1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan Uprising , or 1959 Tibetan Rebellion began on 10 March 1959 , when a revolt erupted in Lhasa , the capital of Tibet , which had been under the effective control of the Communist Party of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951 . Although the 14th Dalai Lama ' s flight occurred in 1959 , armed conflict between Tibetan rebels and the Chinese army started in 1956 in the Kham and Amdo regions , which were subjected to socialist reform . The guerrilla warfare later spread to other areas of Tibet and lasted through 1962 . The anniversary of the uprising is observed by some Tibetan exiles as the Tibetan Uprising Day . The anniversary of its end is celebrated in Tibet as Serfs Emancipation Day . Armed resistance in east Tibet . In 1951 , a seventeen point agreement between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama was put into effect . Socialist reforms such as redistribution of land were delayed in Tibet proper . However , eastern Kham and Amdo ( western Sichuan and Qinghai provinces in the Chinese administrative hierarchy ) were outside the administration of the Tibetan government in Lhasa , and were thus treated more like other Chinese provinces , with land redistribution implemented in full . The Khampas and nomads of Amdo traditionally owned their own land . Armed resistance broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June 1956 . Pandatsang Rapga , a pro Kuomintang and pro Taiwan revolutionary Khampa leader , was instrumental in the revolt against the Communists . The Kuomintang had a history of using Khampa fighters to oppose both the Dalai Lama ' s Tibetan government , and battle the Communist Red Army . Rapga continued to cooperate with the Taiwanese Kuomintang government after it fled to Taiwan ; they provided training to Khampa rebels against the Communist PLA forces . Taiwan had a dispute with America whether Tibet would be independent , since Taiwan claimed Tibet as part of its territory . Rapga agreed to a plan in which the revolt against the Communists would include anti feudalism , land reform , a modern government , and to give power to the people . Before the Communist takeover , the relationship between the Khampa and the Dalai Lama ' s Government had deteriorated badly . As a result , the Khampa barely opposed or even joined the initial Communist assault on Chamdo . The People ' s Liberation Army had occupied Kham without much opposition from the Khampas . The relationship between the Khampa and the Tibetan Dalai Lama government in Lhasa was extremely poor at the time . Rapga offered the governor of Chamdo , Ngabo Ngawang Jigme , some Khampa fighters in exchange for the Tibetan government recognizing the independence of Kham . Ngabo refused the offer . After the defeat of the Tibetan Army in Chamdo , Rapga started mediating in negotiations between the People ' s Liberation Army and the Tibetans . Rapga and Topgay engaged in negotiations with the Chinese during their assault on Chamdo . Khampas either defected to the Chinese PLA forces or did not fight at all . The PLA succeeded in the invasion . By 1957 , Kham was in chaos . People ' s Liberation Army reprisals against Khampa resistance fighters such as the Chushi Gangdruk became increasingly brutal . Reportedly , they included beatings , starving prisoners , and the rape of prisoners ' wives in front of them until they confessed . Monks and nuns were forced to have sex with each other and forcibly renounce their celibacy vows . After torture , these men and women were often killed . By the late 1950s Tibetan rebels numbered in the tens of thousands . Kham ' s monastic networks came to be used by guerilla forces to relay messages and hide rebels . Punitive strikes were carried out by the Chinese government against Tibetan villages and monasteries . Tibetan exiles assert that threats to bomb the Potala Palace and the Dalai Lama were made by Chinese military commanders in an attempt to intimidate the guerrilla forces into submission . Lhasa continued to abide by the seventeen point agreement and sent a delegation to Kham to quell the rebellion . After speaking with the rebel leaders , the delegation instead joined the rebellion . Kham leaders contacted the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) , but the CIA under President Dwight D . Eisenhower insisted it required an official request from Lhasa to support the rebels . Lhasa did not act . Eventually the CIA began to provide covert support for the rebellion without word from Lhasa . By then the rebellion had spread to Lhasa which had filled with refugees from Amdo and Kham . Opposition to the Chinese presence in Tibet grew within the city of Lhasa . In mid - February 1959 the CCP Central Committee ’ s Administrative Office circulated the Xinhua News Agency internal report on how “ the revolts in the Tibetan region have gathered pace and developed into a nearly full - scale rebellion . ” in a “ situation report ” for top CCP leaders . When Mao Zedong