Tibet Information Network

London, 31 July (TIN)Monks in at least three rural monasteries in central Tibet refused to co-operate with political re-education teams last month, according to unofficial reports from the area.

Re-education teams are carrying out three-month residencies in all Tibetan monasteries as part of a programme which began in May last year to instruct monks and nuns in patriotism under the slogan "Love the Country, Love Religion".

In Gongkar county a monk has been arrested after his colleagues disrupted a re-education meeting by refusing to give written denunciations of the Dalai Lama, while in Nyemo county a group of monks has been locked into their monastery for at least three weeks for refusing to co-operate. In Tsethang county a small monastery has been closed down after its monks walked out en masse in protest at re- education demands.

Over 300 monks and nuns have sought asylum in Nepal and India this year, nearly three times the number in the same period last year, partly to avoid the demands of re-education officials, several of whom are now reported to be carrying arms.

The monk detained last month for protesting against a political re-education team was 20-year old Jampel Tendar, a member of Choede monastery in Gongkar county, Lhokha Prefecture.

Jampel Tendar was detained on 16th June after he put up handwritten posters around the monastery, 60 km south of Lhasa. The posters declared support for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence, according to informed sources in the area, and included a drawing of the Tibetan flag, which is outlawed in Tibet.

Jampel Tendar put up the posters after the Gongkar Choede monks disrupted an evening meeting at which the 78 monks of the monastery were expected to sit an examination and give written statements supporting China's policy on religion and criticising the Dalai Lama.

The 28-person team of officials from the local Communist Party had been stationed at the monastery for several months teaching the monks the correct answers to the examination questions.

A copy of the 24 questions due to be put to the monks shows that question two required the monks to list "the four aspects of the Dalai as defined by Comrade Li Ruihuan", China's chief party official in charge of religious affairs.

The copy obtained by TIN, which was issued by a local re-education team in Lhokha on 25th May, gives the answers which the monks are supposed to have memorised. The correct answer to question two is that the Dalai is "the head of the serpent and the chieftain of the separatist organisation conspiring for independence for Tibet", "an unmistakable tool of the international forces opposed to China", "the root cause of social instability in Tibet", and "the biggest obstacle to the establishment of normal order in Tibetan Buddhism".

There were unofficial reports earlier this year that the requirement to criticise the Dalai Lama personally had been dropped in a bid to avoid antagonising Tibetans.

The Gongkar Choede monks are said to have chanted prayers for the Dalai Lama during the meeting instead of denouncing him, and to have rejected claims that China has allowed religious freedom and that the state had financed the monastery's reconstruction. The monks reportedly argued that religious freedom had been introduced by the Buddha not by the Chinese, and said that their monastery had been restored with funds raised from local devotees after being destroyed on orders from the Chinese authorities.

At least fifteen of the monks joined a protest during the meeting, but details of the incident were not available.

Jampel Tendar, whose layname is Migmar, was held overnight at the monastery and taken to prison in Tsethang, the prefectural capital of Lhokha, on the morning of 17th June, an indication that his case is being treated as a serious offence.

Gongkar Choede, which was partially restored in the late 1980s after destruction 30 years ago, is an important monastery of the Sakya school founded in 1464, and is noted as the birthplace of a 16th century style of painting known as Khyenri. The involvement of Sakya monks in the protest suggests that support for the Dalai Lama is much wider than the Gelugpa school, with which he is primarily associated.

There were similar cases of monks detained last year for protesting against re-education programmes in the major monasteries of Ganden, Drepung, Sera, Chamdo, Drayab and Sakya, and in at least four of those cases monks were reported to have died in custody or during arrest.

Monks Leave Monastery in Protest -

Two days after the arrest of Jampel Tendar at Gongkar Choede about 20 monks at another monastery in Lhokha staged a walk-out and closed down their monastery in protest at demands by a political re-education team, according to a separate source from the area.

All the monks of Samdrubling monastery, situated in Tsethang county in Lhokha prefecture, 85 km east of Gongkar Choede, walked out on 18th June after a work team began re-education classes in the monastery.

The monks decided to close down the monastery when local Party officials instructed them to criticise the Dalai Lama and to denounce the pro-independence movement, announcing that they preferred to return to their homes rather than oppose the Dalai Lama, which they said would constitute a breach of their "refuge" vows. The basic daily practice in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism involves a declaration known as "taking refuge" in the lama or teacher, similar to a vow of loyalty.

