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As the Chinese government continues its systematic extermination of a country and its culture, Tibet's sad plight goes largely unnoticed in the West. Particularly since most Western governments pretend nothing is happening and the media could care less about a bunch of brown people in some landlocked country. Why am I blogging it? Because the latest tragic news from Tibet was witnessed by quite a few climbers in Cho Oyu advance base camp and only a few came forward to report what they saw out of fear of retaliation by the Chinese governemnt. Granted Tom and Tina at Explorer's Web are prone to arm chair moralizing without all the facts, but at least one other media source is reporting the incident as is the International Campaign For Tibet. Seems the Chinese border guards have a history of shooting unarmed refugees trying to escape Tibet. In this case, it seems at least one death, a nun leading the group, is confirmed and one more Tibetan child may have been killed when the guards opened fire.
Here is what some of the climbers reported according to Explorer's Web:
An American climber reported to ExWeb, "“Without warning, shots rang out. Over, and over and over. The line of people started to run uphill – they were at 19,000ft. 2 people were down, and they weren't getting up."
A British climber told Save Tibet that climbers "could see Chinese soldiers quite close to Advance Base Camp kneeling, taking aim and shooting, again and again, at the group, who were completely defenceless."
Filipino climbing doctor Ted Esguerra said he saw at least three people - two women and a man - shot dead.
Romanian climber Sergiu Matei, reported,”The Chinese militias were hunting Tibetans onto the glacier...shooting them like rats, dogs, rabbits - you name it.” Sergiu said that bodies were buried on the glacier in the presence of a lot of climbers, and other people, "like if there was no one there to see it.”
And here is where Tom and Tina's moralizing comes in:
Reports have said that some commercial outfitters actively persuaded climbers on the mountain to silence. British Independent
states that fears for the safety of Western climbers still in Tibet and
worries that China will clamp down on profitable climbing operations
have meant that news of the incident has been slow to emerge. An
American climber told the news source of his revulsion at the failure
of other climbers to speak out. "Did it make anyone turn away and go
home? Not one," he said. "People are climbing right in front of you to
escape persecution while you are trying to climb a mountain. It's
insane."
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