SOCHUM

Topic A: Solution for the religious and ethnical bases of terrorism

Topic B: Violation of Rights of ethnical minorities in failed states
Country: Colombia

Terrorism in Colombia

Colombia has had an intern conflict for over the past 50 years. It started because of two political parties,
liberal and conservative. After “El Bogotazo” (the death of Jorge eliecer Gaitan, Liberal) the period of
Violence lasted until the late 50s. Las FARC was on the beginning a auto defense group of liberal country
people that were displace from the period of Violence that later transformed into communists. Its first
leaders were Manuel Marulanda Velez and Jacobo Arenas after the group dissolved, and made a new one
called Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia in 1966 which was considered the biggest group of
terrorist at the time. This Group was also encouraged from liberal conflicts in Latino America because of the
Cold War. Later on other groups catch on like ELN, EPL, M-19, ect.. The violence in Colombia “ is different
from other civil wars in the world that doesn’t has ethnical, religious or economical causes”. Three
elements are the causes of the conflict: Violence from power and politics, lack of property of land, lack of
guarantees for the plurality and politics. The government has tried treaties with Las Farc to make peace
since 1984 until this year.

Rights of ethnical minorities in failed states

Failed states can no longer perform basic functions such as education, security, or governance, usually due
to fractious violence or extreme poverty. Within this power vacuum, people fall victim to competing
factions and crime, and sometimes the United Nations or neighboring states intervene to prevent a
humanitarian disaster. However, states fail not only because of internal factors. Foreign governments can
also knowingly destabilize a state by fueling ethnic warfare or supporting rebel forces, causing it to
collapse.

Historical Security Council

Topic A: CHINESE TAKEOVER OF TIBET

ChineseTrucks under Potala PalaceOn October 7, 1950, some 40,000 battled-hardened Chinese P.L.A.
troops crossed the upper Yangzte River into eastern Tibet. A poorly-armed force of 4,000 Tibetans was
quickly overrun. A Tibetan who recalled hearing about the advance on the radio, later told the Independent,
"The announcement was not a complete shock: we had heard reports that the poor people of China had
risen up in revolution, and all the rumors that these Communists would come to Tibet. But still there was
panic."
Tibet may have been poor and isolated when the People's Liberation Army began its invasion in 1950, but it
was also a land whose people considered themselves essentially independent.At the time Communist
forces marched into Tibet, the former empire was ill- prepared to defend itself. It had a poorly trained army,
no paved roads, and no more than a few speakers of any Western language. Had the country modernized
earlier instead of shunning reforms, the Dalai Lama later wrote, "I am quite certain that Tibet's situation
today would be very different." [Source: Evan Osnos, The New Yorker]
As the P.L.A, advanced on the eastern Tibetan town of Chamdo. Buddhist monks prayed hard but there
efforts didn't help. The Chinese easily took Chamdo and captured more than half of Tibet's 10,000-man
army. In response to crisis, the Tibetan government enthroned the 15-year-old, 14th Dalai Lama. There was
jubilation and dancing in streets but all this, and appeals by the United Nations, had little effect on the
Chinese advance.

Tibet in 1938 before

the Chinese took it overChinese forces, carrying portraits of Mao Zedong, peacefully entered Lhasa in 1950
to "liberate" the city. Chinese call the event the “peaceful liberation." Beijing enacted the 17-point
Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet with a forged seal of the Dalai Lama in March,
1951. In this document Beijing vowed not to change the Tibetan social system and promised.a Hong Kong-
like two-system structure, self government and freedom of religion but provided no mechanisms for
guaranteeing the agreement's terms. Later, Beijing reneged on most of the promises it made.
In 1951, when Gen. Zhang Jinwu was sent to Lhasa as the first representative of Communist China in Tibet,
he reportedly asked Mao Zedong if he should kotow to the Dalai Lama as representatives of the Chinese
Emperor had done in the past. Mao is said to have replied: “For the sake of the whole Tibetan people, why
not?”
Tibet Before the Chinese Arrival in 1950

