Chimera

“And I express my sympathies for the loss of lives, Ambassador. But apart from the geographical proximity to the Line of Actual control, what makes the attack different from all the others so far across Tibet?”

“Just that the close proximity of the attack near the border warranted a mention. It seems the Tibetan rebels have begun attacking civilian targets closer and closer to the border with India ever since our security forces began pushing them out of the cities,” Jiang concluded with a straight poker face that he was known for. Fifteen minutes later he left, and the Indian foreign-minister returned back to his office and sat back down in his chair before staring out of the windows again.

They are thinking something and its taking them in the wrong directions…

But what the hell is it that they are thinking?

HILLS OVERLOOKING THE VILLAGE OF SHIQUANHE

SOUTHWESTERN TIBET

MAY 15, 1830 HRS

The noise from random bursts of gunfire was still echoing in the hills. The sun had begun to lower under the western peaks amidst a darkening orange and red sky. And the rebels had taken a beating from PLA forces after a botched ambush had turned into a drawn out fire-fight. It had left dozens killed in the outskirts of the once pristine village. The battles had shifted now into the hills outside the village as the rebels attempted to retreat to the east, across the river that cut the village along a northeast-southwest axis. Buildings west of the river were nothing more than smoldering remains and PLA troops were everywhere, initiating movements across the river to push the rebels out from the rest of the village.

“There they go,” Gephel noted neutrally without removing his eyes from the binoculars.

“There’s a lesson in here somewhere,” Major Ngawang replied as he crept up in deliberate slow motion alongside the Lieutenant-Colonel. Both men now lay behind the rock cover at the top of a ridgeline west of the valley below. Gephel grunted his disgust at the outcome of the battle between the Tibetan rebels and the PLA.

“Absolute idiots! When will they learn what force composition is all about? You don’t engage an entire PLA battalion in conventional combat, damn it. Not when you are outnumbered ten to one!”

“In broad daylight too,” Ngawang said as he lowered his optics and looked around, seeing the rest of the combined team deployed behind them on security within the rocks and boulders. “They aren’t going to last too long with such poor tactics. At this rate this revolt will be over before it ever started. Of course, that’s where we come in,” Ngawang noted with a smile.

Gephel smiled but did not take his eyes away from the binoculars. Looking at the smoke rising into the pink colored evening skies above, he wondered about the symbolism of it all. It had started with similar symbolism several months ago…

Tibet was burning with the fires of a fledgling rebellion over the last several months. What had started as yet another season of silent protest through strikes and the few odd incidents of self-immolations had been exacerbated with rumors of the worsening condition of the Dalai Lama accelerated by his old age. The regional Chinese leaders had not helped the situation by reiterating Beijing’s stand that the future Tibetan leader would be selected by Chinese party officials, putting aside the age old traditions of the Tibetan people and their culture. And hence had started a renewed phase of struggle by the Tibetan people to free themselves from the stranglehold of Beijing that attempted to choke and snuff them out of existence.

The problem was that the Tibetan people were not equipped to fight the Chinese armed forces in Tibet on their own terms. Weapons and equipment were barely available and mostly obsolete. So much of that had been smuggled across the Himalayas by Tibetan rebels staging from India. This had not pleased the party leaders in Beijing very much and the relationship with New-Delhi was strained. The New-China-News-Agency, or NCNA, was blasting anti-India and anti-Tibetan vitriolic daily over the airwaves across China. And the Dalai-Lama’s condition did not allow him to urge for peace within his people. Beijing saw this as conditional approval on his part to the rebels and their actions. The rebels saw it the same way. The rebellion had become stronger as a result, and now the PLA was cracking down as well. The PLA had rushed massive reinforcements to the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, a as it was called. And the result was that the Tibetan rebels were on the verge of being defeated…