Bhusang: Surviving War and Prison

In wake of the recent release of several Chinese dissidents from prison – artist Ai Weiwei, three of his associates, journalist Wen Tao, and activist Hu Jia – I thought I’d share a related story from one of the Tibetan veterans I interviewed, Bhusang. Imprisoned in Tibet from April 1961 to October 1978, Bhusang was a resistance fighter trained by the CIA at Camp Hale, Colorado and the only survivor of his team soon after they were dropped back into Tibet. For more background on him, see “Democracy for Breakfast: Ode to Bhusang” and "Battle for Lhasa".

The interview took place on the 8^th and 9^th of November, 2009, in his small room just below the Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India. Bhusang passed away only four months later, so we were lucky and privileged to be able to record some of his stories while we could. I’m not yet able to subtitle this interview on video as I’ve had limited funds to get exact translations for most of Bhusang, as well as other Tibetan-language interviews that count more than 40 hours at this point. I’m planning on getting on that this summer, and will soon be starting a kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds to go towards finishing translations, a little more production, and post-production. As I have more translations done, I can start working with them in the feature editing, as well as share more bits on this blog. Look for an updated fundraising video and trailer coming up soon.

The transcription below consists of the questions I asked the interview’s interpreter, Tenzin Norkyi, and her translation at the time – a rough summary of Bhusang’s replies.

Bhusang after the interview, Nov 9, 2009

HOW DID THE CHINESE CAPTURE HIM?

He was part of seven Tibetans trained in the US [Camp Hale, Colorado] that fought and were killed in Markham [Eastern Tibet]. The only thing the Chinese feared is the Americans, and because they had trained with the Americans, they are their double enemy. After fighting a long time in Markham, they were outnumbered and surrounded by around noon on April 15th, 1961.

They had parachuted close to Markham on March 15^th, 1961. First of all, they were dropped in the wrong place. From there, the problems started. One good thing is the team leader, Yeshi, was from the area. But the first people they met thought Yeshi was in India, and had no idea he was trained by the US so they didn’t believe him. The locals didn't trust that they weren't Chinese spies and wouldn't give them any food or sell anything to them. Soon, the Chinese heard about them.

Once the secret was out that they were there, after a few days they met the people they were looking for. They told them about how the Americans would supply weapons, money, and help them fight. They discussed plans for what to do.

Soon after, the Americans dropped weapons and supplies, so four of Bhusang’s team, plus six other teams, went to get them. By then the Chinese had already pressured the family they first met to give them all their details; that they trained with the US, and were there to fight. So the Chinese started coming to Markham.

When Bhusang and his team reached Markham, there were a lot of other groups there to fight the Chinese. They started fighting at 6am on April 15th and by the time they realized they needed to retreat, the Chinese had surrounded them; thousands and thousands, too many to count, herds like cattle. After most others were killed, he and three others were the only ones left of his team. They decided to each face north, south, east, west and keep shooting until they had no more bullets left, then take their suicide pills the Americans gave them in case of capture.

Two of the others took the cyanide pills. Bhusang put his in his mouth while the Chinese were shouting, “Surrender”. At the same time there were two girls crying a lot. They came to fight because their families had been killed and they had no one left. As the girls surrendered, Bhusang was knocked unconscious, hit on the head by a PLA soldier before he could bite down on the pill. Of his seven-man team, Bhusang was the only survivor.

He was kept in a Markham prison for a week after that. There was a big hall and you could see thousands and thousands other prisoners, many of which had been fighting that day. He was put into a black dark cell. He got better food than the rest; three times a day. The rest would get only a small amount of tsampa [Tibetan staple of roasted barley flour] in the morning and a little thukpa [noodle dish] in the evening. Other than that they had nothing else to eat and everyday were made to do hard labor building roads. After that he was transported to a prison in Chamdo. There was always a Chinese guard by his cell throughout the day and night. They beat him until he crumbled. Because of the medicine they gave him, he couldn't talk, and he was tortured often.  On May 18th, he was taken from Chamdo to Lhasa. When he was transported from one prison to another, there was one Chinese jeep ahead of them, one behind and four policemen with him. They were very suspicious; thinking the Americans would do something, try to rescue him, since he was trained in America. He was stripped of all American clothes he had. All the time his arms and legs were bounded together.

When they got to the army camp prison in Lhasa, the police took off his shackles and the new prison guards put their own chains on him, and took him inside. There he saw that all the prisoners were abbots and lamas, no lay people. Since he had previously been a doctor in Lhasa's Tibetan Army, he knew some people there – one was an uncle.

Most of the time he was kept in a small room where he was with another inmate, a Chinese Kuomintang [Nationalist Party] who was captured trying to escape to India. In every cell there were eight rules. (1) Whatever work you do, you have to get permission from the officials. (2) You cannot move, you have to stay sitting down, you cannot get up and look around. (3) You can never talk to anyone, except when a Chinese officer talks to you.  (4) You cannot give anything to others, and you cannot take anything from others. (5) You cannot draw or write anything on the wall, or even touch or make a scratch on the wall. (6) You cannot listen to anything happening around you. (7) You cannot look around when you are going out to work or whatever situation. (8) He can't remember.

There were 2 high lamas and a General, they were the only ones not made to work. All the other lamas had to work. Cleaning, or any sort of work. Guards would always be around watching them.

(more...)

Wei Jingsheng: Interview Excerpts

With all the news recently about Liu Xiaobo, an advocate for freedom in China which just won him the Nobel Peace Prize, and also condemned him to an 11-year sentence in Chinese prison last December, I put together some excerpts from an interview with another famous Chinese dissident: Wei Jingsheng. Arguably the most well known activist for Chinese Democracy outside of China, Wei was arrested in 1979 on charges of counterrevolution and spent 18 years in jail. Since his release in 1997 through a US-China exchange, he's lived in Washington DC and has continued to fight in exile for democracy, freedom and human rights in China, as well as throughout Asia. The author of "Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings" and numerous articles, Wei has won many awards for his activism, including seven nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

On August 7, 2008, I interviewed Wei Jingsheng outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC where he was part of a protest against the Olympics being held in Beijing. Attended predominantly by Tibetans, they were accompanied by Chinese, Taiwanese, Uyghur, Inner Mongolian, North Korean, and Vietnamese groups who support human rights and freedom in China.

(Note that this is a loose translation taken from the interview's interpreter Huang Ciping, Director of the Wei Jingsheng Foundation.)