and her story of torture
Kelsang Pelmo
Nun.
Was among four others chanting for freedom.
The five young nuns from
the Shugseb Nunnery outside Lhasa were prepared for beatings when they and
eight others chanted freedom slogans and distributed leaflets for a few
minutes in the city's Barkhor Market area in May 1988.
But the nuns were not prepared for the particular
type of torture they said was administered by prison guards: Electric
cattle prods were repeatedly rammed in their rectums, and nightsticks were
thrust into their vaginas. Two of the nuns, Ugyen Dolma, then 18, and
Kelsang Pelmo, then 22, said police also rammed electric cattle prods in
their vaginas, rectums and mouths.
``I felt
unconscious,'' Dolma said. ``I couldn't bring my voice up. I felt I was
about to die.''
The nuns said the assaults began in
public, as army officers grabbed them and hit some of them with gun butts
while they were walking in a circle in the Barkhor, Lhasa's central market
area.
Tenzin Choedon, one of the five nuns, was 22
when she was arrested.
She recalled: ``Three army
officers caught me, handcuffed me, and dragged me into the police van.
Tibetan women nearby tried to pull me away from the Chinese. I told them,
`I have demonstrated, I already have made my decision.' ''
A monk, Rinzin Gyadhen, was severely beaten on the
head with a gun butt as he was dragged into the police van, recalled
Pelmo, who said she also was hit with a gun butt on the back. ``He was
bleeding so much that he was very pale,'' Pelmo said. Blood poured from
the monk's head, arms and chest.
On the lawn of the
Gutsa Detention Center, photos were taken of the five nuns the day they
were arrested. Then, police tortured them with electric cattle prods on
the nuns' faces, arms and necks, each one said in interviews recently in
India.
In separate rooms, they said, they were
interrogated and tortured further with electric cattle prods. One police
officer switched the electricity of the cattle prod on and off repeatedly
before applying it to Pelmo's face and neck, shocking her, she said. ``The
sound was terrible,'' Pelmo recalled.
Dolma said
police repeatedly beat her on the face with a ruler, and then tortured her
with an electric cattle prod. ``I had trouble breathing,'' she said.
Another nun, Rinzin Kunsang, then 20, recalled the
police asking her: ``Why did you demonstrate? Why did you shout slogans?
Who told you to do this? Did you get a letter from the Dalai clique
[Tibetan government in exile in India] asking you to do this?''
Each of the five nuns said they recalled similar
questions. Each gave the same response: She had decided to demonstrate on
her own.
``I did not commit any crime,'' Pelmo said.
``I just want my country back.''
``Now we will feed you to the dogs,'' Pelmo recalled the police saying.
Pelmo was taken outside, where at least 10 officers interrogated her. When she did not provide an answer they liked, they sent an attack dog, which sank its teeth into her ankles.
``The dog understood Chinese; he was very big, tan-colored, and his ears stood up,'' Pelmo recalled. The dog bit three of the nuns, the nuns said.
Today, Pelmo's ankles have scars from the bites.
James A. Litch, an American doctor who examined Pelmo last month, found puncture wounds consistent with dog bites on both ankles. He said some of the scars were from ``repetitive and quick bites,'' and one long scar appeared to be from a dog that ``grabbed and held her for a minute, and then pulled away.''
Choedon said: ``The dog bit me on my thigh and hands.'' After the dog was finished with her, Choedon said, it was taken to attack another nun.
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