Gere sees Campaign for Tibet as best hope for people, culture

The Dalai Lama was by no means the only famous face present in the P.E. Center Sept. 5. Film actor Richard Gere, a longtime follower of the Dalai Lama and supporter of the movement to free Tibet from Chinese rule, gave an impromptu talk about his experiences in Tibet after the Dalai Lama's address.

"Saving Tibet is, in a very real sense, about saving myself," Gere said. "I don't see this as a political issue. I choose to see it as a heart issue. We do this because we feel it from our heart. It's a question of right and wrong."

Gere said that on several recent occasions, he has been denied a visa to visit Tibet by the Chinese government. "I can assume it was for political reasons and because I was in Tibet two years ago and saw the destruction of the cultural revolution," he said. For the first time, Gere said, he has noticed feelings of anger and insecurity among Tibetans, brought on by decades of oppressive occupation by the Chinese government. "My last visit was very depressing, and there were lots of tears."

During that last trip to Tibet, Gere met two nuns in the capital city of Lhasa who had recently been released from jail after being beaten and raped by Chinese security forces. Their offense was hanging a "Free Tibet" poster from a window in their convent. When Gere asked the younger of the nuns, who was about 35, if she felt the kind of rage toward her torturers that one might expect, the answer was no. "She said that the issue was much larger than that," Gere recalled. "She told me that the man who beat her wouldn't have been able to feed his children if he hadn't carried out his orders."

When Gere asked the nun what her future plans were, she said she would return to the convent, hang another Tibet poster, get arrested, beaten and raped again, and perhaps even die as a result.

"I asked her what was the most important thing we could do for her," Gere said. "She said to let them know that they are not alone in their fight. That's the power we can give them, to speak on their behalf. Let your Senators and congressional representatives know what you want, that you want a policy on Tibet that's about preservation of a people and of a culture. Support the International Campaign for Tibet (based in Washington, D.C.). It's working. This is an organization you can trust. It speaks for the Dalai Lama and for the Tibetan people."

--Dan Treadaway