Tibet: Starvation Diet

Ever since Tibet’s brave but abortive revolt against Red China in 1959, refugees have straggled across the border into India by twos and threes. Last month they came by the scores and even the hundreds. They were driven by hunger. The Chinese Communists have brought something Tibet has not known within living memory: famine.

For thousands of years the Tibetans have stockpiled food reserves in anticipation of their bitter winters. But immediately after the uprising, the Chinese confiscated all the cereal and vegetable foods in all the villages under their control and made an inventory of all sheep, cattle and yaks. Politically docile Tibetans were doled out 25 Ibs. of grain a month; less trusted Tibetans got only 17. In most cases the ration consisted of wheat and barley husks rather than the grain itself, or of poor-quality grain usually fed only to animals.

Since Red China was hit by crop failures, the Chinese have begun to slaughter sheep and yak herds for meat, forbade farmers to shear their sheep without permission or to eat animals that died of natural causes. Food rations have been cut to 16 Ibs. of grain per person a month. In many villages, the refugees reported, Tibetans have been reduced to eating grass weeds and wild tubers. Estimated deaths due to Tibet’s enforced starvation diet: 5,000.