Murder in the Mountains

Early on the 30th of September a group of Tibetan refugees were making a trek across the border into Nepal, moving in single file across a mountain slope near the 5,800m high Nanpa La Pass, Chinese border guards opened fire.

A few minutes of jerky video footage shot by a Romanian cameraman on a mountaineering trip brought their plight into Western living rooms this month. In the video, a Chinese border guard calmly opens fire on the group of unarmed Tibetans. Two figures drop to the ground. "They're shooting them like, like dogs," says an incredulous voice, one of the other mountaineers standing beside the cameraman. And then the camera trains on the dead body of one of the Tibetans in the distance.



The full story of what happened that day in the Himalayas has now emerged. The accounts of survivors can be pieced together with those of the mountaineers who witnessed the shooting. "There was no warning of any kind," Thubten Tsering, a Buddhist monk, told reporters in Delhi this week. "The bullets were so close I could hear them whizzing past. We scattered and ran." There were 75 of them in the group when they left. Only 41 made it across the border into Nepal, and on to India. Two are believed to have died. There are 32 others still unaccounted for. "We don't know where they are or what happened to them," said Mr Thubten.

The body in the footage is that of Kelsang Nortso, a 25-year-old Buddhist nun. A witness, who did not want to be identified, said: "We were walking in line. Before the shooting we knew the soldiers were after us so we started to walk quickly. They warned us to stop, and then they started shooting. We were running. The bullets were landing near us. The nun who died was 100 metres ahead of me. I saw her fall down. I was lucky. A bullet tore my trousers, but it missed me." She and some of the other refugees had to run past Nortso's body as it lay in the bloodstained snow.

In all, between 2,500 and 4,000 Tibetans flee across the border into Nepal every year - one of the toughest borders in the world to cross, since it runs along the line of several of the highest mountains on earth, including Mount Everest. They cross at Nangpa La and a few other passes, following in the footsteps of the Dalai Lama who made his own escape through the Himalayas in 1957. The crossings at Nangpa La are generally made during the night to avoid Chinese border patrols, but the one that was attacked was attempting to cross in the morning - possibly because of the large number of children in the group. Most have to pay guides around 5,000 yuan (£340) to guide them through the mountain passes - serious money in rural Tibet.
"Most know they are taking a big risk to come to India," said Urgen Tenzin, of the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. "There are threats from Chinese guards, but also the extreme freezing conditions and the dangers of climbing steep mountains to get to Nepal."

The Romanian video footage was not the first the world heard of the incident. The first accounts emerged from Western mountaineers who were in the area, and who witnessed the killings. The story did not emerge immediately, and it is believed fears over the safety of Western mountaineers still in Tibet, and fears the Chinese may clamp down on mountaineering expeditions, made some of the witnesses hesitate in coming forward at first.

The Chinese authorities reacted by issuing a statement through the Xinhua news agency that claimed the border guards only opened fire after they were "attacked" by a group of some 70 Tibetan refugees who refused an order to go back to Tibet. That version of events does not stand up against the video footage, which clearly shows the refugees as defenceless. It is also contradicted by every witness statement - such as that of a British climber who described "Chinese soldiers quite close to advance base camp kneeling, taking aim and shooting, again and again, at the group, who were completely defenceless".

Pressed on the incident, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said: "If the report is accurate, the Chinese authorities will investigate the matter. As to whether it is a policy for border police to open fire on people, I think the border police and army's responsibility is to safeguard the peace and security of the Chinese border."

The mountaineers have not come out of the story free from controversy. "Did it make anyone turn away and go home? Not one," said an American climber who asked not to be identified. "People are climbing right in front of you to escape persecution while you are trying to climb a mountain. It's insane."

After the incident, the refugees who had escaped capture regrouped in the mountains, and headed down into the lowlands of Nepal. It took them another eight days. In total, they walked for 25 days across some of the highest mountain passes on earth.

Tibet China