Tibet in 1938 before

the Chinese took it overIndependent Tibet was no Shangri-La. It very isolated and poor. Before the Chinese
arrived, life expectancy was 36 years, the literacy rate was five percent and 95 percent of the population
were hereditary serfs and slaves. Corruption and crime were endemic. Bandits roamed the countryside;
lamas and noblemen enriched themselves on the backs of poor peasants. Potala palace was described as "a
real robbery shop...an eggshell intact on the outside but rotten within."
There were no motored vehicles, no schools (although monasteries provided a form a schooling), no banks
and no money in Tibet. Barley, salt, tea, furs, cloth and yak butter were used as a means of exchange. Up
until the 1960s most Tibetans did not have matches, gunpowder or wheels (other than those used for
praying). Fires were lit with a flint and tinder.
The monastic elite lived off the labor and taxes of peasants. Aristocrats in silk robes, jewelry and brocade
lived next to serfs in rags. The ruling class was not afraid to use violence to hold back reforms and maintain
the status quo. Criminals had their hands and arms lopped off and were blinded as punishments. Some had
their eyes gouged out while a bread-size stone was placed on their head. Others had yak knucklebones
pressed on both temples until their eyeballs popped out. Such punishments were outlawed by the
predecessor the current Dalai Lama in 1913.
One old Tibetan man told the Times of London, “I remember my father and mother never had enough to
eat; they never had enough warm clothes. By day they were humans, by night they were like dogs...no
proper home, food of clothes."
Some argue the system was not as harsh as the Chinese have made it out to be. Robert Barnett, director of
modern Tibetan studies at Columbia University told the Times of London, “The Chinese trick is to say the
words “serf”and “feudal”and make us think brutal."
In the 1930s a feud broke out between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. In 1933, the 13th Dalai Lama
died and the country fell under the leadership of the regent of Reting. In 1947, an attempted coup, known
as the Reting Conspiracy, shook Lhasa. In 1949, the Communists took over China. Many Chinese felt that
had a moral obligation to liberate Tibetans from a bad system and help Tibet modernize.
Many Tibetans, especially educated ones in the larger towns, welcomed the Chinese and were eager to
modernize Tibet. They embraced the Communists as means of advancing a feudal society ruled by elite
monks and landlords.
Chinese Take on Tibetan History

Evan Osnos wrote in The New Yorker: “Both sides agreed that China's Mongol rulers had amassed great
authority in Tibet by the thirteenth century. But Tibetans say the bond was based principally on a shared
religion, and they argue that the Mongols did not represent the Chinese. Historians in China consider the
Mongol era the beginning of seven hundred years of political sovereignty over Tibet." [Source: Evan Osnos,
The New Yorker, October 4, 2010]
Historically, Osnos wrote “the vast majority of Han are proud of their role in Tibet, which they see as a long,
costly process of extending civilization to a backward region. The Han in the lowlands had little in common
with the pastoral people in the mountains---no shared language or diet---and Chinese historians explained
that a Tang-dynasty princess taught Tibetans about agriculture, silk, paper, modern medicine, and industry,
and stopped them from painting their faces red." [Ibid]
 “In the twentieth century, when China secured Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang within its borders, the
move was hailed by the Chinese people as the end of a century of foreign invasion and humiliation. The
Dalai Lama, from that perspective, stood in the path of history, and when he went into exile Chinese
newsreels recorded images of farmers denouncing their former landlords and destroying records of
hereditary debts." [Ibid]
“Anyone over fifty years old in China today has grown up with those scenes dramatized in influential films
like ‘serf," a 1963 drama about a freed Tibetan servant and his grateful encounter with the People's
Liberation Army. Han Chinese who are only a generation or two removed from poverty are inclined to view
China's investment as a sacrifice." A Chinese graduate student at Yale told the The New Yorker, “My father
is an educated man. He has worked all over Tibet for years and, to this day, he can't really respect Tibetans.
He doesn't see any intellectual output from them."
Events Leading Up to the Chinese Occupation of Tibet
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". [Source: Tibet Oline tibet.org*~*]
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. *~*
In 1950, 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. China
claims it "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1950, saying it ended serfdom and brought development to a
backward, poverty-stricken region. China's leadership claimed it had to come to “liberate” Tibet from
“Imperialism” even there was no Americans and only about a handful of Britains in Tibet at the time.
[Source: buddhism-controversy-blog.com, April 21, 2013]
Dalai Lama and the Invasion of Tibet

Tibet in 1938The Dalai Lama was 16 when the Chinese entered Lhasa in 1950. He responded to the crisis by
taking over his duties as the temporal leader of Tibet, two years before he was officially supposed to do so.
"I had to put my boyhood behind me," he said, "and immediately prepare myself to lead my country, as well
as I could, against the vast power of Communist China."
The Dalai Lama wrote in Time, "I was very young when I first heard the word communist...Some monks
who were helping me with my studies...had talked about the destruction that had taken place since the
Communists came to Mongolia. We did not known anything about Marxist ideology. But we all feared
destruction and thought of Communists with terror."
As a young man the Dalai Lama was deeply interested in Marxism. He was impressed by Chinese reforms
and wrote poems praising Mao Zedong. "It was only when I went to China in 1954-55 that I actually studied
Marxist ideology and learned about the Chinese Revolution. Once I understood Marxism, my attitude
changed completely. I was so attached to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist
party member."
"Tibet at that time was very, very backward," teh Dalai Lama said. "The ruling class did not seem to care,
and there was much inequality. Marxism talked about an equal and just distribution of wealth. I was very
much in favor of this." His view changed when “the Chinese Communists brought to Tibet a so-called
liberation." “Chinese Communists carried out aggression and suppression in Tibet. Whenever there was
opposition, it was simply crushed. They started destroying monasteries and killing and arresting lamas."
"In the beginning, I had hoped that we could find a peaceful solution. I even went to China to meet
Chairman Mao. We had several meetings in 1955...Until the summer of 1956, the Chinese had some level of
trust in me." That changed after the Dalai Lama made a visit to India with Beijing approval and visited
Tibetan freedom fighters there.
International Response to the Invasion of Tibet
At the time the Chinese entered Tibet, the attention of the world was focused on the Korean peninsula,
where the North Koreans had just invaded South Korea.
Tibet was perceived in the West as mythical kingdom like Shangri-la and little was known about it. Tibet
and its appeals to the U.N. for help after the invasion were largely ignored. Vetoes by the Soviet Union
blocked any United Nations intervention.
Not helping matters wee the facts that Tibet never joined the League of Nations or the United Nations. "It
never occurred to us that our independence...needed any legal proof to the outside world," the Dalai Lama
wrote in his autobiography.

