Integrity Score 390
No Records Found
No Records Found
Enter the Dragon: Chinese Invasion
of Tibet continues...
Concerning the end of the Khampas, this is the sole instance where the Chinese were without any immediate guilt.
The Dalai Lama encouraged them to give up without foreseeing the consequences, which frees him as well. But all the others were guilty, and, as you say, the chief responsibility was that of Nixon, Kissinger and their government.
The Khampas were trained by Americans and supported by Taiwan from 1959 (under the period of Eisenhower), and their heroic war against China was an unrivalled epic all the way down to the American betrayal. Nothing could defeat the Khampas except betrayal. Concerning the Khampas, their last fight was their bravest.
When they were forced to give up in Mustang in northern Nepal by the earnest command of Dalai Lama and 10,000 Nepalese troops, with 20,000 Chinese troops on the other side, part of them decided to give up, while those 40 who refused to give up decided to head for Dharamshala some 400 miles away.
Those who followed Dalai Lama’s command and gave themselves up were sent to Nepalese prison dungeons for seven years, all their property being confiscated. Their three highest officers committed suicide by cutting their own throats when they discovered the treachery - they had been promised no retaliations. Those 40 who made a run for it almost got to the frontier of India 200 miles away, but not quite.
Chased all the way by the Nepalese and the Chinese, they were finally killed to the last man in an ambush 20 miles from the Lipulek La in India towards the end of August 1974.
Their story is an epic comparable to that of Masada. Of those 40 no one survived, but they will live forever as the foremost Khampas of all, and there are still Khampas everywhere from Ladakh to Kham who might still want to become like them.
To be continued...