Khampa warriors foray into Tibet for an attack on the PLA

After bolting the latch of the toilet's door, Thupten Ngodup took a deep breath, opened the cap of the gasoline canister, poured the pale liquid to the last drop on his head till he was soaked to the skin, flicked a lighter and turned into an orange ball of fire. With pieces of flesh bursting off his body with cracking sounds and raging flames licking his hair and searing his skin, he staggered like an inferno, screaming something that sounded like "Independence". As people ran towards him to dowse the flames, Ngodup went down on his knees with his hands folded, praying even as the blaze seethed from under the rugs thrown on him. A few days after his self-immolation bid at the hunger strike by Tibetans at Jantar Mantar in Delhi in April 1998, Ngodup became a martyr for his "homeland" and a hero for his people living in exile. He was cremated with a secret still buried in his heart.

A few days later, amid a debate on "deviating from the Middle Way of the Dalai Lama" within the Tibetan community, a few people walked to Ngodup's eight-by-six feet shack near the Tsechokling monastery in Dharamsala where the 60-year-old man worked as a cook till the day he took a bus to Delhi to join the fast-unto-death to attract the UN's attention to the "Chinese atrocities in Tibet". Amidst the Dalai Lama's photos, Tibetan flags, Buddha statues, prayer bowls, a chair, some clothes, a bed, three pots, a few empty bottles of rum and an untouched bundle of bidis was hidden Ngodup's little secret: the man was a former Tibetan guerrilla fighter. He had picked up a rifle and carried it for 13 years to fight the Chinese in Tibet.

Thupten Ngodup's little secret is a monstrous truth that lives in the hearts of almost all Tibetans in exile. Every monk humming a mantra under a tree, every hand counting notes at a sweater shop, every face staring at customers in a caf��, every finger turning a rosary in a temple knows this: With guns in their hands, radios in their pockets and poison capsules hanging around their necks, thousands of Tibetan guerrillas ��� many of them trained by the CIA ��� went into Tibet to fight the People's Liberation Army for 15 long years. Most of them never returned.

Those who survived the deadly battles and came back home just faded away in the narrow alleys of refugee settlements. Many of them are still active: making tea in a restaurant, selling books in a shop, weaving carpets in a factory, writing articles for their cause or just turning the prayer wheel in their grizzled hands. Some of them live in grey stone dwellings on the ridge of green mountains, with red and yellow prayer flags fluttering over their little huts. They talk about their fight with pride. Then they sink into bitterness. "The CIA just used us for its own dirty games with the Chinese," says Tsering, a former guerrilla, with a glint in his old eye. "Then the Americans betrayed us. The Nepalis stabbed us in the back. Everyone dumped us," he adds, as his eyes turn red.

Members of Tibetan armed resistance group, Chushi Gangdruk, with their weapons

Within the Tibetan community in exile, the former guerrillas are like heroes of folklore. With outsiders, the story is rarely shared. The story of Tibetans' armed resistance against the Chinese began in 1955 when the eastern parts of Tibet ��� Kham and Amdo ��� were run over by the rampaging troops of the PLA. The Khampas of the region ��� known as horse-riding, fearless fighters ��� formed an armed resistance group called the Chushi Gangdruk and tried to stop the PLA's advance into Lhasa. When the March 10, 1959, uprising against the Chinese failed, Chushi Gangdruk guerrillas helped the Dalai Lama flee to India and they retreated into the northern Nepalese region of Mustang. From a mountain jutting out into lunar-like valleys, the guerrillas forayed into Tibet, struck PLA convoys and withdrew to Mustang.

In the 1960s, as the Cold War intensified and thousands of Tibetan refugees arrived in India, a few of them were picked up from the road gangs of north India and flown to secret training camps on the remote Pacific island of Saipan and in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. "They were given sleeping pills on flights and were never told that they were in America," says Lobsang, who fought alongside a few men who learnt guerrilla warfare and clandestine radio operations from the Americans. Parachuted into Tibet, the men were asked to organize resistance cells. Till the mid-60s, the CIA dropped arms and ammunition for the Mustang guerrillas as they conducted raids into Tibet and waged a bloody war with the PLA.

"Then, in early 1969, the supplies suddenly stopped," recalls Tsering. "We did not know why the Americans stopped helping us." The guerrillas fighting a tough battle in a hidden corner of the world could not understand the Cold War games. As Sino-Soviet relations plummeted to a new low and Henry Kissinger made many trips to Beijing for his shuttle diplomacy, the Chinese put a condition for establishing diplomatic relations: stop all connections and assistance to the Tibetans. President Richard Nixon obliged.

And Nepal's King Birendra followed suit by ordering his army to crush the resistance. Fearing bloodshed, the Dalai Lama taped a message telling the Tibetans to lay down their weapons and surrender. They did not say no to their lama. "But the Nepalis did not keep their word," says Lobsang, recalling how thousands of guerrillas were slaughtered. Those who managed to escape to India brought with them the story of Chushi Gangdruk to the settlements. It remained a story till it was documented by Tenzing Sonam and Ritu Sarin in their film, The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet. With interviews with former rebels and CIA operatives, the film for the first time revealed the violent past Tibetans don't like to talk about. "Since 1974 the Tibetan movement has stressed on non-violence and dialogue. So, it became inconvenient to talk about the armed struggle," says Sonam.

Chushi Gangdruk still exists, though not as an armed resistance group. Its members still believe in complete independence for Tibet. As Lhasa burns and the Dalai Lama threatens to quit if the movement turns violent, the former guerrillas and their young supporters are anxious. "Last time we fell to Kissinger's cunning diplomacy. Everyone betrayed us. This time, it's China's market charm that will make them betray us," says a young activist.

As China clamps down on the protesters, the bitter memories of the past have come back to haunt the surviving members of Chushi Gangdruk. They are certain that the world will let the Tibetans down again. That's why they are so reluctant to talk about their Mustang days. Like Thupten Ngodup, the Buddha's warriors want to go away with their secret in their hearts.

shobhan.saxena@timesgroup.com