By Alec Mouhibian
A new tool of fighting repression and hunger, according to Students for a Free Tibet, is the repression of hunger.
On Wednesday, SFT concluded a 14-day fast with a Day of Action in protest of the imprisonment of two Tibetan nuns. Phuntsog Nyidron and Namdrol Lhamo are two of the 14 nuns imprisoned in 1992 in Drapchi Prison in Lhasa, Tibet, for demonstrating peacefully against the exile of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.
All but two of the Drapchi 14, as the group of imprisoned nuns came to be known, have been released. SFT is fighting to have the pair released before their scheduled release in 2005. Amnesty International has reported that the pair has received inhumane treatment in prison, including severe beatings, electric shocks and sexual assault.
“We’re fasting to create awareness,” said Miguel Mendoza, a fifth-year global studies major and regional coordinator of SFT.
The fasting consisted of 14 individual 24-hour fasts by the 14 on-campus members of SFT, rather than each member going on a 14-day fast. Members drank only water during the fast, which ended Tuesday.
Mendoza said the awareness is two-pronged, generated both within the person fasting and the public.
“The fasters will have a deeper understanding of the type of suffering that goes on in Chinese prisons,” Mendoza said. “Most of these are first-time fasters, and it’s a way for them to get to know what it feels like to be a victim of communist Chinese oppression.”
The Day of Action was a march and re-enactment of a Chinese execution. The march began in front of the MultiCultural Center; the demonstrators, dressed in torn T-shirts and torn pants, wore signs around their necks displaying the names of the prisoners they were impersonating. Some had duct tape over their mouths. Mendoza played the part of a Chinese prison guard, carrying a papier-m‰chŽ rifle and a bullhorn.
The march went by the UCen and on to the Arbor. Along the way, demonstrators shouted, “Free Tibet!” as Mendoza yelled at the “prisoners” through his bullhorn, “You are not Tibetan, you are Chinese!”
Midway through the march, another member of the SFT joined the group and started drumming.
The demonstrators stopped under a tent near the Arbor, which symbolized a prison. One by one, each “prisoner” walked out, kneeled down and fell over after Mendoza slammed a stick against the ground. When all the bodies were sprawled on the ground, Mendoza took off his costume and spoke.
Mendoza began his speech by urging activism in the Tibetan movement, but also encouraged any kind of activism.
“Get the f*** off your ass and do something,” Mendoza said. “Be it for people of color, queers or women, find a progressive movement and just get the f*** involved.”
Mendoza also spoke of the importance of nonviolence.
“The Bush regime thinks they can bomb the hell out of whatever the hell they want,” he said.
He said he was not speaking only to liberals, and said the Tibetan cause has crossed all political lines.
“One of the biggest supporters of our cause has been the Republican Party,” he said.
Throughout the execution scene, petitions were passed around, the signatures to be added to a letter to Colin Powell asking him to demand the Chinese government to release the two nuns.
Asked what he expected the terms of Powell’s demand to be, Mendoza said, “Force is totally out of the question. They should use the almighty dollar. But no embargo, just a national boycott.”
