BBC Documentary

BBC Documentary.



Nangpa La Shootings


Who saw the documentary on BBC2 on the 10th November? This horrific story highlighted the horrific lengths that Chinese Border Guards go to stop Tibetans leaving Chinese Tibet, that happened in September 2006.

The Tibetans were aged from 14-22 and at least 7 of them were shot whilst coming down from the mountains after buying safe passage out of the country. I was very sad watching the documentary and saddened by what had happened. Perhaps they shouldn’t have been trying to flee their country, but if they felt that their human rights were being abused, if they were being denied the basic right of an education surely they doing the right thing?

The whole incident was captured by a Romanian cameraman on expedition in the Himalayas and by many other mountaineers looking at climbing Cho Oyu from Nangpa La. Very traumatic for them, but none of them told the outside word immediately it happened. Only when one of them talked to a friend back in the USA did the story start to come out. I hope that none of the mountaineers overlooked the incident, purely concentrating on their goal of climbing a mountain. As Alan Hinkes always said, no mountain is worth a life. And I’ll add whether that is a life of a mountaineer or the life of some young people seeking to better themselves no mountain is worth a life.

No one could have intervened at the incident, the Chinese Government were called to account over the incident and said it was up to them how they protect their borders. I don’t think so. I felt traumatised and very sad that such a thing could happen in such a beautiful place as the Himalayan Mountains.



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