The global downturn has reached the Himalayas, where Tibetan refugees face increasing financial and political pain, writes EMILY WAXin Kathmandu
THINLEY SANGMO was taught as a girl in exile how to weave traditional Tibetan carpets. Her grandmother’s thick hands would twist and spin spools of sheep’s wool to depict the landscape and religious iconography of their homeland: hairy yaks lumbering up snow-swept mountains, puffy clouds, ponds of pink lotus flowers.
At 14, Sangmo was hunching over an upright loom for more than 12 hours a day. Sometimes she would fall asleep. She wanted to attend school, but as the oldest of seven children and as a Tibetan refugee living without full rights in Nepal, carpet weaving was her best option.
“It’s very hard work. At first, I would cry,” said Sangmo, now 36. “But I learned to appreciate it. Now, generations depend on these factories. This is all we know how to do.”
Yet today her livelihood, and that of thousands of other Tibetan carpet weavers, is under threat. The global economic crisis has spread to this landlocked Himalayan nation, among the poorest on Earth. Fewer tourists are coming to buy carpets, and tens of thousands of dollars in export orders have been cancelled, industry experts say, leading to the closure of more than 500 factories.
The crisis facing Tibetan exiles in Nepal is exacerbated by the country’s new government, led by Maoists, who joined the political mainstream in 2006 after waging a decade-long war. As China’s influence over the government grows, Tibetans are experiencing more harassment, extortion and restrictions on their movements, and greater difficulty securing education and jobs than ever, according to a report released yesterday by the International Campaign for Tibet. An estimated 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal, which has centuries-old cultural and religious ties with Tibet.
“There has been change in the use of language by the Nepalese authorities to describe the Tibetan refugee flow through their country, suggesting a ‘law and order’ approach rather than the humanitarian approach that has characterised Nepal’s treatment of Tibetans over the last decades,” said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet. “As a result of Chinese pressure on the Nepalese government, judicial system, civil society and media, Tibetans in Nepal are increasingly fearful, demoralised and at risk.”
Tibetan business and human rights leaders say that as the global economy worsened, Maoist militias and Nepalese police began “taxing” the Tibetan factories and workers, often through Mafia-style shakedowns and threats.
For many Tibetans still waiting for legal papers according them some civil rights in Nepal, there is nothing they can do to fight back as factories are forced out of business.
“The carpet industry is an economic and cultural lifeline for thousands of Tibetans and Nepalese,” said Tinley Gatso, a Tibetan community leader in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. “It was our culture, our art. When Nepal took us in, it was our big gift to Nepal. But now, so many carpets factories are closing. It’s a very sad time, a worrying time.”
Nepal is home to the world’s second-largest Tibetan exile community after India. Buddhist prayer flags flutter along Kathmandu’s alleyways and in its markets. Some of the world’s most celebrated stupas – whitewashed temples resembling enormous birthday cakes crossed with spaceships – reign over the city’s crowded squares. Recordings of the Buddhist mantra “Om mani padme hum,” played by shopkeepers, echo through the narrow streets.
Since a wave of protests against Chinese rule that began in Tibet in March 2008, Nepal has been under increasing pressure from Beijing to take sterner measures against pro-Tibet demonstrations, according to diplomats, government officials and human rights workers. A recent press statement by Nepal’s ministry of home affairs appears to support the tougher stance: “Nepal stands firm not to allow any external forces to use its soil against its neighbours and it sticks to its One China policy.”
China accuses the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist spiritual leader, of trying to split Tibet from China. The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, has said that although he desires greater autonomy for Tibet, he does not advocate independence.
The squeezing of Tibetans in Nepal is most vividly apparent in the carpet business. Khamsum Wangdu, one of Kathmandu’s biggest Tibetan carpet manufacturers, once had four factories employing 600 people. The economic downturn and the official demands for “fees” have brought his business down to one factory and 20 workers, he says.
“We need the international community to help us,” the businessman said. “Instead of giving the Dalai Lama gold medals, why not focus on helping Tibetan people with the recession and all of the political instability and pressure here in Nepal? The Dalai Lama is happy when his people are happy.”
Tibetan carpet weaving dates to the 7th century, when the carpets were used as horse saddles. Monasteries were the weavers main clients until the 1970s, when trekkers and mountain climbers descended on Nepal and took an interest in carpets. There was a separate boom in the late 1980s, when Tibet’s struggle for independence became an international cause. Today, carpets are sold in tourist markets, along with Tibetan religious paintings, prayer lamps, brass bowls and T-shirts.
On a recent morning, Sangmo was in her neighbourhood, where many Tibetan exiles live. Her family, like many others, fled Tibet with the Dalai Lama in 1959 after a failed revolt against Chinese rule. Sangmo sat with her grandmother, Tsering (73), and both women worried that many people in the neighbourhood will soon lose their jobs in the industry.
“It’s all we have,” Sangmo said. “We are lost without carpet-making.” – ( LA Times- Washington Post Service)