PLA marching Lhasa

Events After the Chinese Occupation of Tibet in 1951

A 1951 treaty spelling out how power would be shared between Beijing and Lhasa swiftly unraveled amid
violations and recriminations. 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. [Source: Tibet Oline tibet.org *~*]
In April 1956, the Chinese inaugurated the Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet
(PCART) in Lhasa, headed by the Dalai Lama and ostensibly convened to modernize the country. In effect,
it was a rubber stamp committee set up to validate Chinese claims. *~*
In the later fifties, Lhasa became increasingly politicized and a non-violent resistance evolved, organized 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 guerilla 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 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. *~*
Tibet Under Liberal Chinese Rule in the 1950s
Throughout most of the 1950s, most Tibetans still had control over their own affairs and the Dalai Lama
continued to live in Lhasa. The Chinese presence was generally benign and positive. They built roads,
schools and hospitals and let the Tibetans practice their religion and customs.
Tibetans admired the Chinese for their honesty and efficiency but were taken aback by many Chinese
customs and habits. They were appalled by the way Chinese put worms on hooks and fished and used
"night soil" (human feces) as fertilizer for vegetables.
Recalling how life improved under the Communists, one old Tibetan man told the Times of London, he was
able to try rich yak butter tea for the first time. “It was not great, but it was better [than what he had
before]. We could eat rice and noodles and salty butter tea, which we did not have before."

Mao and the Dalai Lama in 1954

A new kind of feudal system was created, with taxes given to Chinese government instead of the lamas.
The Chinese presence caused food shortages and an increased cost of living. Demonstrations and
disturbances occurred from time to time. Reports of massacres and political indoctrination came out of
Kham.
 But some had predicted bad things were ging to happen In 1932, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama wrote in his will
that Tibet as Tibetans had known it was about to be destroyed by “barbaric red Communists." “Our spiritual
and cultural traditions will be completely eradicated. Even the names of the Dalai and Panchen Lamas will
be erased...The monasteries will be looted and destroyed, and the monks and nuns will be killed or chased
away...We will become like slaves to our conquerors...and the days and nights will pass slowly with great
suffering and terror."
Chinese Take Over Tibet
The Chinese slowly undermined Tibetan authority. The Tibetan areas of Kham and Amdo were annexed
and added to the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai. Monasteries were looted and land was
confiscated from the Tibetan aristocracy.
Many educated Tibetans actually welcomed the Chinese communists in 1950. The Buddhist clergy was
seen, not without reason, as hidebound and oppressive. Chinese communism promised modernization.
A propaganda campaign was launched. One Tibetan told the Independent, "A loudspeaker was set up in
the heart of Lhasa, broadcasting propaganda in Tibetan. I kept asking myself what all these new ideas were,
these -isms; socialism, communism, capitalism and imperialism. We had never heard of them before."

