Bear Witness
from a tourist, traveling and teaching in China and Tibet - May 2001
I witnessed something extraordinary on Sunday, May 27, in the
town of Shigatse. What follows is my best recollection of what I saw.
Our tour group was leaving the Tashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse at
about 11:45 AM, China time. We were stopped at an intersection to let a
police motorcade go by, presumably one run by operation Strike Hard, the
Chinese crime sweep campaign.
The motorcade was led by three police cars with sirens, followed by
five Army trucks. In the first four trucks were handcuffed prisoners,
usually five per truck, one facing forward and two facing outward from each
side. They were surrounded by Red Army soldiers. In the last truck were
soldiers with automatic-style weapons held outward. Several more police cars followed the motorcade. Clearly, the prisoners were about to executed, and were being paraded before the public before the soldiers in the last truck put
bullets into the back of their heads.
This tactic is nothing new: the Chinese have done this is previous
Strike Hard campaigns. What disturbed me the most was who was going to be executed.
Of the 10 or so faces I could see, all looked like ethnic Tibetans: two were women, including one who could easily be 70, and most disturbingly, two schoolchildren in their school uniforms. They were no older than 16 and could have been as young as 12.
Seeing school children being led away to be executed begs an explanation.
Who wouldn't be deeply moved by this? What could they have done that necessitated such harsh punishment?
Given China's record in handling political dissenters, especially Tibetans in previous Strike Hard operations, it's easy to leap to conclusions. However, I was just a bystander, and I have no knowledge of what crimes they were accused of committing. All I can do is bear witness to what I saw, and I hope that what I saw pressures the Chinese government to defend
their seemingly barbaric actions.
Respectfully,
Mike Melnyk
[email protected]