In August 2006, two young Tibetan women left their hillside village in Biru county to make their way to Dharamsala, India. Frustrated by their inability to practice the tenets of Buddhism or Tibetan culture under oppressive Chinese rule, best friends Dolma and Kelsang were determined to secure their right to freedom and sought comfort in the fact that they might seek counsel with their exiled spiritual leader, his Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Through a secretive underground network of Tibetan guides, the two friends, along with four dozen other refugees, embarked on a perilous journey that would lead them to Nepal along a dangerous former trade route: the Nangpa La Path, through Cho Oyu Mountain. On September 30, 2006, after weeks of harrowing travel, as they were nearing the border of Nepal, the band of refugees was fired at by the Chinese Army Guards. Kelsang, sick, frost-bitten, and delirious in the high altitude was struck by a bullet from behind. Her death was not unusual in its circumstance: Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. What was unusual on this freezing September morning was that a gaggle of Western climbers, stationed on Cho Oyu's advance base camp, had silently witnessed the event.
In "Murder in the High Himalayas", intrepid journalist Jonathan Green investigates the clash of cultures at the rooftop of the world. As he gains entrance to a fascinating network of Tibetan guides and safe-houses operating in the name of freedom, investigates the tradition of extreme mountaineering in Chinese-occupied Tibet, and establishes contact with surviving refugees (including Dolma), he affects a rare, and lasting parable for the plight of modern Tibet.
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