Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet

by Jonathan Green

Book Overview

On September 30, 2006 gunfire echoed through the thin air near Advance Base Camp on Cho Oyu Mountain. Frequented by thousands of climbers each year, Cho Oyu lies nineteen miles east of Mt. Everest on the border between Tibet and Nepal. To the elite mountaineering community, it offers a straightforward summit -- a warm-up climb to her formidable sister. To Tibetans, Cho Oyu promises a gateway to freedom through a secret glacial path: the Nangpa La...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586489593
• ISBN13: 9781586489595
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

An Atrocity of Silence

This is a very difficult review for me to write. I don't know if I can fully described my emotions reading this book and do justice to the cause of the Tibetan people oppressed by the Chinese. I'll do my best. Other reviewers have laid out the story line. At the beginning of the book it seemed that there were two unrelated stories going on but soon enough the two stories (Western climbers and Tibetan refugees fleeing Tibet through Nepal) converge and Western climbers see the cold blooded murder of a Tibetan nun in the Himalaya. She was running away from Tibet to serve as a nun in India. What happened next was almost as horrifying as the murder itself- the refusal of the Western climbers to bear witness to what they had seen. They remained quiet, not wanting to put their climbing permits (issued by the Chinese) in jeopardy for the next climbing season. When I starting realizing that the Western climbers were going to turn their backs on this needless, senseless murder, i dropped the book, put my head in my hands and wept. There is no book that has ever done this to me. Only one Western climber came forward at great risk to his career as an expedition leader to bear witness to what he had seen. He was the first witness since the takeover of Tibet in the 1950's of the murder of Tibetan refugees by the Chinese. This was extraordinarily important to the Free Tibet political movement. In addition, a Romanian climber caught the entire murder with his video camera and snuck the footage out of Nepal and released it to the world. This is a book I highly recommend. I had always known that there was some type of discord going on in Tibet but I really knew nothing more. This book educated me and left me very angry with the Western climbers and the Chinese. It is a very emotional read but very much worth everyone's time. As the Western witness put it "The atrocity of silence was probably greater than the atrocity of the act itself", He was harassed by other climbers because he came forward. Hundreds of climbers witnessed that murder but only a handful would bear witness- what an atrocity.

The horrible truth of the cruelty of the Chinese in Tibet

Subtitled "Loyalty, Tragedy, and Escape from Tibet" , this book tells a harrowing true story that has received international attention. It vividly portrays an incident that occurred in September 2006 when mountaineers planning to climb Mount Cho Oyu witnessed Chinese soldiers firing on unarmed Tibetans who were trying to escape to India through Nepal. A Romanian journalist who was on the mountaineering trip filmed it and later other journalists brought this incident to the world's attention. This story and how it all played out is the subject of this engrossing book. It reads like fiction but, unfortunately, it is all true and the reality of the brutality of the Chinese in Tibet is glaringly brought to light. The book is told in chapters alternating between two points of view. We first meet two teenage Tibetan girls, one of whom is a Buddhist nun, who are determined to flee from Tibet to India, where the Dalai Lama has lived since the late 1950s. Since then, many Tibetans have made this dangerous trek over icy mountains. The Chinese try to stop these trips, arresting the refugees they catch and subjecting them to horrible tortures. But the thirst for freedom is great and there is a constant stream of people willing to pay their life savings to guides, bribe officials and face the dangers of traipsing over ice and snow in one of the most physically challenging terrains in the world. We also meet an enterprising tour guide who makes a very comfortable living escorting wealthy climbers up Mount Everest. We learn about the lucrative mountaineering business and the reluctance of the people involved in it to offer help to the refugees and offend the Chinese. The tour guide sees the murder of the young nun and risks his career to bring the story to light. I read this book with tears in my eyes. I have always known about the cruelty of the Chinese to the Tibetans but this book made it even more real. I was saddened and yet inspired by the people who are trying to bring the truth to the world. I definitely recommend this book. It expands the world in a way that makes our daily inconveniences and upsets seem lightweight. After I finished the book I did a little googling on the web about this incident. I discovered a full length documentary about it which can be watched online. Check it out: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/tibet-murder-in-the-snow/

