Tibetan lama dodges Chinese bullet
By Julian Gearing

A controversial Tibetan lama - to China he's a subversive and a terrorist and to many Tibetans a saint and patriot - has been spared execution, a bullet to the back of the head. A Chinese court on Wednesday commuted the death sentence of Lama Tenzin Delek to life imprisonment, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

China, not wanting a martyr on its hands, already had suspended the lama's death sentence for two years; that period expired this week, and the persisting prospect of martyrdom and the unrest it might generate in Tibet may well have contributed to the decision to commute. International outrage and appeals also may have played a part in China's decision. Still, a life sentence, even a few years in a Chinese prison, is considered by many to be, in effect, a sentence of death, or suffering and disability.

"We're happy that Chinese officials finally followed some of their own rules when it came to commuting Tenzin Delek's sentence," said Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch (HWR) based in New York. "Every other aspect of his arrest and detention has violated international norms."

The lama, now held in a prison in Sichuan province, had been convicted by a Chinese court on bombing charges. But even commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment indicates that Beijing is intent on breaking the bonds that bind Tibetan lamas to their Buddhist schools, prompting fears for the future of authentic and vibrant religion in Tibet. His attendant was convicted along with him in December 2002 and executed for a bombing in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Lama Tenzin Delek was little known outside of the Lithang Mountains of eastern Tibet until a death sentence for a bomb explosion in Chengdu threw him into the international limelight two years ago. The 54-year-old Tibetan lama has become the "poster boy" of Tibetan exiles and their supporters protesting human-rights abuses in Tibet; they have been demonstrating around the world through candlelight vigils and hunger strikes, demanding his release.

Life imprisonment was expected as the most likely option, according to some observers. Xinhua hinted as much in a recent report, quoting the prison authorities, saying the Tibetan lama had behaved well during the two-year reprieve, and that his sentence was likely to be commuted. But if the treatment of his fellow Tibetan prisoners is anything to go by, any lengthy sentence for the lama could amount to a virtual death sentence, even if he were to be released early.

Lama Tenzin has become a pawn in a Chinese government crackdown on the Buddhist school hierarchy in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and neighboring ethnic-Tibetan regions, according to observers. If Beijing is not "cutting off the head of the snake", it is severely curtailing the activities of lamas and monks, reducing most monasteries and religious institutions in mere showpieces. At the top of Beijing's list of forbidden activities is expression of loyalty to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

This may be one of the reasons Lama Tenzin ran afoul of the Chinese authorities. Lama Tenzin is recognized by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a leading lama in Lithang, an ethnic-Tibetan area of Sichuan province. But the Chinese authorities call him a "terrorist". Together with his relative and attendant Lobsang Dondrup, he was sentenced to death in December 2002 for "crimes including explosions" in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province adjacent to the Tibetan Plateau. Both men claimed innocence. Attendant Dondrup was executed on the day a court rejected both men's appeals. Lama Tenzin was given a two-year reprieve on that day. Despite the commutation, his supporters are still worried.

The Chinese Communist Party leadership claims it must be vigilant in cracking down on enemies of the state in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. What this means is tightening control on dissent, particularly in the "Wild West" - Tibet and the largely Muslim western region of Xinjiang. As Colin Mackerras, an expert on Tibetan affairs, put it, the Chinese authorities are "obsessed with separatism and terrorism".

But in the targeting of Lama Tenzin, another game plan is emerging - to nullify Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet as a powerful religious force with political adherents, some of whom want Tibetan independence, or at least genuine autonomy.

Lama Tenzin's undoing lies in his loyalty to the Dalai Lama, the man recognized by most Tibetans as their spiritual leader and the acting head of the Gelukpa Buddhist lineage. China is trying to sever the ties binding Tibetan lamas to their religious schools and also to the high lamas who lead those institutions. Tibetans claim their religion's strength lies in its lineage system - unbroken lines of reincarnated lamas passing on a system of Buddhist practice intended to help practitioners along the path to enlightenment.

But with the leaders of the major Tibetan Buddhist schools having fled into exile and often being portrayed as a threat to the integrity of China, Beijing and local communist officials are forcefully cutting the links, according Tibetan and foreign observers. In many cases this means the harassment, arrest, torture and conviction of lamas and their followers, this lama's case representing the highly visible tip, but only the tip, of the iceberg.