Deng Xiaoping and the Dalai Lama in 1954

Things began deteriorate after Mao remarked during a 1954 meeting with the Dalai Lama that "religion is
poison" and Beijing voiced its determination in freeing Tibetan serfs by breaking the lock on power by the
Tibetan monasteries and aristocracy.
After that the pace of monastery destruction increased, hundreds of thousands of monks and nuns were
driven from the monasteries. The Communists deliberately killed many senior monks regarded as the most
powerful people in Tibet. The process continued through the Cultural Revolution.
In the years following 1950, when the Chinese asserted sovereignty over Tibet but accorded it a certain
amount of autonomy, Tibetans found the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army to be polite and friendly.
Gonchoe, a 74-year-old veteran of the Tibetan resistance movement told Belgian author Birgit van de
Wijer: "The first time the Chinese people came into my country, they were helping people and brought
whatever we needed." [Source: Dinah Gardner, South China Morning Post, January 30 2011]
In exile, the Dalai Lama looked for allies, but no nations recognized Tibet's claim to independence. Some of
the Dalai Lama's brothers pursued another strategy: the C.I.A. was eager to cause problems for the new
Chinese government,
However, by the mid-50s, China had begun to force its agrarian reforms onto people in the east of the
country. "They killed high lamas and were against religion, and they caught people who didn't want to be
communists," Gonchoe says.
Many Tibetans, possibly more than a million, starved to death during Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward
campaign.
Chinese View of the Chinese Occupation of the 1950s
According to to Chinese government: “With the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1,
1949, the Tibetan areas in the western part of the country was liberated one after another and the Tibetans
there entered a new period of historical development. In 1951, representatives of the Central People's
Government and the Tibet local government held negotiations in Beijing and signed on May 23 a 17-article
agreement on the peaceful liberation of Tibet. Soon afterwards, the central government representative
Zhang Jingwu arrived in Lhasa and Chinese People's Liberation Army units marched into Tibet from
Xinjiang, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan in accordance with the agreement."Source: China.org china.org *|*]
“China's First National People's Congress was held in Beijing in 1954. The Dalai Lama, Bainqen Erdini and
representatives of the Tibetan people attended the congress and later visited various places in the country.
The State Council then called a meeting at which representatives of the Tibet local government, the
Bainqen Kampo Lija and the Qamdo People's Liberation Committee formed a preparatory group for the
establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region after repeated consultations and discussions. In April 1956,
a preparatory committee for the purpose was officially set up. *|*

Mao in Ramoche Monestary“Regional autonomy and social reforms were introduced cautiously and
steadily in one Tibetan area after another according to their specific circumstances arising from the
lopsided development in these areas due to historical reasons. A number of autonomous administrations
have been established in Tibetan areas since the 1950s. They include the Tibet Autonomous Region, the
Yushu, Hainan, Huangnan, Haibei and Golog Tibetan autonomous prefectures and the Haixi Mongolian,
Tibetan and Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province; the Gannan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture
and the Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County in Gansu Province; the Garze and Aba Tibetan autonomous
prefectures and the Muli Tibetan Autonomous County in Sichuan Province; and the Diqing Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. *|*
“In light of the historical and social development of the Tibetan people, the central government introduced
democratic reforms in various places according to local conditions and through patient explanation and
persuasion. Experiments were first carried out to gain experience. A campaign against local despots and for
the reduction of rent and interest was unfolded in the Tibetan areas of Northwest China in 1951 and 1952. In
farming areas, people were mobilized to abolish rent in labor service and extra-economic coercion in the
struggle to eliminate bandits and enemy agents. Sublet of land was banned. But rent for land owned by the
monasteries was either intact or reduced or remitted after consultation. In pastoral areas, aid was given to
herdsmen to develop production and experience was accumulated for democratic reforms and socialist
transformation there. *|*
“In the Tibetan areas of Southwest China, peaceful reforms were introduced between 1955 and 1957 in the
farming areas. Feudal land ownership and all feudal privileges were abolished after consultation between
the laboring people and members of the upper strata. Usury was also abolished and slaves were freed and
given jobs. The arms and weapons of manorial lords were confiscated. The government bought out the
surplus houses, farm implements, livestock and grain of the landlords and serf owners. *|*
“It was clearly laid down in the agreement on the peaceful liberation of Tibet that democratic reforms
would be carried out to satisfy the common desire of the peasants, herdsmen and slaves. But, in light of the
special circumstances in Tibet, the central government declared that democratic reforms would not be
introduced before 1962. However, the reactionary manorial lords, including monks and aristocrats, tried in
every way to oppose the reforms." *|*
Events Leading up to March 10, 1959 Tibetan Revolt
In 1956, an uprising broke out in the Kham region of eastern Tibet. In March 1957, the Dalai Lama returned
to Lhasa from India. In 1957 and 1958, armed rebellion spread to central Tibet and major protests were held
in Lhasa.
On March 1, 1959, while 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. The Dalai Lama 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 the Dalai Lama had
been asked to attend alone. [Source: Tibet Oline tibet.org*~*]
On 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 the Dalai Lama would attend their army camp. March 10 was
confirmed. On March 8, 1959— Women's Day in China— 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. Rinchen Dolma (Mary) Taring wrote in her autobiography,
Daughter of Tibet”: “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." *~*
At 8:00am on March 9, 1959, two Chinese officers visited the commander of 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 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 the Dalai Lama and the entire city of Lhasa would line up whenever he went. Brigadier
Fu told the commander of 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 the Dalai Lama was now to visit it would surely
create greater anxiety amongst the Tibetans. *~*
Tibetan Revolt in 1959

