As Chinese forces continue their occupation of the Tibetan areas of Western China Sky's Beijing correspondent Peter Sharp reports on his accidental embed with the People’s Liberation Army.
This was an army on the move. A military migration.
From a distance, the Sichuan to Tibet highway that snakes up and down across some of the most treacherous terrain in the world looked like a khaki green artery.
The road was clogged with slow moving columns of troop transports, fuel bowsers, ambulances, cranes, water cannon, communication vehicles and command cars. Choppers clattered overhead.
For three days, our dirty little Passat with its tinted windows nipped between the looming transports as we filmed what we could of this unprecedented movement of men and machines heading west towards Tibet.
This was an accidental embed with one of the most secretive armies in the world.
Our car’s tinted glass meant we could see without being seen - plenty of time to study the faces of the young soldiers as they peered out the back of their lorries.
Some looked like children, excitedly pointing out the huge mountain ranges, taking pictures like any tourist. Others were nervous, fingering their weapons and scanning the rocky terrain.
This was journalism in a bubble. Trapped in our vehicle, we existed in a parallel universe, swept along in the slipstream day after day.
One morning we passed an immense staging point. Hundreds of trucks and buses were parked in rows as troops in full riot gear marched along the roadside. This was just a fraction of a force needed to occupy Tibetan China - an area the size of Western Europe.
Our driver, Xia Jang, a wiry little guy with the face of teenager, took it all with stoic indifference.
Had we been caught filming, his punishment would have been far greater than our temporary detention but in three days he hardly said a word.
What did he think of the army? How did he feel about the Tibetans living in Sichuan?
These were questions we couldn't ask him. The little we knew about each other, the better for us both.
"I don't know anything. They didn't tell me anything," we heard him tell a plain clothes policeman who tried to question him in his hotel room on the second night.
Threatening the drivers of foreign journalists has proved a highly effective tactic for the Chinese security police.
But Jang was typically unperturbed.
Tucked in with the army convoy, we swept through the police road blocks set up to snare journalists attempting to enter this most sensitive region. But at night it was different.
At a grubby little hotel in the equally grubby town of Jiang, the security police walked into our room unannounced.
While they took our passports for inspection, we fled to the roof and broadcast our reports while they searched for us below.
Our luck ran out a day later in Kanding. Surrounded by army and police as we tried to leave our hotel we were held for several hours before being escorted out of town.
More than 40 foreign journalists have suffered similar experiences over the past 10 days as the Chinese authorities enforce a media blackout in the Tibetan enclaves of Western China.
After 750kms the little Passat was making deeply alarming noises as we rattled down the last dirt road and on to the motorway back to Chengdu.
Coming the other way in the opposite lane and stretching far into the distance, we saw another seemingly endless convoy packed with troops.
Safe now to begin their occupation of the western provinces without the attention of foreign journalists and their cameras.
Thus far a Tibet is concerned, it must not be forgotten that this saga has been ongoing for 60 years, yet captivated by virtue of the pending Olympics.
China as well as other nations have been subject to many a human rights abuse, however, now that the authorities have got the [Message In The Bottle] surely in the interest of future prosperity, the [Police] must be allowed to bring about social stability and control the games if there is going to be the slightest of chance that Tibet will be free.
So, let the games begin and let politics be a seperate issue.
Posted by: Khalid 25 Mar 2008 14:08:30
Tibetans obviously now need to stop all activities which will cause a military reprisal;
They have to switch to political activities outside of china, as the huge military presence forecasts reprisals already promised, not just a show of force, but an employment of force against Tibet civilians.
The time since the unrests was used to get all supplies required as winter draws near.
So, let us see if the liberal western press is capable of ralling against a communist dictatorship, having failed against minows like Cuba and Chavez...
Posted by: Paul, Benoni 23 Mar 2008 15:24:32