogdup's martyrdom deserved the world's attention.

It will be a long time before I can forgive myself for not being the witness he needed.

Instead, I saw a two-second amateur video on Indian television: a running human being covered from head to toe in flames. I saw the grief on the faces of those who knew him, grief not only for the man but for the whole people in exile.

A newcomer to Tibetan culture, I have never encountered a more pious and gentle people, whose basic philosophy is that all sentient beings have a right to live and pursue happiness.

Before I left for India, my friend Chris Brewer, who video-taped a May 1996 Ganden monastery uprising in Tibet and managed to get the footage out, told me mysterious things happen when you move toward Tibet and its karmic world. I would get the pictures I was meant to get, she said.

If she's right, I can't interpret the meaning of what happened, of why I did not show the world Nogdup's sacrifice. Right now, all I can do is show you the picture in words to make up for what I missed with my camera.

I am sorry, Thupten Nogdup.

Back to top