Dalai Lama greets protestorsOn Tibetan New Year in 1959 a major revolt occurred. To this day no one is
sure how or why it began and how widespread it was. By most accounts, it started after the Dalai Lama was
forced by the Chinese government to attend a performance of a Chinese folk dance troupe during the
holiday festivities. Rumors began spreading that the Tibetan leader was going to attend without his usual
phalanx of 25 bodyguards and that the Chinese planned to kidnap him. Large crowds that had assembled
anyway for the holidays gathered around Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama's summer palace, and vowed to
protect the Tibetan leader with their lives. The Dalai Lama had no choice but to cancel his appearance. The
Chinese responded by declaring the 17-point agreement invalid. In an effort to head off violence, the Dalai
Lama offered to turn himself over to the Chinese. The Chinese responded by firing two mortar shells into
Norbulingka,"
March 10, 1959, the invitation for the Dalai Lama to visit the Chinese military camp provoked 30,000 loyal
Tibetans to surround the Norbulinka palace, forming an human sea of protection for their Yeshe Norbu
(nickname for the Dalai Lama, meaning "Precious Jewel"). They feared he would be abducted to Beijing to
attend the upcoming Chinese National Assembly. This mobilization forced the Dalai Lama to turn down the
army leader's invitation. Instead he was held a prisoner of devotion. [Source: Tibet Oline tibet.org *~*]
On March 12, about 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, around 3000 of 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 swiveling howitzers, the Tibetans were
wielding cannons into position with mules. On March 16, 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 the Dalai Lama's palace was about to be shelled. *~*
At 4:00pm on March 17, 1959, the Chinese fired two mortar shells at the Norbulinka. They landed short of
the palace walls in a marsh. This event triggered the Dalai Lama to finally decide to leave his homeland.
On March 19, 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 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.
On March 28, 1959, the Chinese Communist Party announced the creation of the Tibet Autonomous
Region and dissolved the old Tibetan government.The unsuccessful uprising lead to a severe crackdown by
the Chinese. China abolished the autonomous Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama and and tens of
thousands of his followers were chased into exile.
Dalai Lama's Escape from Lhasa
In March 1959, 30,000 Tibetans surrounded Summer Palace of Norbulingka, where the Dalai Lama was
staying, as 30,000 Chinese soldiers were preparing to move on the palace. Followers of the Dalai Lama were
worried he might be kidnaped, imprisoned or even killed. One pro-Beijing lama was stoned to death. The
Dalai Lama later wrote he felt like he was between "two volcanoes, each likely to erupt an any moment."
The Dalai Lama decided it was time go. On the night of March 17, after mortar shells had exploded in the
palace ground, the Dalai Lama disguised himself as a soldier, and flung a gun over his shoulder and fled
Lhasa with 52 monks in similar disguises. His golden robe was left on a couch at Potala Palace awaiting his
return.
At 4:00pm on March 17, 1959, the two mortar shells landed short of Norbulinka palace walls in a marsh. At
10 pm. on the same day, wearing a soldier's uniform with a gun slung over his shoulder, the Dalai Lama
marched out of the Norbulinka and onto the danger-filled road to India. His mother and elder sister had
preceded him. [Source: Tibet Oline tibet.org
In his autobiography, “My Land and My People", the Dalai Lama wrote: “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", "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". *~*
Dalai Lama's Escape from Tibet
The Dalai Lama was 24 when he left Lhasa. He traveled with 37 people, including his chamberlain, an abbot
and three bodyguards. His family, monks, cabinet ministers and other bodyguards were in other small
groups. Many senior monks also left.
The Dalai Lama traveled most of the distance on a brown horse with richly embroidered saddlebags. After
crossing the Kyichi River in skin coracles, the Dalai Lama and his group traveled down the Tsangpo River
(Brahmaputra) as far as it would take them and then traveled by horseback and on foot on trails through
the Himalayas. The journey from Tibet to India almost killed the Dalai Lama. He endured thunderstorms,
long stretches without water and a dangerous blizzard at Lagoe Pass. "We had to cross high passes," the
Dalai Lama wrote. "By the time we reached the border, we were exhausted and sick with fever and
dysentery."
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 the Dalai Lama. The party took a couple of days to reach Tawang the headquaters of the West
Kameng Frontier Division of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), now known as the Tawang District of
Arunachal Pradesh. *~*
The Dalai Lama stayed four days in Tawang where he had the opportunity to visit the beautiful monastery
Tawang Gompa and Urgyeling, the place where the 6th Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyaltso spent his first
years. The Dalai Lama later proceeded to Bomdila where he was officially received by an envoy of the
Indian Government a welcome message from Nehru. After a few days of rest, the party left for the plains of
India. On April 18, 1959, the Dalai Lama, his mother, sister, brother, three ministers and around 80 other
Tibetans crossed safely into India at Tezpur, Assam, to be greeted by Indian officials and a Press corps of
nearly 200 correspondents. *~*
Altogether around 100,000 Tibetan fled from Tibet around the time the Dalai Lama left. Most settled in
India, primarily around Dharamsala and Darjeeling. A large refugee camp was established near Darjeling.
Some settled in Nepal, Europe and the United States.
Chinese Response to Tibetan Revolt in 1959

