[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E774-E776]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         TESTIMONY OF LIU XINHU

                                 ______


                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 4, 1995
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I submitted for the Record the 
testimony of three survivors of the Chinese laogai. The witnesses 
testified before the International Relations Subcommittee on 
International Operations and Human Rights on April 3.
  The stories are powerful accounts of brave Chinese men and women who 
have suffered tremendously because of their religion or political 
views. Today, I am submitting the testimony of two more survivors--Mr. 
Liu Xinhu, who was imprisoned at the age of 13 because his father was a 
so-called counter- revoluntionary and Palden Gyatso, a Tibetan monk who 
spent 33 years in the laogai. I hope my colleagues and the American 
people will be enlighted and moved by these stories. Many people like 
Mr. Xinhu and Palden Gyatso are still suffering in China today. We must 
not forget them.
                Testimony of Liu Xinhu, Laogai Survivor

       My name is Liu Xinhu.
       Because my father was an official in the former government, 
     the Communist Party, on the pretext that he would disrupt 
     labor discipline, arrested and sent him to a ``reeducation 
     through labor'' (laojiao) prison camp in 1958. He was sent to 
     the Baimaoling Farm to serve his sentence. In 1973, having 
     lost all hope and deeply impoverished in the hell of the hard 
     labor farm, he committed suicide.
       I was born in 1945. When I was 13 years old in 1958, 
     because I was the eldest son in the family of a counter-
     revolutionary, the Communist government found an excuse which 
     had absolutely no legal precedent, and sent me to live at the 
     same Laogai prison farm as my father. In 1964, when I had 
     just turned eighteen years old, the Communist government 
     sentenced me to two years reeducation through labor because 
     of what they called ``counter-revolutionary activities''. 
     After being released from the laojiao sentence at the farm in 
     1966, I was ordered to continue forced labor at the farm as a 
     ``forced-job-placement'' (jiuye) worker. I was once again 
     labeled a ``counter-revolutionary element'' in 1974 because 
     of my ``political attitudes'', 
     [[Page E775]]  and the controls over me at the Laogai prison 
     farm were further strengthened. I was detained straight 
     through until my release in 1983. During the twenty-five 
     years I spent in the Laogai, I suffered innumerable beatings 
     and torments; I clearly remember one occasion when I was 
     unable to fulfill my production quota because I was very 
     sick, the public security police stripped me of my clothes, 
     tied me to a tree trunk, and allowed the mosquitoes and 
     insects to bite me for more than two hours.
       The Baimaoling Farm is internally known as the Shanghai 
     Number Two Laogai General Brigade. It is located in the 
     southeast area of Anhui Province. Its scale is enormous and 
     it holds, on average, 50,000 Laogai prisoners, laojiao 
     prisoners, and jiuye personnel. It produces tea, rice, 
     valves, and toys, as well as other goods. My father and I 
     were detained in different sections of the farm, and we were 
     not permitted to see each other. The public security police 
     only told me in 1973 that he had died, and I had to go and 
     claim the corpse. Once at the crematorium, I saw his old and 
     pale body. I was given those clothes. I cried bitterly. I 
     felt that my father was more brave than I was because he 
     dared to determine his own end to this difficult life and 
     gain his freedom.
       I now live in the United States and have a family and 
     children of my own. I deeply hope that my children and all 
     other children, as well as all future generations, do not 
     have ever to suffer through these kinds of tortures and 
     difficulties. Thank you all very much for your concerns about 
     the Chinese citizens who continue to suffer in the Laogai to 
     this very day.
                                                                    ____

