Quadsville

“This hunger strike is our last resort,” said Tseten Zöchbauer, 50, president of the Tibetan Community in Austria.

From Aug. 21 to 31, Zöchbauer and Jamyang, 25, a Tibetan exile, led a hunger strike from a tent in Schwedenplatz to raise awareness of the plight of Tibetans persecuted and imprisoned by the Chinese government.

"I drink only water, and in the morning I drink I little tea,” Jamyang said. “But we cannot eat."

The group has three demands of world governments: Station an international human rights commission in Tibet; appoint a mediator who can achieve serious results in the negotiations between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government; and limit the immigration of Han-Chinese into Tibet.

Austrian Secretary of State Hans Winkler met with the hunger strikers last week. Zöchbauer asked why Austria and other nations couldn’t inflict economic sanctions on China if improvements in human rights are not met.

“He got very silent when I asked him that,” Zöchbauer said.

Lying on a cot, body and voice weakened by more than a week of fasting, she lamented that foreign governments, although supportive of Tibet’s cause, “weren't able to change anything these 50 years."

Zöchbauer claims Tibetans arrested after the March 14th anti-China protests in Llasa are being held in work camps until their families can pay police a ransom of about 3000 Yen (about $500). It would take an average Tibetan family two years to save that amount, she said, adding that Tibetans are prohibited from exchanging foreign currency, so sympathizers abroad cannot help them.

"What we hear from friends and family are, 'Don't let us down.' They are very afraid China will punish them for all the protests around the Olympics,” said Zöchbauer.

There are about 300 Tibetans living in Austria, the vast majority of whom are young adults who have arrived in the last two years and are still in the asylum process.

Zöchbauer hopes the hunger strike, which culminated in a 12-hour world-wide fast and prayer service on Saturday, emphasized the urgency of the Tibetan situation.

“It should wake people up that people are starving for something," Zöchbauer said.

(A shorter version of this story was published in German in Der Standard on Sept. 1, 2008.)