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National Geographic : 2002 Apr
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welcome us with open arms." They didn't understand either how numb ing it must be for people with an ancient culture to realize that their country is permanently occupied by what they consider to be a foreign government, or how disquieting it is when a convoy of olive-drab trucks loaded with grim-faced armed Chinese troops rumbles past a village. I passed these convoys on several occasions, and each time I noticed that the Tibetans on the roadside would glance up, then quickly look away, fearful of making eye contact with a Chinese soldier. A sign of why Tibetans resent the Chinese can be seen, at a distance, in the form of brick-and-stone-walled compounds sprinkled across the Tibetan Plateau-the laogai, "reform through labor" camps. Statistics on the prisoners in these camps are almost meaningless: Beijing claims that in 1995 there were 685 camps holding 1.2 million prisoners throughout China. Harry Wu, a former inmate now living in the U.S. and known around the world for his indefatigable struggle against the Chinese authorities, insists there are nearly twice as many camps and up to eight million prisoners across the country. Perhaps 10 percent of them are held for their political activities. According to Wu, camps in the TAR hold some 4,000 Tibetans, and countless thousands more are imprisoned in neighboring provinces. He says the Tibetans, along with TIBETANS
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