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Tibet sets 'Serfs Emancipation Day'

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-19 17:16

The emancipation

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the central government originally planned to launch democratic reform and set up a preparatory committee for the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1955, acting on the appeal of local residents to abolish the thousand-year-old serf system.

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However, on Aug. 18, 1956, Mao Zedong wrote a letter to the 14th Dalai Lama, saying that it was not the right time for Tibet to undertake reform.

Rabgy, an 83-year-old veteran, remembered that time well.

A native Tibetan from the northwestern Gansu Province who joined the army in 1951, he moved to Gangba County, Xigaze, in 1956, when it was named a pioneer site for democratic reform.

In March 1957, he was notified that the trial of democracy had stopped, and he was sent to study in Shaanxi Province.

"I was told that the reform would only be launched when the nobles would really support it in addition to the public appeal," the old man said over a cup of ghee (tea) made by his wife, also a native Tibetan.

He was among the many taken by surprise in March 1959, when the Dalai Lama and some of the serf owners instigated an armed rebellion. Chinese historians believe that the rebellion was intended not just to postpone the reform, but to continue the feudal serf system forever.

Rabgy returned Lhasa the next month, only to see ruins everywhere: craters in the streets, holes left by bullets on the roof of the Ramoche Temple and water in the Jokhang Temple.

The People's Liberation Army soon quelled the rebellion and the Dalai Lama fled to India, where he established a "government in exile". Later, democratic reform was introduced to free the serfs and end their misery.

Possessions of participants in the rebellion were confiscated and given to serfs for free.

Migmar Dondrup, who now lives in a two-story house of about 400sq m, remembers when the landowners' assets were distributed.

He got 1.4 ha of land and quilts the family had never used, having slept under a piece of goat furs before the reform.

Xinza Danzengquzha, 68, a living Buddha in Nagarze, Xigaze, said: "People brought out the contracts and burned them, dancing and singing around the fire."

Also a lawmaker, the former aristocrat said he learned a lot in his work after reform, including carpentry and painting.

He later worked as an editor and translator of Tibetan books and documents. He studied for three years in Beijing and went abroad several times for research. "My horizons were broadened by reform," he said.

Meanwhile, as a living Buddha, he still performs Buddhist rites.

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