Lhodrag, Tibet, China
They had been walking now for three days, but Major Choedrak knew the worst was still to come.
He had planned two routes out. The longer was to the south-west to Gangtok in Sikkim, 400 kilometres from Lhasa. In the old days, a single runner could do the journey in six days. With Togden, it could take them up to a month. This was the way Choedrak had wanted to go, because once in India he believed Togden would be safe. His second choice was to go due south to the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan, a journey they could do in five days, if they pushed it hard, which was what the men had been trained to do.
After escaping into the mountains south of Lhasa, Choedrak led the party south-west down the Yarlung Tsangpo Brahmaputra river valley to Chushul, a strategic town at the intersection of the four main highways linking central, western and southern Tibet. It also had a key bridge with a strong Chinese military presence around it. They crossed the bridge with false papers in the early morning of 4 May. Two hours later, SFF units in Chusul attacked Chinese military positions and blew up the bridge, cutting off the main route of pursuit. More units pinned down Chinese trying to cross the river by boat, holding them back until all the Tibetans were dead. As word of the battle in Chusul spread through the community, spontaneous uprisings broke out in all towns in southern Tibet. Hundreds were killed, but thousands of Chinese troops were tied up in crushing rebellions, giving Choedrak the precious space he needed for the escape.
Choedrak kept twenty men with him, putting ten ahead and ten behind at all times. The next centre after Chusul was Gongkar on the banks of Yarlung Tsangpo Brahmaputra, where the Chinese air force kept a squadron of SU-27 ground-attack aircraft. As they hurried south, Choedrak’s men fought skirmishes with approaching Chinese troops. Sometimes whole villages would turn out as human barricades across the road to stop armoured vehicles. Once, as they reached the pass in sight of the Yamdrok Tso lake, they heard small arms fire of close combat behind them. Chinese mortar shells killed two Tibetans in the party and wounded another, who took cyanide rather than be captured or delay the party more. It was then that Choedrak decided to strike out due south to seek sanctuary in Bhutan, which was less than 100 kilometres away. The mountain passes were higher, the weather fouler and the refuge less certain.
The Yamdrok Tso was considered by Tibetans to be sacred, a beautiful expanse of blue, grey and white water covering more than 750 square kilometres. They found communities so remote that they were able to rest for a few hours in warmth and recover their strength. When the villagers guessed who Togden was, they vowed that not one Chinese soldier would pass through while any man in the village was still alive. The party headed along a vast high-altitude depression towards the town of Nagartse, which was on the Lhasa — Gyantse highway. This had become the headquarters for the search operation to find Togden. They had another 1,800 metres to climb in freezing temperatures and nine passes to go through before reaching Bhutan.
Choedrak gave a wide birth to Nagartse and for a whole day it seemed the Chinese had lost them. But that morning the microlights had come, then the fighter planes, not hitting them, but slowing them down, making them hide out, unable to move around. After the first air attack Choedrak gave orders for them to shoot down the micro-lights, breaking their cover, but hitting two — and hopefully deterring more from coming. They had to reach Lhodrag, and then strike out south-west to Langdo, but if the weather closed in, it could be days away, or death on the mountain. The final few kilometres of the route which Choedrak had chosen were along the Monla Karchung glacier pass. It was one of the most awesome journeys a man could make.
Parliament Building, Islamabad, Pakistan
Hamid Khan’s newly appointed ministers, a mixture of technocrats, Islamists and military officers, took the seats of the former Pakistani cabinet in the Parliament chamber. The elected members were allowed to keep their seats, although many who supported the old regime boycotted the special session. It was highly unusual for an emergency session of Parliament to be called on a Friday morning, and be addressed by a general in full military uniform. But Khan wanted to emphasize the character of his government and make his statement before the imams spoke during prayers in the mosques.
‘Pakistan was created under the concept of Hezira,’ he began. ‘It is the concept that Muslims must not live under tyranny or oppression from other people’s faith. Since the partition in 1947, the threat against Pakistan has increased many-fold. India has transformed itself from being a secular state under the Congress Party to becoming a Hindu and nuclear-armed state under Hindu nationalism.’
Khan had planned to mention Pakistan’s founders, men like Chaudhury Rahmat Ali and Mohammed Ali Jinnah, but he had accepted China’s advice to stick only to policy and avoid the use of personalities and heroes.
‘Under Hezira, Muslims remake their lives elsewhere and move from Dar-ul-Harb to Dar-ul-Islam. It is a concept which dates back to ad 622, when the Prophet travelled from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. With partition, we had hoped that there would be peace between the two countries. But that has not happened. The reasons are plentiful. Human weakness and rampant moral and economic corruption in both countries have kept Pakistani and Indian societies poor and close to war.
‘India with its much-heralded democracy has failed to provide any better life for its people than Pakistan with its rotten ruling elite, whether military or civilian. The people of Pakistan, the Cold War ally of the United States, are as pathetically poor as the people of India who proudly chose to be non-aligned. I have heard numerous wretched excuses for the state we are in. We have blamed the British for allowing partition; the Americans for betraying our alliance; the Indians for threatening our existence; the multinationals for exploiting our workforce. The new government of Pakistan has heard all the excuses, but it will no longer use them or listen to them. The hard truth is that Pakistan has been incapable of governing itself.
‘Why have Taiwan and South Korea managed their relationships with the superpowers and created decent places for their people to live in? How come Slovenia and Hungary have steered their way out of Communism and into the global village to stability and success? How can other Islamic countries like Malaysia and Jordan balance obligations towards their cultures and religions against the forces of Western influence? The answer is because the governments there think, plan and implement. From today, this is what Pakistan will do as well.’
Khan paused and noticed seats in the chamber filling up. The door at the back constantly swung open and closed as those members who were keeping an ear on the speakers in the lobby decided to come in and see for themselves.
‘I will now briefly outline the policies of the new government and then turn to the latest conflict with India.’ He rearranged his papers, allowing time for people to sit down. ‘Pakistan is now a military dictatorship and it will remain so until our economy is close to First World standards. We will follow the models of Taiwan and South Korea, whose dictatorships were far more ruthless than ours will be. We will not be euphemistic about what we are. Democracy has failed Pakistan. Our foreign policy has not protected us. Our economic policies have not made the people rich. I suggest, therefore, that you give the new government a chance.