Source: CCTV.com
03-25-2009 14:38
Striding Through History (III)
It’s early spring in Lhasa; the sun is warm and the trees, green. The young people can hardly wait to go out and feel the warm breath of spring. Tibet today is a land redolent with the mystery of an ancient culture, yet tinged with the romance of modernity.
On January the 19th, 2009, the People’s congress of Tibet Autonomous Region passed a resolution, designating March the 28th as annual Serf Emancipation Day. It marked the day 50 years ago when a million serfs in the region were freed.
The decision has great historical significance for the people of Tibet. It celebrates victory in a long conflict between unity and division, justice and evil. In the course of this fierce struggle, a new Tibet appeared out of the earth.
In March 1951, the snow had not yet melted in the town of Yadong on the Sino-Indian border. The 18-year-old 14th Dalai Lama, who was sojourning there, was waiting restlessly for news from various sources. Several months before, the local government of Tibet had rejected the Central Government's call for peaceful negotiations. An attempt to halt the People’s Liberation Army’s advance into Tibet had been comprehensively defeated at the Battle of Qamdo. The Dalai Lama had fled to Yadong. The local government of Tibet had finally decided to send a delegation to Beijing for talks with the Central Government.
Meanwhile, Tibet’s nobility and officials, desperate to preserve their vested interests and privileges, sent emissaries to India to seek assistance from the embassies of the western countries.
Before long, the Dalai Lama in Yadong received a message from Loy Henderson, U.S. ambassador to India. Henderson said that the U.S. government was prepared to help him.
According to declassified U.S. State Department documents, Henderson informed the Dalai Lama that he would be required to go into exile abroad and lead a militia against the communists. However, this proposal went against the main preoccupation of the Dalai-Lama-led administration, which was to preserve their vested interests in Tibet. So, while bargaining with Washington on details such as the travel expense for their exile and their staff arrangements, the nobility were secretly pursuing alternative courses of action.