read it on 18 February , he commented : The next day , the Chinese leader saw a report from the PLA General Staff ’ s Operations Department describing rebellions by Tibetans in Sichuan , Yunnan , Gansu , and Qinghai . He again stressed that “ rebellions like these are extremely favorable for us because they will benefit us in helping to train our troops , train the people , and provide a sufficient reason to crush the rebellion and carry out comprehensive reforms in the future . ” The PLA used Chinese Muslim soldiers , who formerly had served under Ma Bufang to crush the Tibetan revolt in Amdo . In Southern Kham , Hui cavalry were stationed . Lhasa Rebellion . On 1 March 1959 , an unusual invitation to attend a theatrical performance at the Chinese military headquarters outside Lhasa was extended to the Dalai Lama . The Dalai Lama — at the time studying for his lharampa geshe degree — initially postponed the meeting , but the date was eventually set for 10 March . On 9 March , the head of the Dalai Lama ' s bodyguard was visited by Chinese army officers . The officers insisted that the Dalai Lama would not be accompanied by his traditional armed escort to the performance , and that no public ceremony for the Dalai Lama ' s procession from the palace to the camp should take place , counter to tradition . According to historian Tsering Shakya , the Chinese government was pressuring the Dalai Lama to attend the National People ' s Congress in April 1959 , in order to repair China ' s image with relation to ethnic minorities after the Khampa ' s rebellion . On 7 February 1959 , a significant day on the Tibetan calendar , the Dalai Lama attended a religious dance , after which the acting representative in Tibet , Tan Guansan , offered the Dalai Lama a chance to see a performance from a dance troupe native to Lhasa at the Norbulingka to celebrate the Dalai Lama ' s completion of his lharampa geshe degree . According to the Dalai Lama ' s memoirs , the Dalai Lama agreed , but said that the Norbulingka did not have the facilities , and suggested the new auditorium in the PLA headquarters in Lhasa as a more appropriate venue . Neither the Kashag nor the Dalai Lama ' s bodyguards were informed of the Dalai Lama ' s plans until Chinese officials briefed them on 9 March , one day before the performance was scheduled , and insisted that they would handle the Dalai Lama ' s security . Some members of the Kashag were alarmed that were not also invited to lead a customary armed procession , recalling a prophecy that told that the Dalai Lama should not exit his palace . According to historian Tsering Shakya , some Tibetan government officials feared that plans were being laid for a Chinese abduction of the Dalai Lama , and spread word to that effect amongst the inhabitants of Lhasa . On 10 March , several thousand Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama ' s palace to prevent him from leaving or being removed . The huge crowd had gathered in response to a rumor that the Chinese communists were planning to arrest the Dalai Lama when he went to a cultural performance at the PLA ' s headquarters . This marked the beginning of the uprising in Lhasa , though Chinese forces had skirmished with guerrillas outside the city in December of the previous year . Although CCP officials insisted that the “ reactionary upper stratum ” in Lhasa was responsible for the rumor , there is no way to identify the precise source . At first , the violence was directed at Tibetan officials perceived not to have protected the Dalai Lama or to be pro - Chinese ; attacks on Hans started later . One of the first casualties of mob was a senior lama , Pagbalha Soinam Gyamco , who worked with the PRC as a member of the Preparatory Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region , who was killed and his body dragged by a horse in front of the crowd for two kilometres . On 12 March , protesters appeared in the streets of Lhasa declaring Tibet ' s independence . Barricades went up on the streets of Lhasa , and Chinese and Tibetan rebel forces began to fortify positions within and around Lhasa in preparation for conflict . A petition of support for the armed rebels outside the city was taken up , and an appeal for assistance was made to the Indian consul . Chinese and Tibetan troops continued moving into position over the next several days , with Chinese artillery pieces being deployed within range of the Dalai Lama ' s summer palace , the Norbulingka . On 15 March , preparations for the Dalai Lama ' s evacuation from the city were set in motion , with Tibetan troops being employed to secure an escape route from Lhasa . On 17 March , two artillery shells landed near the Dalai Lama ' s palace , triggering his flight into exile . On 19 March the Chinese started to shell the Norbulingka , prompting the full force of the Uprising . Combat lasted only about two days , with Tibetan rebel forces being badly outnumbered and poorly armed . Two American Marxist writers , Stuart and Roma Gelder , visited