Tibet in 1958 after

the Chinese took it over
Two days after the Dalai Lama escaped from Lhasa, the Communists closed down the Tibetan
government, seized land and bombed Potala palace, Sera Monastery and the medical college of Changp Ri.
Chinese snipers picked off protestors, some with Molotov cocktails, in the streets. When more 10,000
protestor sought refuge in the Jokhang Temple, it too was bombed. By some estimated 10,000 to 15,000
Tibetans were killed in three days of violence.
 After the revolt, the Chinese closed the passes to travel in and out of Tibet, shut down all of Tibet's
monasteries, and threw thousands of people into prisons and labor camps. After the suppression campaign
began Mao said, "In three months these people will believe in communism."
Chinese View of the 1959 Tibetan Revolt and Afterwards
According to the Chinese government: “In March 1959, the former Tibetan local government and the
reactionary clique in the upper strata tore up the 17-article agreement under the pretext of "safeguarding
national interests" and "defending religion" and staged an armed rebellion in Lhasa. They instigated rebel
forces in different places to attack Communist Party and government offices and kill people, while
abducting the Dalai Lama and compelling people to flee the country. [Source: China.org china.org *|*]
“The State Council, acting upon the request of the Tibetan people and patriots in the upper strata,
disbanded the Tibet local government (Kasha) and empowered the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet
Autonomous Region to exercise the functions and powers of the local government. With the active support
of the Tibetan laboring people and patriots of all strata, the People's Liberation Army soon put down the
rebellion. *|*
“The Preparatory Committee began carrying out democratic reforms while fighting the rebels. In the
farming areas, a campaign was launched against rebellion, unpaid corvee service and slavery and for the
reduction of rent and interest. In the pastoral areas, a similar campaign against the three evils was coupled
with the implementation of the policy of mutual benefit to herdsmen and herd owners. All the means of
production belonging to those serf owners and their agents who participated in the rebellion were
confiscated, and the serfs who rented land from them were entitled to keep all their harvests for that
particular year. All the debts laboring people owed to them were abolished. The means of production
belonging to those serf owners and their agents who did not participate in the rebellion was not confiscated
but bought over by the state. Rent for their land was reduced and all old debts owed by serfs were
abolished. In the monasteries, the feudal system of exploitation and oppression was abolished and
democratic management was instituted." *|*
“Land and other means of production including animals, farm implements and houses confiscated or
bought by the state were redistributed fairly and reasonably among the poor serfs, serf owners and their
agents, with priority given to the first group. In livestock breeding areas, while the animals owned by
manorial lords and herd owners who participated in the rebellion were confiscated and distributed among
the herdsmen, no struggle was waged against those who did not participate, their stock was not
redistributed, and no class differentiation was made. Instead, the policy of mutual benefit to both herd
owners and herdsmen was implemented. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the million serfs
overthrew the cruel system of feudal serfdom and abolished the regulations and contracts that had
condemned them to exploitation and oppression for generations. They received land, domestic animals,
farm implements and houses and were emancipated politically. In September 1965, the Tibet Autonomous
Region was officially established. The Tibetans have since embarked on a road of socialist transformation,
cautiously but steadily." *|*
Separatists in Tibet

The Khams (Tibetans from the Kham province of Tibet) launched a separatist movement in the mid 1950s
after their homeland was annexed by the Chinese and added to Sichuan province and they we ordered to
turn in their guns.
Many Khams wore pictures of the Dalai Lama in amulets worn around their necks which they believed
would protect them from bullets. For the Khams the Buddhist love of all living things did not extend to the
Chinese. One guerilla in the film Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet said, “When we kill an animal, we say a
prayer, But when we killed Chinese, no prayer came to our lips."
Serious fighting began in January 1956. In one attack, Chinese warplanes bombed a monastery. Thousands
of Tibetan reportedly were killed. One fighter told Newsweek, "We didn't know the world. All we did know
was that Chinese were killing our people, torturing the monks and destroying our temples. We thought if
we are going to die anyway, we might as well die fighting rather than have our throats cut like sheep."
Lacking money and poorly armed and supplied, the Khams approached India and Taiwan for help. New
Delhi ignored them and Taipei gave them some weapons. They also met with the Gyalo Thindup, the Dalai
Lama's older brother, who put the them in contact with the C.I.A.
C.I.A. in Tibet

