Tsering Shayka, a Tibetan historian based in Canada who knows many of those arrested, said the detainees were not subversives. "If anything, they were the people the Chinese could have worked with. . . . The Chinese are misreading the desire for autonomy and cultural identity as asserting independence."
Others who were arrested about the same time as Drolmakyi include Jamyangkyi, a well-known singer and anchorwoman from Xining who had been a visiting scholar at Columbia University. Dabe, a comedian famous for his shoulder-length hair and beard, was held for about a month before being released in late April with a shaved head.
Palchenkyab, the head of a literacy project for nomads, and a teacher at one of his schools were arrested. Also arrested was Lhundrup, a musician who recorded a popular music video that refers obliquely to the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet to India. The sun and the moon have departed through the mountain pass. The person who gave hope is gone. He looks at the Tibetans and sees that this is the Tibetans' fate.
The only news of the arrests to come out of China was in a blog written by Woeser, a Tibetan poet, who was under house arrest for a week in March and whose blog has been repeatedly attacked by hackers.
Robbie Barnett, a Tibet scholar at Columbia, believes that Chinese authorities picked on local celebrities to intimidate other Tibetans. Most of those arrested were believed to have been released under conditions similar to those for Drolmakyi, meaning that they have been effectively silenced, he said.
"The Chinese have had a consistent focus on people who have ideas, people who think and who might inspire others to think about what it means to be Tibetan," Barnett said.
Crackdown continues
Protests and the crackdown have continued despite the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province that has left 70,000 people dead. According to Tibetan exile groups, 80 nuns were arrested in late May in Ganzi, in Sichuan. Chinese state media announced Thursday that 16 Buddhist monks had been arrested and had confessed to planning bombings in Tibet.
In Dawu, it was easy to see examples of changed behavior after the arrests. The music shops lining the main market stopped displaying the videos and CDs of arrested singers. Shopkeepers no longer sold photos of the Dalai Lama. Even in homes, many Tibetans said, they have stashed away such photos. Some people were afraid to speak to the first foreign journalist to visit since the trouble began in March.
"You never know when the police will come," said Cebu, a 50-year-old Tibetan herder.
--
barbara.demick@latimes.com