the Chensel Phodrang palace in the Norbulingka in 1962 and " found its contents meticulously preserved " . They did not claim that the Norbulingka had not been damaged . United States involvement . The United States funded training and arms for the guerrillas in Tibet prior to the uprising and for several years following . From 1959 to 1964 , Tibetan guerrillas were secretly trained at Camp Hale by the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) . The Tibetan project was codenamed ST Circus , and it was similar to the CIA operation that trained dissident Cubans in what later became the Bay of Pigs Invasion . In all , around 259 Tibetans were trained at Camp Hale . Some were parachuted back into Tibet to link up with local resistance groups ( most perished ) ; others were sent overland into Tibet on intelligence gathering missions ; and yet others were instrumental in setting up the CIA - funded Tibetan resistance force that operated out of Mustang , in northern Nepal ( 1959 – 1974 ) . Sino - Soviet Split . The Soviet Union offered moral support to the Tibetan rebels , saying that theirs was a " legitimate grievance " against the Chinese . Casualties . The Tibetan government - in - exile reports variously , 85 , 000 , 86 , 000 , and 87 , 000 deaths for Tibetans during the rebellion , attributed to " secret Chinese documents captured by guerrillas " . Tibetologist Tom Grunfeld said " the veracity of such a claim is difficult to verify . " Warren W . Smith , a broadcaster from Radio Free Asia , writes that the " secret documents " came from a 1960 PLA report captured by guerrillas in 1966 , with the figures first published by the TGIE in India in 1990 . Smith states that the documents said that 87 , 000 " enemies were eliminated " , but does not take " eliminated " to mean " killed " , as the TGIE does . A Tibetan Government in Exile ( TGIE ) official surnamed Samdup released a report for Asia Watch after three fact - finding missions from 1979 to 1981 , stating that a speech by premier Zhou Enlai , published in " Beijing Review " in 1980 , confirmed the 87 , 000 figure . Demographer Yan Hao could find no reference to any such figure in the published speech , and concluded , " If these TGIE sources are not reluctant to fabricate Chinese sources in open publications , how can they expect people to believe in their citations of so - called Chinese secret internal documents and speeches that are never available in originals to independent researchers ? " Aftermath . Lhasa ' s three major monasteries - Sera , Ganden , and Drepung - were seriously damaged by shelling , with Sera and Drepung being damaged nearly beyond repair . According to the TGIE , Members of the Dalai Lama ' s bodyguard remaining in Lhasa were disarmed and publicly executed , along with Tibetans found to be harbouring weapons in their homes . Thousands of Tibetan monks were executed or arrested , and monasteries and temples around the city were looted or destroyed . The CIA officer , Bruce Walker , who oversaw the operations of CIA - trained Tibetan agents , was troubled by the hostility from the Tibetans towards his agents : “ the radio teams were experiencing major resistance from the population inside Tibet . ” The CIA trained Tibetans from 1957 to 1972 , in the United States , and parachuted them back into Tibet to organise rebellions against the PLA . In one incident , one agent was immediately reported by his own brother and all three agents in the team were arrested . They were not mistreated . After less than a month of propaganda sessions , they were escorted to the Indian border and released . In April 1959 , the - 19 year - old 10th Panchen Lama , the second ranking spiritual leader in Tibet , residing in Shigatse , called on Tibetans to support the Chinese government . However , after a tour through Tibet , in May 1962 , he met Zhou Enlai to discuss a petition he had begun writing at the end of 1961 , criticising the situation in Tibet . The petition was a 70 , 000 character document that dealt with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet . In this document , he criticized the suppression that the Chinese authorities had conducted in retaliation for the 1959 Tibetan uprising . But in October 1962 , the PRC authorities dealing with the population criticized the petition . Chairman Mao called the petition " . . . a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords . " In 1967 the Panchen Lama was formally arrested and imprisoned until his release in 1977 . Chinese authorities have interpreted the uprising as a revolt of the Tibetan elite against Communist reforms that were improving the lot of Tibetan serfs . Tibetan and third party sources , on the other hand , have usually interpreted it as a popular uprising against the alien Chinese presence . Historian Tsering Shakya has argued that it was a popular revolt against both the Chinese and the Lhasa government , which was perceived as failing to protect the authority and safety of the Dalai Lama from the Chinese .