Facts about the Chinese occupation of Tibet

Last night I began reading Pico Iyer's The Open Road: the global journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. I will have more to say about the book in a later post. In the meantime, Iyer provides some facts about the Chinese occupation of Tibet which ought to help us put the destruction wrought by the recent riots in perspective:

• 1 in 5 Tibetans -- more than 1 million in all -- "died of starvation or in direct encounters with the Chinese, according to Tibetan estimates."
• 1 in 10 found himself in jail."
• "All but thirteen of the more than six thousand monasteries in Tibet were laid waste and century old scriptures were incinerated."
• "Children were forced to applaud as their parents were shot to death."