Chinese border guards: "We killed in self-defense"
Guards forced to defend themselves? "The refugees were completely defenseless kids and youngsters, hunted like rats," say climbers. Half-an-hour later 14 children were marched through ABC in single file. "They didn't see us - they weren't looking around the way kids normally would, they were too frightened," reported one climber. Image of some of the children and border guards, courtesy of Slovenian climber Pavle Kozjek (click to enlarge).
08:00 pm CDT Oct 12, 2006
(MountEverest.net) China admits to the Nangpa La shootings but claims self-defense. A Xinhua report quoted by AP said that the people trying to cross the border attacked the soldiers, who were then "forced to defend themselves." One person was reported killed and 2 were injured, including one who died later of altitude sickness.
This first official Chinese confirmation of the border incident appeared only hours after a foreign ministry spokesman said he could not verify foreign news reports of a border incident in the Himalayas, according to AlJazeera.
"I've seen the reports about this, but I've no knowledge of the specific situation," Liu Jianchao, a ministry spokesman, told a news conference in Beijing writes the news source.
Mountaineers forced rare response?
The Times writes that such an official confirmation is rare and that the government in the restive region of Tibet may have felt forced to respond by mountaineers' witness statements.
The Times also writes that the official version did not clarify why armed border guards, who are often equipped with semi-automatic rifles, would need to shoot to defend themselves in a country where firearms are banned among civilians.
The refugees were mostly kids led by a young nun who was shot dead and a number of young adults. Out of the group of 70 people, 40 escaped but 30 still remain unaccounted for.
A different picture
The refugees and also climbers on the spot have reported a different picture than the one offered by Chinese officials today.
While information was initially slow, more and more climbers have come forward in the last few days. An American climber reported to ExWeb, "Without warning, shots rang out. Over, and over and over. The line of people started to run uphill – they were at 19,000ft. 2 people were down, and they weren't getting up." A British climber told Save Tibet that climbers "could see Chinese soldiers quite close to Advance Base Camp kneeling, taking aim and shooting, again and again, at the group, who were completely defenseless."
Filipino climbing doctor Ted Esguerra said he saw at least three people - two women and a man - shot dead, while Romanian climber Sergiu Matei, reported,”The Chinese militias were hunting Tibetans onto the glacier...shooting them like rats, dogs, rabbits - you name it.”
A monk refugee said he doesn't know how many were shot in the end, but that 14 kids, aged 8-10, were captured along with 16 young adults. The nun who was killed, was leading the children.
A protest was issued Thursday from the U.S. government to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The International Campaign for Tibet organization reported that the children and young adult refugees stated they fled Tibet to get an opportunity to go to school and practice their religion in peace.
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