Camp Hale trainingThe C.I.A. agreed to help the Khams by training them in guerilla warfare and helping
them run operations in Tibet against the Chinese. The lord chamberlain for the Dalai Lama and other high
official were very enthusiastic about the operation. The Dalai Lama himself was skeptical about its aims and
its chances of success. The operation, codenamed ST CIRCUS, was by all accounts a disaster. [Source:
Melinda Lu, Newsweek, April 19, 1999]
The C.I.A. was taken by the "can-do" spirit and exoticness of the Khams. Their effort began with the
training if six Tibetans in Saipan and Okinawa in the 1950s and parachuting them into Tibet to gather
intelligence.
After the fighting in Tibet intensified, many Tibetans fled to a refugee camp near Darjeling, India, where
the C.I.A., recruited fighters. The first of these recruits were trained by the C.I.A. and parachuted into Tibet
from B-17s that took off from an airstrip near Dhaka in present-day Bangladesh. Outfit with communication
equipment, they met up with resistance fighters near Lhasa and helped them coordinate their operations.
About 300 Kham recruits were flown to the United States, where they were trained in a camp near
Leadville Colorado on how to use automatic weapons and espionage equipment. The Dalai Lama was once
introduced to two of the C.I.A."trained guerrillas. He asked them to demonstrate their skills. The warriors
pulled out bazookas, fired them and spent 15 minutes reloading them. The Dalai Lama said, "Will you shoot
once and then ask the enemy to wait 15 minutes?"
These Tibetan separatists were then infiltrated back into Tibet to fight against the Chinese. Some entered
through the Mustang region in Nepal. Others were parachuted out the back of silver C-130s known to the
guerrillas as "sky ships."
See Separate Article on the CIA war in Tibet
Film: Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet
Later C.I.A. Operation in Tibet

Camp Hale trainingBetween 1957 and 1960, 400 tons of weapons and supplies were dropped from cargo
planes to resistance fighters in an operation that cost Washington about $1.7 million a year. Most of the
missions were failures. Nine of ten of the guerrillas dropped into Tibet by parachute were killed by the
Chinese or committed suicide to avoid capture.
In early 1958, the main Kham resistance group was surrounded by 1,000 artillery-equipped Chinese
soldiers. One fighter recalled, "All our leaders were wounded. We kept hoping the C.I.A. would drop us
some weapons, but they never came. I went 15 days without food— even shoe leather tasted delicious."
The fighters escaped by dispersing and trekking through some of the world's harshest wilderness.
After the U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, the United States halted missions
over Communist airspace. Guerrillas were then launched into Tibet from the Mustang.
In the mid 1960s, when the C.I.A.'s attention was directed towards Vietnam and Indochina, the Leadville
facility was showdown. After concluding that the guerrilla's achievements in Tibet were "minimal" and the
Tibetans "did not appear to be congenitally inclined towards conspiratorial proficiency" support for the
Tibetan guerrillas was reduced and cut off completely after Nixon visited China in 1971. In 1974, Beijing
pressured Nepal to shut down the Mustang camps.
In July 1974, a tape-recorded message by the Dalai Lama was delivered to the guerrillas, urging them to lay
down their weapons. They agreed. Some were so distraught they decided to commit suicide by drowning
themselves or slitting their throats. The last group of guerrillas made their last stand at 18,000-foot-high
Tinker Pass, with many dying in a hail of gunfire. Many felt the Tibetan guerrillas were encouraged and then
abandoned by the C.I.A. much as anti-Castro Cuban fighters were during the Bay of Pigs. In his
autobiography the Dalai Lama wrote the guerilla mission "caused almost more harm to the Tibetans than
the Chinese."

Topic B: Sandinistas Take Over

 The Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) is a Nicaraguan political party. It was formed to oppose
the Somoza family dynastic dictatorship, which ruled from 1936 to 1979. It is named after Augusto Cesar
Sandino (1893–1934), a Nicaraguan nationalist and anti-imperialist patriot who fought a seven-year war
from 1926 to 1933 against a U.S. occupation force. On February 21, 1934, after putting down his weapons,
Sandino was killed at the order of Anastacio Somoza Garcia, the head of the U.S.-formed Nicaraguan
National Guard. In 1936 Somoza Garcia consolidated his political power, overthrowing the civilian
government and staging a rigged election to install himself as president. He was inaugurated on January 1,
1937. From then until 1979 either he, one of his two sons (Luis and Anastacio Jr.), or—for brief periods—one
of their cronies ruled Nicaragua.

The FSLN was originally formed clandestinely in 1961. The organization’s founding members included
Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, and Tomas Borge. Particularly important to the organization’s formation
and early development, Fonseca is widely credited as the organization’s intellectual father. His
revolutionary ideology came to be known as Sandinismo —which combines elements of Marxist class
analysis and Sandino’s own nationalist and anti-imperialist ideology as applied to the Nicaraguan social,
political, and economic reality. This led the Sandinistas to organize for the military overthrow of the
Somozas because they were convinced that the Somozas were completely unresponsive to peaceful
demands for democratization and economic reform.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s the Sandinistas suffered serious setbacks, including the death in
combat of all of its original founders, except Borge. These losses led to a regrouping period in which they
sought to accumulate strength in secret while organizing politically. However, it also led to a split into
several competing Sandinista factions. The first, called the Prolonged Popular War (Spanish acronym GPP)
Tendency, advocated building grassroots peasant support in the countryside. In contrast, the Proletarian
Tendency grew out of the urban underground and advocated the organization of union workers into self-
defense units. The final faction, called the Terceristas (Third Way), favored a more pragmatic approach
combining different forms of struggle and advocated the creation of a broad alliance of all Nicaraguans
opposed to Somoza to generate a national insurrection.

