On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet
by various
University of California Press, HK$200
The defending soldiers brandished only copies of Chairman Mao's 'little red book'. But the Army of the Gods' fired-up forces fatally stabbed, hacked and speared the soldiers on a propaganda mission meant to end factional discord. All 22 members of the PLA unit perished.
The massacre happened at Bagor, in Nyemo County west of Lhasa, during Tibet's version of the Cultural Revolution 40 years ago. A Maoist sect called Gyenlo, spearheaded by one of Tibetan history's most intriguing figures, the rotund nun Trinley Chodron [sic], was responsible. Chodron, who lived alone, was always strange. 'She had mental problems,' an old neighbour is quoted as saying in On the Cultural Revolution in Tibet: The Nyemo Incident of 1969. Chodron graduated to visions of the Dalai Lama and then alleged possession by a deity related to the legendary warrior-king Gesar.
Emboldened by the PLA massacre, Chodron inspired her 'god squad' to launch another assault, on a military compound in Nyemo town. This time, the occupiers responded with rifles. Like the Boxer rebels, the firebrand nun's ragtag troops believed that, as she promised, they were bulletproof. They were not.