              -Testimony of Palden Gyatso, Laogai Survivor

       Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
       I have spent 33 years of my 64-year-old life in Chinese 
     prisons and Laogai camps in Tibet. During those years I 
     yearned for a moment such as this one. I express my 
     wholehearted thanks to you, Mr. Chairman, and to all the 
     members of this Committee for giving me this great 
     opportunity to appear before you today. I feel that it is an 
     honor, but also my responsibility, to inform the United 
     States Congress about the mistreatment I and other Tibetans 
     have suffered in the Laogai at the hands of the Chinese 
     government.
       My name is Palden Gyatso. I became a monk when I was ten 
     years old. At 28 years of age in 1959, at the climax of the 
     Chinese military invasion of Tibet, I was arrested and 
     accused of being a ``reactionary element'' and sentenced to a 
     seven-year prison term to be served at the Panam District 
     Prison in southern Tibet. This prison was previously a 
     monestary named Norbu Khyungtse. In the prison, I was made to 
     do hard labor, ordinarily for nine hours a day, and some 
     times even more. We prisoners were yoked to plows like 
     animals to till prison lands. When we got exhausted and 
     became too weak to pull the plow, we were kicked and whipped 
     from behind. Since we were never given enough to eat, we were 
     forced to steal food meant for the pigs in the Chinese pig 
     sties. We were also driven to chewing and eating things like 
     used leather items, bones of different kinds of dead animals, 
     mice, worms, and all kinds of green grasses.
       The treatment of political prisoners at the Laogai in Tibet 
     involves different types of cruel acts. In winter, we were 
     suspended in the air and then cold water was thrown on us; 
     during hot summer days, cold water was replaced by building a 
     fire beneath the suspended prisoner. Other forms of ill-
     treatment in this position included being lashed with a 
     leather belt and being beaten with an electric cattle-prod or 
     an iron bar. Our feet were also fettered with iron manacles 
     while self-tightening handcuffs and thumb-cuffs were used to 
     tie our hands and thumbs. The sharp edges on those handcuffs 
     often resulted in prisoners hands getting cut completely off. 
     I still have many scars on my wrists as a result of these 
     sharp instruments.
       In 1962, I managed to escape from Panam District Prison 
     with six other political prisoners. But we got caught just 
     when we reached Tonsher township to worship near the Indo-
     Tibetan border, and my prison term was increased to 15 years 
     as result. The imposition of the additional eight year prison 
     term was preceded by indiscriminate beatings, then the use of 
     iron shackles on both my hands and feet, night and day for 
     six months. The leg shackles were not removed for more than 
     two years, during which I was taught how to, then forced to, 
     weave carpets.
       Mr. Chairman, I completed my Laogai term in 1975 but was 
     not allowed to return home. Rather, I was sent to the 
     Nyethang Laogai camp, located some 15 miles west of Lhasa, 
     the capital of Tibet. Prison life resumed, though with a 
     slightly relaxed atmosphere. In 1979, I took advantage of 
     this to sneak out of the Laogai camp in the middle of the 
     night to go to Lhasa, where I put up a number of posters 
     calling for Tibetan independence. I was finally caught, and 
     on August 26, 1983, I was rearrested and sent to the Old 
     Sangyip Prison in northeastern Lhasa.
       In April 1984, I was sentenced to a nine year prison term 
     during a one hour trial where I was denied legal 
     representation or opportunity to defend myself. I was taken 
     to the Outidu Prison Fourth Unit, which is today a part of 
     the Sangyip Prison Administration in the remote northeast 
     valley of Lhasa, in April of 1985. In that Laogai, we had to 
     do all sorts of filthy work, including the handling of human 
     excrement used to grow vegetables. Sometimes we were forced 
     to do the personnel work of the prison guards. But the guards 
     routinely expresses dissatisfaction with our work and often 
     beat us afterwards. We were also often subjected to other 
     abuses by drunken prison guards.
       Other forms of ill-treatment at the Laogai were rampant. 
     For example, in November 1987, a prison official poked me 
     with an electric cattle-prod and poured boiling water over me 
     just because he said he did not like my attitude. No medical 
     treatment was given after that.
       Throughout my 15 year imprisonment that started in 1959 and 
     the nine year confinement in the Laogai thereafter, I was 
     never allowed any visits or meetings with my relatives and 
     family members.
       In November 1987, five prisoners from Guojo District in 
     eastern Tibet, imprisoned at Gutsa Prison in Lhasa, were 
     sentenced and two of them put to death. On the day of the 
     announcement of the sentences, all of the prisoners of Gutsa 
     Prison (near Sangyip) were ordered to attend. The two 
     prisoners who were sentenced to death were told by the 
     Chinese police that since the were to be executed in two 
     days, they should sing loudly and dance in front of the crowd 
     of other prisoners. They were forced to comply with this 
     order with their iron leg and hand shackles on. Many 
     prisoners cried spontaneously and even the Tibetan officials 
     looked saddened by the spectacle. I was told this story by a 
     number of nuns and others who were in that prison at that 
     time. Such a sorry state of affairs clearly shows that there 
     really are no rights at all for prisoners in Tibet.
       In another incident around that time, police guards at 
     Gutsa Prison repeatedly raped nun political prisoners then 
     sexually violated them with electric cattle-prods. Before 
     thrusting the cattle-prod into the sexual organ of one, the 
     assailant said, ``You have not yet experienced this.'' The 
     name of this prison guard is Sonam Tsering; he was still on 
     duty when I escaped from Tibet. Such is the conduct of the 
     police, who we are also told are humanitarians.
       Mr. Chairman, I was transferred from Outidu Prison to the 
     nearby Drapchi Prison, known as the ``Tibet Autuonmous 
     Region'' Number One Prison on October 13, 1990. Immediately 
     upon my arrival, the chief administrator of the prison's 
