by Yolanda O'Bannon with translation by Jigme

Before, I thought that the Chinese were so wonderful ... so nice ... then when I saw them actually beating people, killing my own people, I thought, they are so ruthless, so cruel in their hearts.
~Tashi, Tibetan refugee

This is the remarkable story, in his own words, of a 16-year-old Tibetan refugee, Tashi, who was a child observer of two of Lhasa's most intense independence demonstrations and who was incarcerated for attacking a Chinese man at the age of thirteen.  Tashi told his story in a series of interviews conducted between August and December 1995, in Dharamsala, Northern India.  In order to protect both Tashi and his family, who remain under Chinese rule in Tibet, his real name will not be used.  The same applies to the interviews' excellent translator, Jigme.

The 1987 Demonstrations:  Carrots and Innocent Questions

I think it was on the first of October in 1987, which was one of the first demonstrations in Lhasa since the Cultural Revolution.  I was about eight years old.  On that day, my mother sent me to the market to buy some carrots.  On the way to the market, I was just hanging around, and I saw people were gathering and people were shouting "Po rang zen sangmayin," which means "Complete Freedom for Tibet," and "Chinese out of Tibet."  At first, I saw all of these things, and I all could think about was that I wanted to get my carrots and go back home.

After that demonstration in 1987, all I saw and all I heard was that the participants had been mostly nuns and monks, who were very highly respected in Tibet.  Then I was very curious about why they were demonstrating, so I asked my parents why so many monks and nuns had been arrested and killed, and why all these horrible things had happened.  All my parents told me was that that had been a very good thing, but they never told me in detail.  They were very afraid that I would go to participate in another demonstration, or something like that.  Then, all the time, they just said, "Don't go, and don't join that,"  I think it was because they were very afraid, and out of their love and affection.  Also, I was very small.

Lhasa, March, 1989:  Blood in the Barkhor School Courtyard

In 1989, I was ten, and in school at the Barkhor Primary School.  I don't remember the exact date, but I think it was in March.  One morning, around mid-morning, we were in class, and we heard a riot going on, a lot of people shouting.  When the riot started, me and my classmates were very curious and wanted to see what was happening, so we ran to the windows.  We saw wounded nuns and monks, and lay people as well, being dragged into the school courtyard, through the school gates.  We couldn't see the courtyard itself from our second floor classroom, so I went downstairs to get a look at the injured people in the courtyard.

Of the people that I saw that were wounded, some were shot in the leg, some had been grazed by bullets on the stomach or leg.   Some cloths had been tied around people's legs, above the wounds, to stop the bleeding.  Some had been beaten on the head with electric prods and different kinds of sticks, and were bleeding everywhere.  Some people had been shot in the stomach, or something, and they were just bleeding everywhere, so I couldn't see exactly.

It was difficult to see the wounded people who'd been dragged into the school because the teachers were telling us to get back into the classroom.  Also, when I was downstairs, looking at all the people injured, crying, and shouting -- all these terrible things -- at some point, I just couldn't look anymore, feeling so scared and sad at the same time.  So I went back, around a corner, for a while, until I couldn't help myself and went again to look. 

Back in the classroom, through the window, we could see the Chinese military shooting tear gas into the crowd.  There were so many police and military.  A few of them had sticks and electric prods; most of them had machine guns.  They were wearing helmets and carrying shields.  They were shooting.  Of the people who were demonstrating, the people in front actually weren't getting wounded as much as the people in back.  I think maybe they were protected by protector deities or something. There was one Khampa man who got a tear gas pellet caught inside his chuba  [Tibetan cloak, tied at the waist], and he panicked, jumping and shouting that he was burning, that his eyes were burning.  Some people threw some water on him, but it didn't help.