Donne senza confini

THE SMALL TIBETAN NUN DISEMBARKS IN WEST

Ngawang Sangdrol is a name known inside the Tibetan community and is also in Italy given she has gotten the honorary citizen from some cities as Florence.
Thanks to the support of the international community, around one year ago Ngawang has been freed even if submitted to watched over liberty.

The history of this small nun, as well you will remember, she has moved the whole world. To alone 13 years she fought together with her father to maintain the Tibetan culture lives writing poetries and songs. Because of her behavior from "activist" she was arrested in 1992 by the Chinese authorities.
From that moment we have known few information respect to her detention. A book was written "the prisoner of Lhasa" of Philippe Broussard and Danielle Laeng with the objective to reconstruct what really happened inside the jail of Drapchi.
The evening of 28 March of this year, Ngawang has arrived in the United States for urgent medical cares and now we knows something more about her detention in jail. On many matters she cannot freely express him to avoid possible retaliations on the companions of cell because we remember that the history of Ngawang is one of the few concluded happy ending. In the Tibetan jails they are thousand prisoners for motives of opinion and recently the death sentences are taken back towards the political dissidents.
Tibet is a small south region of China and for a long time it has enjoyed of a discreet autonomy beginning from the domination of Gengis Khan in the '200. Also the commander Khan had recognized and appreciated the Tibetan culture so much to respect granting it to the region a notable autonomy.
Up to 1940 Tibet has also lived a discreet calm thanks to the geographical position that excluded it from the Asian contemporary events.
In that years India was to the takings with the independence from the United Kingdom; in China was fighting the fiercest civil war that the history remembers among the communists and the nationalists that concluded it with the victory of the Communist Party driven by Mao Tse Tung in 1949. From this moment they began the problems for Tibet.
China pretends the annexation of the Tibetan region and the international community leaves the destiny of Tibet to himself, so in 1950 the Chinese troops invade the territory.
Violences and injustices will be perpetrated for years. In 1951 an essay was signed among the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities which hocked him to grant autonomies to the Tibetan region. The essay was never respected and rather they followed violent raids of the Chinese army to repress every form of dissent and the Dalai Lama, was forced to ask the political asylum in India.
The situation seemed to improve in the years '70 with the disappearance of Mao and the ascent to the power of Deng Tsiao Ping: some monasteries were reopened, the system of the rigid collectivization was dismantled.
It was a breve happy parenthesis because the Chinese wanted to avoid to feed hopes for independent Tibet.
The tourism has been of notable help; from the years '80 in fact, Tibet opens to the international tourism and the interest of the world community.
In 1987 the Dalai Lama in front of the Committee for the Human Rights in Usa, proposes a plan of peace in five points where even he is prepared to abdicate the independence of Tibet in exchange for a real autonomy. The attempts of the Dalai Lama will be vain and the plan in five points will be worth him "only" the Nobel Prize for the Peace in 1989 but China will be deaf to the Tibetan proposal.
If China appears indifferent, the European Parliament in 1995 a document in which Tibet is illegally occuped.
The increase of the international pressure on China has undoubtedly contributed to the Ngawang Sangdrol freedom.
In an interview released to Amnesty International Italy, Ngawang declares to be in good physica condition and she speaks of her prison situation: "from 1998 they have never allowed us to go out outside for a minute. We were in twelve held only in a cell with a bucket of can that served as latrine; up to when it was not full, we could not allowed to empty it and in the same room we ate, we worked and we spent the day. A ration of water was given us that according to them it had to be enough for everybody and twelve so every morning we had to decide whether to use to drink to wash. Once a month we could wash the suits. We were forced to work to sweater and if in the end of the day we had not concluded the job, we were beaten."
One companion of cell is dead following the detentive conditions and when they have seen that Ngawang had big health problems, they decided to release her.
The small nun on April 9 in Washington has been moved in to see people's hundreds come by the every part of the United States to greet her. She has declared that didn't know how much the international community, Usa, France and Switzerland, were used particularly for her release. Besides she has invited all the activists for the human rights to continue with their actions of support because very effective.
The first ones of July Ngawang has been invited in Paris to intervene to the Tibetan association CSPT (what it has a website www.tibet-info.net) for then to return in the United States where she has started the application for the political asylum.
Last 31 October has intervened to a conference to Washington on the activity of the Tibetan women for Tibet I free.
The association of the Tibetan women in 1959 and struggle has been founded for the recognition of their rights. Ngawang has wanted to underline the role of the women for the Tibetan cause, is them nuns or secular. she has wanted to thank the Congress of the United States for his appointment in to find a solution to the Tibetan matter.
Ngawang Sangdrol doesn't know what she will do in her future. Buddha said "the hate doesn't stop with the hate but with love"; Ngawang will keep on traveling for the world with this important message.

Federico Bastiani

Ngawang Sangdrol