The Terrified Monks
Nicholas Kristof writes on the New York Times:
This is historical Tibet, a land of jutting mountains, sculptures made of yak butter, and serene monks in red robes spinning golden prayer wheels in ancient monasteries.
In the last couple of months, this greater Tibet has also become a land of arsonist monks, armed troops and bloodied protesters. It’s not formally under martial law today, but that’s what it amounts to, and foreigners have been mostly kept away.
I sneaked through these Tibetan areas in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, eluding the troops by taking a local car with curtains pulled over the windows, and it became clear that the recent anti-Chinese protests spread across a larger area in traditional Tibet than is sometimes realized. This was, in effect, a popular uprising against Chinese rule throughout Tibetan areas, and the region is still seethin
g.