     Fifth Unit, a man named Paljor, asked me, ``I see you have 
     been imprisoned three times. What brought you here this 
     time?'' I replied, ``I was arrested because I had put up 
     posters saying Tibet is an independent country, separated 
     from China.''
      He replied, ``I will give you Tibetan independence.'' He 
     then proceeded to give me a number of vicious kicks and 
     intermittently jabbed the electric cattle-prod on various 
     parts of my body. Finally, after about half an hour, he 
     rammed the cattle-prod into my mouth and pushed it in with 
     great force. I passed out. When I regained consciousness, 
     I found myself in a pool of blood and excrement and in 
     extreme pain. No medical treatment was given. I lost most 
     of my teeth.
       In April 1991, Ambassador James Lilley, then Ambassador to 
     China, came to visit the Drapchi Prison. I, along with some 
     of my fellow prisoners, presented him with a petition 
     detailing the torture and suffering at the prison. But it was 
     snatched away from his hand and given over to the head of 
     prison administration. After the ambassador left, two 
     political prisoners, Lobsang Tenzin and Tenpa Wangdak, were 
     detained in solitary confinement while being interrogated. 
     Together with three other prisoners, they were later 
     transferred to the Powo Tramo Laogai Camp in southeastern 
     Tibet. That day, the Army was called in and all of us 
     political prisoners were beaten with rifle butts or stabbed 
     with bayonets. The sticks and electric prods used to beat us 
     were almost all broken from the verocity of the beatings. 
     Ngawang Kunga, a political prisoner, was beaten until he lost 
     consciousness with an iron chain used to tie a prisoner's 
     legs. Ngawang Phuljung lost consciousness after he was beaten 
     with a rifle butt to his temple. Phurbu Tsering was stabbed 
     with a bayonet, causing a deep vertical cut in the back of 
     his head which bled tremendously. The list of those beaten is 
     too long to enumerate. The latter two are still in the same 
     prison today.
       I would humbly request, Mr. Chairman, that in the future 
     visits to the prisons by US officials, that there be 
     substantial follow-up to ensure that these sorts of 
     atrocities are not committed against political prisoners who 
     are simply trying to provide information about the true 
     situation and conditions of prisons in Tibet.
       I have recounted only a few instances of the inhumane 
     atrocities committed against Tibetan prisoners in the Laogai. 
     Tibetans still continue to be subjected to untold terrors day 
     and night, and I appeal to your conscience to seek their 
     freedom. Many instances of brutal ill-treatment of prisoners 
     in Drapchi Prison in Tibet have come to light recently. In 
     June 1993, for example, fourteen nuns were found to have 
     clandestinely composed and recorded a freedom song, resulting 
     in a brutal beating. A 20-year-old nun named Phuntsok Yangkyi 
     died. The other thirteen suffered varying degrees of 
     permanent physical impairments, with one 18-year-old nun 
     named Ngawang Sangdol having both hands deformed.
       Despite the sweltering heat and the fetid atmosphere, 
     prisoners are required to remain in the greenhouses all day, 
     year round, to grow vegetables and sell them in the market in 
     Lhasa. While not being paid for their 
     [[Page E776]]  work, the prisoners who fail to fulfill their 
     quotas are punished and liable to have their prison terms 
     extended. The health of many prisoners has been effected by 
     continual exposure to the greenhouse atmosphere, rendering 
     them barely conscious of the surroundings.
       On August 25, 1992, I finished my prison term and was 
     finally released from prison. Thirteen days later I escaped 
     from Tibet. Before escaping, I made arrangements to acquire 
     some of the instruments of torture in order to show them to 
     the outside world. I have brought a few of them here to show 
     to you. One is the type of electric cattle-prod that was 
     rammed into my mouth and also the sexual organs of nun 
     political prisoners. This is the type of thumb-cuff that is 
     used to tie the detaineees diagonally across their backs by 
     the thumbs. This is one of the special type of knives used by 
     the Chinese police to stab prisoners. These are just some of 
     the torture instruments used in the Laogai of Tibet.
       Mr. Chairman, the Tibetan people have been suffering under 
     the repressive Chinese rule since 1949. Thousands and 
     thousands of innocent Tibetans have lost their lives and the 
     six million that remain are struggling to keep the Tibetan 
     culture alive under very difficult conditions.
       As the power dynamics in Beijing shift over the next 
     several months, there will be a tremendous opportunity for 
     the international community to foster a more democratic 
     society in China. I appeal to you and to the United States 
     government to remain vigilant in your effort to hold China 
     accountable for its actions against the Tibetan people.
       Just a few weeks ago, I testified before the United Nations 
     High Commission on Human Rights, where a resolution 
     condemning China's human rights violations against both 
     Tibetan and Chinese people was narrowly defeated. This was a 
     very important effort, and I humbly urge your government to 
     return to Geneva next year with a renewed effort concerning 
     human rights in Tibet and China. I sincerely believe that 
     unless there is strong international condemnation of the 
     Chinese government's treatment of the Tibetan people, they 
     will continue to commit such horrors as described earlier 
     against innocent political prisoners who insist on the 
     fundamental rights of freedom of speech, association, and 
     religion, as well as the recognized right of self-
     determination.
       I am exceedingly grateful to you Mr. Chairman, and to all 
     members of this Committee, as well as all others for 
     listening to this short description of my life in the Laogai 
     in Tibet. I am only one of the few lucky ones who survived 
     and managed to escape to the outside world. Many of my 
     friends and other political prisoners died in the prisons and 
     Laogai in Tibet. With them also went the story of their 
     untold sufferings.
       I thank you Mr. Chairman. Tashi deleg!
       

                          ____________________