Escaped Tibetan rioter tells of Chinese repression

DHARAMSHALA, India (AFP) — Before fleeing across a mountainous border, Kusang Sonam says he hid for 12 days from Chinese forces searching for Tibetans who rioted against Beijing's rule in the Himalayan region.

"I knew I would be dead if they had caught me," the 38-year-old clothes trader and father-of-one told AFP in his first media interview at a refugee centre in India.

Kusang Sonam

Sonam said after four days of protests in Lhasa, knife-wielding Chinese troops attacked Tibetan demonstrators on March 14, sparking retaliation and then a massive manhunt for protesters in the capital of the autonomous region.

"We were protesting to mark the 49th anniversary (of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule) when the troops attacked us with long knives," he said.

"We threw stones and the soldiers retreated and then returned with guns and soon there was smoke, rattle of gunfire and terrible shrieks," said Sonam, who is from the restive Dartsedo district in Karze prefecture.

He said he saw several Tibetans die from gunshot and knife wounds.

"The troops just hurled them like carcasses into police vans and drove off," said Sonam, who escaped to Nepal on March 26.

Nepal is a major transit point for those fleeing Tibet. Under a "gentleman's agreement" with the government, a UN-funded reception centre in Kathmandu issues Tibetan refugees with identity papers, and sends most of them on to Dharamshala in India, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

The exiled government says 203 Tibetans were killed and 1,000 injured in the Chinese crackdown. Beijing says Tibetan "rioters" and "insurgents" killed 21 people.

"It was our duty as Tibetans to protest the occupation of our land by China but they (troops) used excessive force," said Sonam in a rare first-hand account.

Sonam is one of the few to have recently made it out of Tibet. The father of a young girl reached Dharamshala from Nepal on April 30 -- only the fourth Tibetan to escape the region since the outbreak of the violence.

In April, a teenage girl and two younger boys reached Dharamshala. They have been shifted to a safe house to prevent their identities becoming public.

Their parents are still listed as missing in Tibet, said refugee centre director Dorjee, who uses one name.

Sonam already yearns to return to his family -- daughter, wife, brother and father -- but that is now impossible.

"I cannot go back as I have received a message from my wife, the police were still out looking for me and have confiscated all my belongings," said the refugee, clad in borrowed clothes.

The Dalai Lama is pressing world leaders to urge China to ease the crackdown on Tibet and his envoys held talks with officials in China this month, but Beijing blames the rioting on the India-based Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader.

The refugee centre's Dorjee said stricter border patrols and draconian measures by the Chinese authorities had made it nigh impossible for Tibetans to escape today.

"Earlier, we used to receive around 3,000 refugees every year from Tibet but since March 14 -- see our dormitories are absolutely empty except for Sonam," he said.

"These Chinese (authorities) have prepared family cards and hold daily roll-calls and if one member of a family is missing then the rest has just had it," he said.

Dorjee would reveal nothing further, fearing for the safety of relatives of the escapees. "Can't tell everything... Can we?" Dorjee said.