Murder in the High Himalaya

In 2006, a video began circulating on YouTube [see comments below for links] showing Tibetan refugee's escaping across the border into Nepal while being fired upon by Chinese army goons. In the distance a lone figure falls dead on the mountain. This became known as the Nangpa La shooting, which is the story behind investigative journalist Jonathan Green's book `Murder in the High Himalaya`. It seems like a minor incident now, but Green draws in many facets and people to build a gripping and important contemporary story about Tibet, and a very personal profile of exactly what "human rights abuse" really means. Green begins with a brief introduction to the history of Tibet and the Chinese occupation in 1950. He then threads a braided human interest narrative about two main characters: Kelsang Namtso, the 17-year old girl murdered on the mountain; and Luis Benitez, an American mountain climber who witnessed it and whose life would be changed forever. Each chapter switches back and forth between the two, moving forward in time until their paths finally cross that fateful day. It reads like a novel. I don't like to use the Nazi analogy, but its true, Tibet today is like occupied Europe under the Nazis. Not Western Europe, but Eastern Europe, where things were much tougher. It makes for thrilling if not chilling reading with late-night escapes, dogs, searchlights and check-points. Internment camps, sadistic guards, torture, bribes, safe houses, underground railroads, Collaborators and Resisters, etc.. it's all real and happening today. Green's book is one of the few reliable accounts since the wall of secrecy and Tibetan culture still keep most people silent. `Murder` changed how I view Tibet, its clearly a very bad situation. As well it changed how I see wealthy mountain climbers who hoard the peaks every year in feats of egoistic bravo, while at their feet Tibetans are trying to escape to freedom and being shot. It makes climbing Everest seem somewhat banal and anti-climatic and strips it of its romanticism. The true story of Tibet is clearly not good business for China, or mountain climbing companies, all of whom collaborate to keep silent. The book is full of pseudonyms, people are afraid of being ostracized for speaking out, either from the tight-nit climbing community or by Chinese authorities. The book has been optioned to be made into a film for release in 2012, hopefully this powerful story will reach a wide audience. As the Dali Lama said, Kelsang Namtso did not die for no reason.

Emotionally draining, but what an experience!

First, let me say that reading this book was an emotionally draining experience for me. This is a murder mystery where you know that 17-year old Kelsang will end up murdered by Chinese border guards. And yet, the power of Mr Green's writing is such that you keep praying that somehow the story will end differently. Its like watching James Cameron's 'Titanic' and hoping that by some miracle, the ship doesn't actually sink. Second, Mr Green works his narrative in multiple levels. At its most obvious level, the book is about the sequence of events that conspire to bring a seasoned climber and a teenage refugee together at a crossroads in history. At another level it is about the greater struggle for Tibetan independence. And at yet another level, it is about how geopolitical forces that were set in motion by British imperialists, made this intersection almost inevitable. Third, there are no good guys in this story. There are the victims of oppression, struggling to keep an even keel, and against them are arrayed multiple forces of evil. Whether its the British of yesteryear, the Nepalese, the international climbing community, or the Chinese, no one comes out of this book looking good. In other words, if 'objectivity' is measured by the abuse each party gets, then this is the most objective book I've read in a long while. Fourth, the named 'heroes' of the book are mostly flawed individuals - one of them is accused of being a glory-hunter, while the other uses foul epithets in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Surprisingly, it is this that makes the book so compelling. The heroes are simply everyday people. Sadly most of the villains are everyday people too. It is easy to see oneself in the role of the indifferent and the uncaring, as no great distance separates most of us from the majority of climbers who were spectators to this crime, but did nothing to help. It surprised me to discover that, in the end, this book is not about refugees ... over half of the escapees it turns out, eventually return to Tibet. Instead, it is a story about what lengths a people will go to for their faith and beliefs. The trials and tribulations undergone by ordinary Tibetans to get a glimpse of the exiled Dalai Lama seem almost ludicrous to the non believer. But then how much would a believer of any faith be willing to face - if they were to be promised an audience with their own deity? In conclusion, while I highly recommend this book, I should also note that it is not for the squeamish. At multiple points in the book I had to stop reading to air out the images in my mind. There is no fairy tale ending to be found here. As you accompany these weary refugees across the inhospitable Nangpa La pass, they soon become your friends, and their challenges begin to affect you in a very personal way. Mr Green has indeed written a very compelling book. Happy Reading! ~Damodar

Lots of Levels

The main story line is about a mountain climbing expedition intersecting destiny with an escaping Buddhist nun named Kelsang. Merely telling this story would have been interesting enough, but the author goes through many interesting and worthwhile detours to add to the overall mood of the story and the book. There are valuable historical chunks, like the British involvement in Tibet and how they hired spies to map out vast regions of Tibet. There are a lot of chunks about Chinese communism and Tibet as well. The narrative style is the kind that I like, with no overt judgments being made, but instead describing many revealing events in enough detail to feel one is living there, and letting the reader draw his or her own conclusions. There is, for instance, a section on Cordyceps which was called "soft gold" because it was so valuable, and was abundant enough to be a Tibetan natural resource, with many Tibetan towns going from subsistence living to prosperity through it. There are enough descriptions of Tibetan religious life, too, to get a feeling for how Tibetan Buddhism is lived. The author quotes enough source material to indicate that he is well read on the subject. The backdrop of Buddhist quotes counterpoints the drama of the escape and how the nun got shot while escaping. All in all, a very good narrative, a hidden book on history and current events, and an indirect sharing about the life of Tibetan Buddhists in a country sometimes oppressed by a foreign political power.