The monks also told the team that their monastery, which is some 90 km south-east of Lhasa, had been rebuilt without government funds or assistance, according to the source, who asked not to be named. The remark suggests that resistance to the re-education team demands may be stronger in privately-funded and unofficial monasteries than in government-sponsored institutions.

The incident appears to have led to high-level political concern, according to the source, who said that Tenzin, a deputy secretary in the Tibet Communist Party, had visited the area when informed of the incident by the authorities in Lhokha prefecture.

Tenzin, the top party official with responsibility for propaganda and education in the Tibet region, arrived with a large escort of officials and announced that the monks should return to their monastery, said the source. The report could not be confirmed.

There were numerous reports last year of walk-outs by individual monks who objected to the re-education programme, and of mass refusals to denounce the Dalai Lama, but the Samdrubling report is the first account of a total boycott. It brings to 50 the number of reports of monasteries or nunneries undergoing political education since the campaign began in May last year.

Most of the reports come from monks or nuns escaping to Nepal and India to avoid the re-education campaign. At least 320 monks and nuns sought refuge in Nepal or India in the first five months of this year, nearly three times the number in the same period last year.

In Nyemo county, about 100 km west of Lhasa, monks at the small monastery of Lingkhang are reported to have been locked into the monastery buildings by officials after they refused to sign a denunciation of the Dalai Lama. Lingkhang monastery was sealed off by officials in early June, according to a tourist who was in the area. The monastery, which is close to Nyemo town, has nine or ten monks, said the source, who asked not to be named.

The Lingkhang monks were reportedly told that they would be allowed out only if they agreed to sign the patriotic education declarations. The lock-in had lasted three weeks without the monks conceding to pressure when the western visited the area one month ago, said the tourist, who asked not to be named.

In Jonang Phuntsogling, 100 km west of Shigatse, some 15 monks in a local monastery have refused to co-operate with the education team and have walked out from their monastery, according to another European tourist who was in the area in early June. The monks were said to be in hiding from the police or trying to escape to Nepal.

An American tourist who visited the area in early May confirmed that re-education teams were active in the area, and added that a team of four cadres was stationed in the remote Jonang Kumbum, a fourteenth century tower-reliquary two hours walk south of Phuntsogling, which houses about ten monks.

The Jonang Kumbum monks "were frantic with worry" when the tourists walked near the classroom used by the re-education team. "It looked as though the monks had been threatened with something if their guests broke the rules," said the tourist.

Education Team Cadres Armed -

In several monasteries the re-education teams are now known to be carrying arms, according to eye-witness reports. In the Drigung area, 80 km north-east of Lhasa, two western tourists separately reported seeing political re- education officials carrying guns in a monastery.

"I saw a meeting between the monks and the Tibetan officials who had come from Lhasa", said a French tourist who visited Drigung Til monastery last month. "There was at least one plain-clothes policeman who had his pistol hanging out like a cow-boy," said the tourist, who asked not to be named.

A journalist working for an American magazine who visited the area in early June also reported seeing armed education officials in the monastery, where he said about 120 monks were gathered together and made to sit down while a group of between six and ten plainclothes men walked round them.

"These plain-clothes men were the only people besides us not in robes," he said. "All these men wore loose fitting jackets. One of them read out a roll call and each monk was checked off. Then they started reading from a printed book about the Panchen Lama and China's historical role in Tibet," he added.

"They were not making any effort to hide the hand pistols concealed under their jackets and circled the seated monks throughout the re-education assembly," said the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous.

Last year there were a number of unconfirmed reports that re-education sessions were supervised by armed officials in plain-clothes.

The officials at Drigung Til were holding re-education sessions three times a week, with each session lasting half a day, and were expected to remain for six months, the journalist was told. A similar re-education programme had been held at the monastery last year, he reported, leading to 30 of the 150 Drigung monks being expelled for failing to complete re-education tests satisfactorily.

The journalist confirmed earlier reports of a major expulsion of nuns at nearby Terdrom nunnery, where over half of the 240 nuns were expelled last December at the conclusion of a three month re-education programme. "We spoke at great length with an ex-nun who had been forced out, " he said. "She had spent her life as a nun from the time she was 12 and now suddenly at 28 she was being forced out of her nunnery and away from her teacher there."