Just what could happen to Lama Tenzin may be seen in the fate of monk Tashi Phuntsog, described as Tenzin's "right-hand man", who was arrested 10 days after Tenzin. Phuntsog is a "broken man", according to HWR's Adams. The imprisoned monk, who had served two years and nine months of a seven-year sentence, before he was released on January 6, suffered serious physical deterioration in prison and is no longer able to walk or to speak clearly, said Adams. Others who were detained in the crackdown on Lama Tenzin have also suffered severe beatings. One village elder was reported to barely be able to walk and to have trouble seeing and eating after he was released early from his imprisonment.

Tibetan exiles claim Lama Tenzin's trial was a sham. "He was arrested and one of his attendants, Lobsang Dondrup, executed in a framed-up charge that they were involved in several cases of bomb explosions," said Thubten Samphel, spokesman for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, referring to their April 2002 arrest. "They were not given a fair trial and the authorities were unable to produce incontrovertible evidence to support their case."

Tibetan sources claim that both men were beaten to extract confessions and that during their trial, which was held in secret, at least one of them had to be gagged for speaking out. Thierry Dodin, the director of the Tibet Information Network in London, told Asia Times Online that when foreign governments protested the arrest of Lama Tenzin, "the Chinese authorities responded by claiming this was a case of terrorism" and that state secrets were involved - hence the closed-door trial. Over a period of a couple of years there had been several small bomb explosions and distribution of pro-Tibet independence leaflets in Sichuan province, including the mountainous area of Kham, east of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, which is considered by Tibetans to be part of Tibet.

This was not the first time Lama Tenzin had had a run in with the authorities. The local religious leader was born as A-ngag Tashi to a nomad family in Lithang in 1950, the year the People's Liberation Army began its "peaceful liberation" of Tibet. At the age of seven, he joined a monastery and is said to have tried to persevere in his religious studies, though eventually he had to leave to study in secret. Unlike the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet during the Lhasa Uprising in 1959, the young monk remained during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, when thousands of monasteries were destroyed and many monks lost their lives.

In the more enlightened era of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who came to power after Mao's death in 1976, a window of opportunity opened to rebuild the traumatized communities and religious institutions in Tibet, after a public apology by at least one Chinese leader for the "excesses". In May 1980, Chinese premier Hu Yaobang apologized to the Tibetans for the violence and the desecration of their religious sites on a visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Lama Tenzin took the risk of building small schools, clinics, an orphanage and old people's homes, and attempted to protect the forested mountains from being logged in China's industrialization drive. He built a monastic center and several small religious centers, attracting hundreds of disciples and widespread support among local people at a time when the Chinese government was consolidating its control of Tibetan areas, struggling to reduce monastic influence, reinforce secular authority and change the demographics by encouraging or forcing ethnic Hans to migrate, reducing the proportion of Tibetans.

Pragmatism was Lama Tenzin's approach. He tried to work with the authorities rather than against them. Many lamas in Tibet and ethnic-Tibetan areas of China, to the east and northeast of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, do try to work with the local officials and reach some accommodation. As one lama living in Europe who runs aid projects in Tibet put it, "One has to work with the Chinese authorities; it is better to get along than work in opposition."

But pressure from the local authorities forced Lama Tenzin in 1982 to go to India, where he was recognized by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a late lama and teacher in the Orthok area, Geshe Adon Phuntsog, and given the name Tenzin Delek. The Dalai Lama periodically recognizes "reborn" lamas of the Gelukpa sect, and Lama Tenzin is not unusual in his elevation. He returned to Tibet in 1987, after studying in Drepung Monastery in southern India, because he believed the situation in Tibet had improved.

But on Lama Tenzin's return to Tibet, it was not long before he fell afoul of China's mercurial politics. The liberal era of Deng Xiaoping ended with his death in 1997, allowing for tighter control by the "center". By the late 1990s, the campaign had been stepped up to divorce lamas in Tibet from their exiled leadership and bring them under official control. Beijing had also begun playing politics with the recognition of leading lamas, kidnapping the young boy recognized by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, second in line to the Tibetan spiritual leader, and installing its own "Living Buddha", as they call perceived reincarnated lamas.

The resurgence of religion in Tibet sparked fears in Beijing about threats to its control and resulted in policies to crack down on restive, dissident and disobedient lamas and the population. "One reason could be that there has been a tremendous religious revival in Eastern Tibet," said Samphel, spokesman for the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala. "This revival is attributed to the late Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and individuals like Tenzin Delek Rinpoche. Any loyalty to individuals and forces besides loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party makes the authority nervous."

Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok is a case in point. The popular lama who died last January, aged 70, grabbed the opportunity offered by the liberalization of religious policies after the Cultural Revolution in 1980 to set up the Serthar Buddhist Institute in eastern Tibet, which eventually attracted about 7,000 Tibetan, as well as Han Chinese and foreign, Buddhist followers. It was unique in that it offered the teachings of all four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, with an emphasis on teachings and debate, as well as the arts and literature. For a time, the center even enjoyed official approval as a "patriotic" institution.

But in early 2001, the authorities began to dismantle the center and drive away the monks, and since the death of the main teacher, there is reportedly little activity at the center. The Chinese authorities have been working to break down institutional Tibetan Buddhism and put it under the yoke of secular control. It is much like the approach they take to Christianity, cracking down on the "underground" Catholic Church that swears loyalty to the pope, but allowing Catholic worship by officially recognized groups that distance themselves from the Vatican.

Although China has a constitution that states there is freedom "to believe or not believe in religion" and apparent safeguards for religion, there is a wide gap between what is in print and what is allowed in practice. On the surface, worshippers can be seen spinning prayer wheels at temples and pilgrims prostrating their way to Lhasa. Behind the scenes, the people are being watched, and possessing and displaying a photo of the Dalai Lama is considered a sign of dissent.

Lama Tenzin's downfall was his growing popularity and his dogged insistence on loyalty to the Dalai Lama. The crux was the lineage link - "unbroken lines of reincarnated leaders".

According to Mickey Spiegel of Human Rights Watch, which last year published a report on Lama TenzinˇŻs case, the Chinese authorities are determined to replace monastic influence with secular authority. Efforts are being made to exacerbate differences within the individual Tibetan Buddhist schools.

"The crackdown began in the Tibet Autonomous Region after the Third Forum in 1994 and gradually moved eastward to Tibetan-populated areas, particularly in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces," he told Asia Times Online. "Building of new monasteries was strictly controlled, a cap was placed on the total number of monks and the number at each monastery and the Chinese authorities made sure monastic leaders had been vetted for patriotism."

What "patriotism" means is loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. "A patriotic education campaign that began in 1996 in the monasteries insisted that monks renounce the Dalai Lama, support the Chinese-chosen Panchen Lama, the second-highest religious personage in Tibetan Buddhism, and sign a statement acknowledging that Tibet had always been a part of China," said Spiegel. "If a monk refused, he was expelled. Before it was only political support for the Dalai Lama that got you into trouble. By 1995-96, the authorities also targeted support for him as a religious figure. In his case, the religious was political."

All monks after 1996 were required and forced to give statements explicitly insulting the Dalai Lama, and then were given official registration cards enrolling them as "official" monks. Some monks went along, some were expelled, and some fled to India.

Spiegel said Tenzin Delek refused to go along. "He went on building monasteries and supporting the Dalai Lama. He went on upholding and enhancing Tibetan social and cultural institutions, including the Tibetan language, schools and medicine. And he went on winning the hearts and minds of the local population at the expense of local officials. Not only did they lose face, but they could not deliver the results that central authorities were demanding."

In a taped statement made in June 2000, prior to his arrest, and smuggled out of Tibet, Lama Tenzin said that everything he did to help the community and revive his religion the authorities "considered a crime". Pictures and titles were out, he claimed. He said they told him, "You cannot have photos of the 14th Dalai Lama, the young Panchen Lama, or pictures of yourself." And they complained, "The pictures are getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and you cannot do that. And you cannot have a lama's title."

What is clear is that the Chinese authorities want to offer a tough lesson through their persecution of Lama Tenzin. Loyalty to Beijing is called for, not loyalty to the man they call a "separatist", the Dalai Lama. 

As the Chinese government imposes a new but more subtle "cultural revolution" on the Tibetans, Spiegel of Human Rights Watch had predicted the life sentence. "It would cause too much of an international storm and is totally unnecessary," he said this week.

Despite the commutation, prospects for Lama Tenzin look bleak. Given his age, and the way prison authorities often treat Tibetan inmates, he may not survive. If Lama Tenzin endures, he may stumble out on the day of his release as a broken man.

Julian Gearing has covered conflicts and religion in Asia for more than 20 years.

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