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LUCKNOW, India: For the past half-century refugee Mingmar Bhuti, who
fled Tibet as a teenager after China put down an uprising against
its rule, has mourned the separation from her homeland and her
family.
Bhuti, one of 137 Tibetans marching across India
to garner sympathy for their plea for independence for their
troubled homeland, says those wounds can only be mended once Tibet
is free and her Indian-born children can visit.
“I yearned to meet my mother. I wanted to go
back to Tibet. I could not meet her. She died two years ago. Today I
just have memories,” said Bhuti, 63, who escaped over the
Himalayas to India in 1959, leaving her widowed mother behind.
“I hope one day my children will go back to
the land of their grandparents.”
The Tibetan exiles, who set off from the Indian
capital New Delhi on April 9, are walking to Bodh Gaya, the spot
where Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment 2,500 years ago.
Wearing masks on their mouths saying “Free
Tibet” and carrying posters urging a boycott of the August
Olympics in Beijing, the marchers perform skits about what they say
is the “brutality” of Chinese forces in Tibet for onlookers.
“We stop to interact with people, give them
our pamphlets,” Penpa Tsering, a senior leader of the
pro-independence Tibetan Youth Congress group that is spearheading
the march, told Agence France-Presse by telephone.
“People must know the brutality unleashed on
us by Chinese government.”
The exiles are now more than halfway through
their 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) trek to the revered Buddhist site
in eastern Bihar state, visited by some 100,000 pilgrims and
tourists each year.
“The public response has generally been very
good,” said Tsering, from Gosainganj, about 27 kilometers from
Lucknow, capital of northern Uttar Pradesh state.
“I receive many calls daily from Tibetan
sympathizers. They cry while talking and ask what they can do. I
tell them, ‘Tibet’s freedom needs your support’.”
Some of the monks on the march double as cooks,
whipping up steamed white-flour cakes and salted rice pudding for
the demonstrators.
-- AFP
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