THE REVOLUTION

By late 1978 the long awaited national insurrection began and many of Somoza’s supporters abandoned
him. To take advantage of this opportunity the Sandinistas reunited early in 1979 and created a single nine
member National Directorate with three representatives from each faction. The members were Daniel
Ortega, Humberto Ortega, and Víctor Tirado (Terceristas); Tomás Borge, Bayardo Arce, and Henry Ruiz
(GPP); and Jaime Wheelock, Luis Carrión, and Carlos Núñez (Proletarian faction). On July 19, 1979, the
Sandinista Revolution triumphed, ousting Anastacio Somoza Jr.’s regime in a mass popular insurrection.

Once in power the Sandinistas embarked upon ambitious political and economic programs designed to
democratize Nicaragua and lift the country out of under-development. Their political agenda called for
reforming the country’s institutions, including disbanding Somoza’s National Guard, and enfranchising the
country’s vast rural and urban poor through mass organizations affiliated with the FSLN. In 1984 they
carried out the first democratic national elections in the country’s history, which the Sandinistas won with
66 percent of the vote. Though derided by U.S. president Ronald Reagan’s administration as a “Soviet style
farce,” the elections were designed with the technical assistance of the Swedish Electoral Commission and
observed by credible international organizations and European governments. The newly elected
Constituent Assembly, with the help of open “town meetings” around the country, promulgated a new
constitution in 1987. Simultaneously, the Sandinistas launched aggressive economic reforms to combat the
twin evils that had historically plagued Nicaragua: poverty and inequality. To this end they implemented an
agrarian reform to distribute land confiscated from Somoza and his cronies (one-fifth of the country’s
arable land) to individual peasants, cooperatives, and collective farms. In the cities they passed popular
economic reforms, such as raising the minimum wage and introducing price controls and subsidies on basic
goods and services, and embarked on public works programs to increase employment. These coincided
with the Sandinistas’ desire to implement a mixed-economy in which private property, state property, and
cooperative property would co-exist. Sandinista social policy was equally ambitious, especially in the areas
of education, health care, and housing.

From 1979 until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, U.S.-Nicaraguan relations were cool but
nonconfrontational. However, shortly after entering office President Reagan signed a secret executive
authorization to begin trying to overthrow the Sandinista government, which the United States accused of
supporting the guerrillas in El Salvador, being too closely allied to Cuba, and being Communists. U.S.
coercion ranged from diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions to supporting the rebel force known as
the Contras and threatening direct U.S. military action. These policies put a huge economic strain on the
Nicaraguan economy, and the Sandinistas were forced to respond by shifting much of their trade
to Europe and the Soviet Union. Similarly since the early 1980s, sales of weapons from Western countries
were also embargoed pushing the Nicaraguans to import most of their weapons from the Socialist Bloc.
While the Sandinistas claimed that these weapons were for defensive purposes to fight the U.S.-supported
Contra rebels, the Reagan Administration pointed to them as proof that the FSLN were Communists and
presented an eminent threat to other countries in the region and ultimately the United States. However
U.S. public support for military intervention, whether indirectly by supporting the Contras or directly by
U.S. troops, was the most unpopular U.S. foreign military policy of the 1980s. Indeed widespread domestic
opposition led to strong public pressure on Congress to limit aid to the Contras. It also eventually led to the
outlawing of lethal aid for the Contras from 1984 to 1985.

In turn this led members of the Reagan Administration, notably Oliver North of the National Security
Council, to engage in the illegal and covert funding of the Contras by giving them money received from
selling arms to a hostile country, Iran, in exchange for the release of U.S. hostages held by Lebanese
Hezbollah. When this back-channel funding was uncovered it became known as the “Iran-Contra
scandal.” An independent counsel, Lawrence E. Walsh, was appointed to investigate the affair. Eventually
several members of the Reagan Administration were prosecuted and convicted. However, these
convictions were later overturned on appeal or through presidential pardons.

From 1984 through early 2007 the electoral system that the Sandinistas put in place peacefully transferred
power four times. The first was in 1990 when the Sandinistas were voted out of office. For the next sixteen
years, three conservative administrations held power. However, on November 5, 2006, Sandinista
candidate Daniel Ortega was reelected president of Nicaragua on a social democratic platform. The 2006
elections were widely scrutinized by international observers including delegations from Europe, the
Organization of American States, and the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. By all accounts they were, with
the exception of a few minor irregularities, fair and transparent. In January 2007 Ortega began his new term
in office.