Tibet - 10th March 1959

The Significance of 10th March for the
Tibetan Freedom Struggle

In order to give the annexation of Tibet a semblance of legality, the Chinese forced the Tibetan delegation into signing the so-called ’17 Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’ on 23rd May 1951. The Agreement stated: ‘the Tibetan people should return to the large family of the Motherland - the People's Republic of China’. Most experts on international law, however, believe that the Agreement is not legally binding as it was signed under duress. The German Parliament’s Specialized Research Service also drew the similar conclusion.

Central Tibet remained relatively unchanged by this Agreement at first. There were several years of co-existence between the traditional government of Tibet under the XIV Dalai Lama and the Chinese military administration. This came to an end in March 1959 when the Dalai Lama was compelled to accept an invitation to a theatre performance at the headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army without his bodyguards. Tibetans knew that this invitation was being used as a pretext to abduct him to Peking, as had already happened with several other high lamas.

Therefore, on 10th March 1959, thousands of men and women spontaneously gathered in front of the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace and used their sheer physical presence to protect their leader from China’s grasp. Only a few were armed. The People’s Liberation Army brutally suppressed the uprising after a few days. The Dalai Lama, however, was able to escape to India the night before the attack - he arrived in India on the 18th April.

Chinese documents, captured in the sixties by Tibetan freedom fighters, show that 87,000 lives were lost during the uprising and in the immediate aftermath.

The most severe phase of suppression and cultural destruction in Tibet began after the events of 10th March. Even before the Cultural Revolution that sought to eliminate tradition and religion actually began - 80 per cent of all places of worship in Tibet had been destroyed and over 90 per cent of the religious community had been murdered or imprisoned. These are official Chinese figures which were made public by the Vice-Governor of Tibet, Pu Qiong (Tib: Buchung) in 1987. In total, according to statistical data collected by the Government of Tibet in-exile, some 1.2 million Tibetans died of terror, execution and hunger in the period up to Mao’s death and the fall of the Gang of Four from power.

Since then, the 10th March - the start of Tibetan National Uprising against Chinese Occupation - is commemorated by Tibetans and their friends as a day of mourning, and also as a day of resistance. In many towns and cities in India, demonstrations and other forms of protests have been taking place for decades. Occasionally, Tibetans have marked the day by beginning long hunger strikes on the 10th March.