Kelsang Namtso, Murdered by Chinese soldiers
This is a picture of Kelsang Namtso, a seventeen year-old Tibetan nun who was viciously murdered by Chinese troops while she was making her way through Nangpa Pass to escape into exile. The photograph was provided by a Slovenian mountaineer, Pavle Kozjek, who witnessed the shooting and submitted the picture to Explorersweb.com (Found via the International Campaign for Tibet).
Kozjek also took and submitted this picture of Chinese soldiers with a group of eight to ten Tibetan captured refugee children, all aged between six and eight. The children were marched through the Cho Oyu advance base camp shortly after the Chinese troops opened – and sustained for at least fifteen minutes – fire on a group of at least seventy Tibetan refugees. The children were arrested and held at gunpoint. There whereabouts are currently unknown.
Looking at this picture, it’s shocking to think that none of the climbers tried to intervene and help the captured children. “The captured children were marched in single file through advance base camp at Cho Oyu – as climbers and Sherpas looked on. None of the Westerners tried to help according to the sources. ” Children. Captured and escorted away under the guard of murders – soldiers the climbers had watched gun down Kelsang Namtso just minutes before – and no one tried to stop them. There will be a special place in hell for cowards of this order.
Both pictures documenting this horrific atrocity were submitted after ExplorersWeb put out a call for photographs taken during and after the shooting at Nangpa Pass.
The article posting Kozjek’s pictures included more details about the circumstances of the shooting, thanks to Romanian climber Sergiu Matei.
Romanian climber Sergiu Matei, reported,â€?The Chinese militias were hunting Tibetans onto the glacier…shooting them like rats, dogs, rabbits – you name it.â€? 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.â€?
Sergiu wrote that he found one of the refugees hiding in the expedition toilet tent. The climber fed him and gave him warm clothes. Later, the refugee managed to flee over the pass.
It’s good to know that not everyone at the base camp was so spineless as to avoid helping the Tibetan refugees entirely. If only more climbers followed Matei’s example, both helping refugees at the time and coming forward on the record now, the Tibetans of Nangpa Pass might be safe today. In the darkness of the overwhelming silence of the mountaineers from Cho Oyu base camp, there may yet be a few flickers of light and humanity emerging. The testimony these climbers have to offer can be the source for justice. Their words and pictures will give the international community the indisputable evidence needed to condemn China for perpetrating this atrocity.
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[...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave aReply [...]
[...] all the way thru to the murder of Kelsang Namtso, a seventeen year old nun – Murdered by Chinese soldiers while making her way through Nangpa Pass to escape into exile This tragedy can be followed in full starting here at Students for a Free Tibet [...]
That’s sad. Unfortunated things like this isn’t supposed to be happening in a so called civilized world. We are not wild animals, neither are we any sort of object. We are human beings, we are Tibetans. We deserve all the basic human rights that people from other countries take for granted. This incident is sickening.
Keep the word Tibet rolling.
Thank you.
[...] Tibet Will Be Free commenter Tsewang had this profound statement in response to the Chinese soldiers’ refusal to treat these Tibetans like human beings: We are not wild animals, neither are we any sort of object. We are human beings, we are Tibetans. We deserve all the basic human rights that people from other countries take for granted. This incident is sickening. [...]
[...] Tibet Will Be Free commenter Tsewang had this profound statement in response to the Chinese soldiers’ refusal to treat these Tibetans like human beings: We are not wild animals, neither are we any sort of object. We are human beings, we are Tibetans. We deserve all the basic human rights that people from other countries take for granted. This incident is sickening. [...]
[...] The article also mentions the Nangpa Pass Shootings where on “September 30, 2006 Chinese forces opened fire on a group of approximately 70 Tibetan refugees attempting to escape Tibet through the Nangpa Pass”. You can watch video footage of the shooting of unarmed Tibetans by Chinese Soliders. You view our earlier blog coverage of this event, as well: Kelsang Namtso, Murdered by Chinese soldiers. [...]