Himalayan Hell

Despite Moscow's grim new repression in Eastern Europe, Communism's Asian face still wears the harsher visage. Distracted by the rush of events in the West, the world has all but forgotten the continuing torment of Tibet, which was first invaded in 1950 by the Communist Chinese army and again two years ago by screaming Red Guards. Those successive onslaughts have transformed the land of Shangri-la into a nightmarish Himalayan hell.

An estimated 300,000 of Tibet's 1,300,000 people have been exterminated, many by savage methods, since the first Peking general moved into Lhasa's Palace of the Gods. In a few cases, entire villages have been machine-gunned. So many still seek to escape the reign of terror by suicide that the Chinese have strung barbed-wire barricades along the banks of the Kyichu (River of Happiness) to keep people from throwing themselves in. At least 80,000 Tibetans, including the god-king Dalai Lama, have chosen exile. Another 200,000, including his deputy, the Panchen Lama, have been imprisoned or enslaved in forced-labor brigades.

Starvation and Sterilization. Most of Tibet's 3,000 monasteries have been destroyed or converted into barracks and their priceless art treasures carted off to China. Not long ago a rampaging band of Red Guards smashed the sacred 1,300-year-old Avalokiteshvara, the eleven-headed image of the Buddhist god of mercy. It was cast into the gutter behind Lhasa's ravaged Tsukla-khang (Central Temple) amid burning sutras and tantric scriptures. The last 400 of Tibet's former 150,000 monks and lamas, who were kept on as window dressing, have now been stripped of their russet robes. All forms of religious life have been harshly suppressed. Red Guards relentlessly destroy household altars. Their favorite punishment for Tibetans caught practicing religious rites is to lock them in a room, tell them that "your God will supply you food," and abandon them.

Even the Tibetans' racial identity is threatened with extinction. Many have been forcibly sterilized to cut the birth rate, and hundreds of Tibetan girls have been compelled to marry Chinese soldiers to further assimilation. Children are sent to distant schools. Visiting such youngsters is out of the question, since no Tibetan may travel more than two miles without a permit. Moreover, tens of thousands of Chinese have been imported to colonize the land, and some 16,000 Tibetan teen-agers have been deported to China for cultural and political brainwashing.

Hope in Chaos. The International Commission of Jurists has branded this systematic annihilation of Tibetan life as "genocide." Three times the United Nations has censured Peking for "violating fundamental human rights and freedom." The Dalai Lama told TIME Correspondent Dan Coggin, who journeyed to the god-king's exile in the Indian Himalayas at Dharmsala, that "Tibet still exists despite all the Chinese have done. But I don't know for how long. Another 20 years like this and there will be no Tibet."

The Tibetans have bravely tried to resist their destruction. Fierce mountain tribesmen staged bloody rebellions, and Tibetans forcibly recruited into the army have on occasion turned their weapons against the Chinese. Peking's puppet "Tibet Autonomous Region" collapsed because Tibetan "collaborators," including Mao's own Peking-groomed leader, the Panchen Lama, refused to cooperate with their Chinese overlords any longer. The Chinese had to establish a military dictatorship, and last fall Peking formally abandoned all pretense of Tibetan self-rule.

Tibet's slim hope for survival resides in the chaos that has overtaken Mao's Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards have split into rival factions and are warring among themselves and with the military, though last week Peking claimed that the Maoists were in full control of all China's provinces, including Tibet. Earlier, the longtime army commander in Tibet was replaced, and battles among the Chinese occupiers were reported to be raging sporadically in Lhasa. Essential services, including transportation, communications and food shipments, have broken down. Taking advantage of the turmoil, Tibetans are issuing anti-Chinese leaflets. Some bolder Tibetans have been seen throwing stones at Chinese civilians and turning wall poster Mao portraits upside down. The Red Guards have sacked virtually all of the Peking-trained Tibetan civil servants for "regional nationalism." Says the Dalai Lama: "There is so much chaos now that it is definite that a change must come about. The Tibetan people may yet get an opportunity to throw off the yoke of oppression." That was probably wishful thinking, especially if the Maoists have indeed succeeded in bringing their own factions to a truce in ravished Tibet.

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