Call to Freedom

Living on the roof of the world, in a craggy land where even the valleys are higher than most U.S. mountains, Tibetans have learned to be cautious and practical. They conserve their energy in the chilling blasts of winter, pace themselves carefully, try each foothold for safety before moving on to another. What cannot be avoided, they bear without complaint.

But last week Tibetans, hardy as any mountain people, forsook prudence and took the field in a seemingly hopeless, idealistic action that pitted an almost unarmed nation of a million people against the might and power of 650 million Red Chinese. Alone in the mountain-locked fastness of their native land, Tibetans--like the Hungarians before them in 1956--could expect to stir the sympathy of the free world, but they could hardly count on any real help from it. Red repression in Lhasa coulu be even more brutal than in Budapest--for who would know what had been done? The single radio signal that intermittently flashes out to New Delhi from the Indian consulate in Lhasa was very weak, and its report was cautious and correct.

Ambushes & Air Raids. Since 1956 there have been repeated clashes in Tibet between Chinese garrisons and the hard-riding Khamba tribesmen, who boast that they go nowhere without their rifles, which they frequently use on everyone from rich merchants to officials from Lhasa to Communist cadres. Twenty-three years ago, when straggling parts of Mao Tse-tung's Eighth Route Army crossed Khamba territory on the famed Long March to Yenan, Khamba raiders picked off Reds by the dozens. Reportedly, Mao has never forgotten what happened--or forgiven.

Early in 1956 marauding Khambas from towns bearing such names as Amdo, Goluk and Derge began ambushing isolated Chinese units. The Reds waited until several Khamba tribes gathered together for their summer encampment, then struck back with a savage air strafing and bombardment. The Khambas grimly surrounded a Chinese base at Kardezh in eastern Tibet, forced the Reds to supply it by airlift. Other Khambas cut roads, raided munitions depots, tied down troops. Chinese settlers brought in by the Communists wilted under the savage Tibetan climate, native hostility, armed attack. Tibetan Communists or loyal government workers proved difficult to recruit.

Six-Year Wait. By 1957, faced with such opposition, the Chinese Reds--in a rare admission of serious trouble--promised that the communization of Tibet would be delayed at least six years. Many Chinese Red civilians were sent home. But still the Khamba insurrection flourished. Encampments of the tribesmen began to dot the wide plain around Lhasa. They consolidated their hold on the barren, treeless region that runs along the borders of India, Bhutan and Sikkim. The nervous Chinese Reds countered by erecting watchtowers along the Lhasa road, sandbagged strategic positions around the city.

Red pressure was increased on the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet (see box). He agreed to send emissaries to the Khambas, blandly reported back that his delegates had been rebuffed. When urged to send his 5,000-man ceremonial bodyguard against the tribes, the Dalai Lama protested that his troops were not only ineffectual but might well defect. The final Chinese ultimatum seems to have demanded that the Dalai Lama use his temporal power to suppress the Khambas or else relinquish it to the Chinese Reds.

His rejection of this demand created a tension that electrified the 55,000 inhabitants of Lhasa and the hundreds of Buddhist monks gathered there to observe the Tibetan new year. Then came the blunt summons from the Red commander, ordering the Dalai Lama to appear, alone, at his headquarters (TIME, March 30). Thirty thousand Lhasans swarmed about the palace, begging the Dalai Lama not to go. Some 5,000 Tibetan women besought India's consul general to accompany their procession to Chinese headquarters to witness the presenting of a manifesto denouncing the 17-point Chinese-Tibetan Treaty of 1951 and demanding the withdrawal of the Red Chinese. The Indian consul embarrassedly refused.

First Battle. The manifesto rapidly took on the significance of a national declaration of independence. When finally handed to the Chinese, it was signed by representatives of the principal lamaseries, members of the National Assembly, and by every one of the Kashag, the Dalai Lama's Cabinet. At 1 a.m. on March 19, fighting broke out. For two days units of the tiny Tibetan army slugged toe to toe with the Chinese garrison, which poured in automatic and artillery fire from positions around Lhasa. Buddhist monks handed out stores of hidden arms to the people. Khamba guerrillas moved along the broad streets between Lhasa's towering, whitewashed houses. Armed monks defended the Norbulingka (summer palace) in Lhasa's walled Jewel Park, until they were shelled into submission.

Last week the first battle of the Tibetan revolution was over. The Chinese boasted that they had captured 4,000 rebels, seized quantities of small arms and ammunition as well as mortars, machine guns and mountain artillery. But the Dalai Lama and his entourage apparently got away safely. After days of embarrassed silence, Peking finally admitted that something was wrong in Tibet. Premier Chou En-lai announced that the Reds were putting Tibet under military occupation, and admitted that fighting was still going on. Because, said Chou, the escaped Dalai Lama was "being held in duress" by the Khamba rebels, the Chinese were putting on the throne their 21-year-old Communist puppet, the Panchen Lama. This was a classic maneuver. The title of Panchen was created by the fifth Dalai Lama several centuries ago in gratitude to his teacher, whom he declared to be an incarnation like himself. Ever since, intriguers, both Tibetan and Chinese, have used the Panchen Lama as a power rival. The present Panchen Lama is a peasant's son, like the Dalai Lama, and no kin.

The Red military, however, will really run the show, Premier Chou made clear. The revolt, complained Chou, had been started by a Tibetan army "clique," backed by "imperialists" raising such reactionary slogans as "Independence for Tibet." After their initial success at Lhasa, Red armies may find it harder to occupy the rugged countryside.

"Clash of Wills." Under Nehru's leadership, neighboring India has desperately tried to stay aloof from Tibet's agony. Nehru recently sought to expel a British missionary correspondent for passing on "bazaar rumors" of trouble; what is going on in Tibet, said Nehru, is "a clash of wills, not arms." But the fact of actual battle sent a shudder of passion through the subcontinent. Indian newspapers called for action, and the Indian Express asked angrily: "If New Delhi could rightly condemn the Anglo-French aggression on Egypt, thereby castigating a fellow member of the Commonwealth, what prevents it from raising its voice in protest at Peking's effort to dragoon Tibetans into submission?"

Toward week's end Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, new president of the ruling Congress Party, seemed to reverse her father's earlier decision to close India's borders against refugees. Paying tribute to the Dalai Lama (who has reportedly fled Lhasa) as a "man of vision and intelligence." Nehru's daughter promised that any Tibetans fleeing to India would be "granted asylum under international law."

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