NEW DELHI, India -- The two teenage girls were best friends. In their tiny farming village in Tibet, they had stayed up late many nights over four years plotting their escape.
Kelsang Namtso had become a Buddhist nun just last year, at the tender age of 16. Her friend, Dolma Palkyi, 16, wanted to go to India, and meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, before taking her vows.
Dolma says she managed to save nearly $1,400 for the arduous journey through the Himalayas. Half would go to the smugglers. In early September, the girls loaded their backpacks with yak butter, cheese, and barley, and finally set off.
Seventeen days later, Kelsang lay dying in the snow after an attack, captured by Western tourists' cameras, that is becoming an international incident and a stain on China's human rights record.
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China takes heat... from The Christian Science Monitor
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