Fighting in the Dark

To General Chang Kuo-hua, the Red Chinese commander in Tibet, the coming of spring promised revenge for the indignities of winter. He was no longer tied down by the bitter weather and snow-clogged roads, forced to submit to the fierce hit-and-run raids of the rebellious Khamba tribesmen (TIME, March 16). Now he got word that 25,000 Khambas were concentrated only 40 miles north of the capital city of Lhasa. The tribesmen were supported by 8,000 Buddhist monks who, after the Reds looted their monasteries, traded prayer wheels for guns.

General Chang planned to score a political as well as military victory. In addition to Chinese troops, he intended to take the field with 14,000 Red-trained Tibetans. And io make further propaganda, he asked the Dalai Lama, the nation's religious leader, to demonstrate his solidarity by lending his 5,000-man bodyguard to the expedition. The 23-year-old Dalai Lama, though a virtual prisoner of the Reds, politely refused.

Last week the irritated Red commander sent another message to the Dalai Lama, peremptorily ordering him to report alone, even without his senior abbots, to Red headquarters in Lhasa. As word spread among the 55,000 inhabitants of the city, angry Tibetans thronged around the towering, 40-ft. Potala (Winter Palace), so that the Dalai Lama could not leave it, even if he wished to. When the Dalai Lama's mother heard the news, she burst into tears, and a crowd of weeping women surged around the Indian consulate general, begging help for the Dalai Lama. Some Lhasans broke into an armory, handed out guns and ammunition.

For India it was an embarrassing moment: the Indians hope to stay out of the trouble, and Prime Minister Nehru has repeatedly scoffed at exaggerated reports of Tibetan resistance. Last week the Indian consulate, lying between the Potala and Red headquarters, radioed New Delhi that there was "fighting in the immediate vicinity of the consulate. The situation is tense and rising." Then the radio fell silent. At Gyangtse, a large trading center 100 miles southwest of Lhasa, the citizens attacked the Red Chinese garrison. From Phongdo, the force of Khambas and fighting monks pushed toward the capital. At week's end the Communist-run Lhasa radio failed to come on the air with its noonday newscast; more significantly, the radio carrier wave, which indicates a station is operating, could not be detected by monitors. On the snowy roof of the world, in an eerie radio silence, Red Chinese and Tibetan patriots were locked in struggle.

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