>>Tenzin Delek Rinpoche
Tenzin Delek was born in 1950 in Kham, the eastern portion of the Tibetan plateau. His name at birth was A-ngag Tashi. In spite of the chaos surrounding the Chinese incursion into Tibetan areas in the 1950s and the ban on all religious expression during the Cultural Revolution, he managed to study Buddhism. During the 1970s, as conditions permitted, he worked to protect and reestablish Tibetan Buddhism in his home region.
From 1982 to 1987 Tenzin Delek was in India, where the Dalai Lama recognized him as a tulku (reincarnated lama). His time in India may have alarmed Chinese officials, partly because the title greatly enhanced his prestige and even his power within the local community. According to supporters, he left home without official permission or travel documents in 1982, in part to further his own education and, in part, because he feared arrest even then.
Tenzin Delek’s return in 1987 marked the beginning of a period during which he reportedly was able to bring to fruition many of his proposals for new monasteries, small schools, medical clinics, an orphanage, and old-age homes. It is unclear whether Tenzin Delek received official permission to establish or run these facilities, another possible cause for alarm among local officials.
One of his major projects, begun within two years of his return, was the construction of a permanent monastic structure at the summer site of Geden Tashi Dargyeling monastery, an important religious site in Orthok [see Map 3, “Southeastern Section of Kardze/Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture”]. Named Kham Nalendra Thegchen Jangchub Choeling, but usually referred to simply as Orthok monastery, it was the largest single institution that Tenzin Delek founded and served as the core of his growing network of monks, activists, and branch monasteries.
In 1998, Tenzin Delek established a school in a place known as Geshe Lungpa in Nyagchu county [see map] for some 350 orphans and children from poor families. Another school, established in the early 1990s on the site of Orthok monastery, served some 160 students, including orphans and impoverished youngsters. By providing food and shelter as well as an education, Tenzin Delek was able to obtain the agreement of parents, who might otherwise have been reluctant or too poor to send their children to school. Schools such as these, connected to monasteries, often emphasized religious and traditional learning at the expense of a state-mandated curriculum. It is not clear if either school had been licensed to operate.
Tenzin Delek also helped to bring medical facilities to underserved areas. A clinic in Orthok monastery specializing in Tibetan medicine served the local community. Another in Nyagchukha, provided a similar service. A Chinese official has acknowledged Tenzin Delek’s beneficial medical work in his local area. However, a planned settlement to shelter nomads during winter, for which Tenzin Delek had allocated funds and purchased materials, was never built after local officials objected. The investment could not be recouped.
Over the years, as Tenzin Delek’s activities in the Nyagchukha area led to his rise to prominence, local government officials took increased notice of his activities and views. Many were not in line with local government policies and thus could have been seen as challenges to the authority and influence of local officials. Tenzin Delek was an advocate for the social, cultural, economic, and religious rights of local residents. For example, he challenged officials who indiscriminately backed deforestation projects at the expense of local communities. He was willing to confront officials who put what he considered their own interests before those of their constituents. He took a public position on harmful environmental practices in the area and expressed views that had been outlawed by the central government and that local officials had been ordered to eliminate, such as loyalty to the Dalai Lama and other forbidden religious ideas.
Furthermore, it appears that a significant portion of local residents trusted Tenzin Delek, rather than district cadres, to solve communal problems fairly and efficaciously, in part because of his willingness to approach provincial and central government officials when local efforts failed. The use of locally respected lamas as mediators in conflicts is a traditional practice in Tibetan communities and in many places continues to be encouraged by Chinese officials, with the implicit or explicit understanding that such lamas not oppose local or national policies.
At some point, however, Tenzin Delek must have crossed the line. According to local sources, the major turning point in Tenzin Delek’s relationships with local officials came in 1993, when he worked—successfully——to help roll back an attempt to extend clear-cutting to forest land that residents saw as “belonging” to them. According to community members, those officials never forgave Tenzin Delek for their loss of face over the issue.
Residents argued it was this insult that inspired plans to detain Tenzin Delek in 1997-98 and in 2000. Pressure from Beijing on local authorities to curb what Beijing saw as his politically unacceptable activities most likely also played a role. He was finally arrested in 2002. Knowledgeable informants maintain that local authorities were irritated at Tenzin Delek’s personal influence and at monastic rather than lay influence in general. They apparently resented his contention that some officials and some lamas neglected the social and economic needs of the populace to seek out higher salaries and increased privileges for themselves.
Lobsang Dondrup
Lobsang Dondrup and Tenzin Delek were distantly related and their family connection may be responsible for the claim of conspiracy against the two. In 1998 or 1999, when Lobsang Dondrup was twenty-four years old and newly separated from his wife, he expressed a desire to become a monk. Tenzin Delek agreed to a trial period. However, one source told Human Rights Watch that after little more than a year, during which Lobsang Dondrup helped with minor chores at one of Tenzin Delek’s monasteries, it became obvious that other pressures prevented him from committing himself fully or devoting the time necessary to advance his studies. His mother and son needed his financial help. And he was handicapped by a combination of illiteracy, the absence of any previous formal education, and the relatively advanced age at which he was attempting to begin monastic study.
According to one account, in 2000, Tenzin Delek, aware that the plan was not working out, advised Lobsang Dondrup to pursue his interest in small business ventures. Another account suggests that Tenzin Delek insisted Lobsang Dondrup leave the monastery for flouting its rules.
Local informants have said that Lobsang Dondrup presented a suitable target for officials looking for a relatively unknown and thus unprotected person connected to Tenzin Delek whom they could scare into pointing an accusatory finger at Delek.” As one informant explained after Lobsang Dondrup was detained:
What kind of support would he have? He came from a very poor family. They were uneducated. He lived in a very remote place. There was no road. Electricity——there was none. It was like people lived before 1959. And he was a distant relative of the Rinpoche.
Bombs
On April 3, 2002, a bomb, described as a “simple fuse device,” exploded in Tianfu Square in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China’s southwest. It was this bomb that led to the arrests of Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dondrup. There was a Xinhua report on January 26, 2003, the day of Lobsang Dondrup’s execution, that one person was seriously injured and many others hurt at the time of the blast. Property damage was reported to have exceeded 800,000 renminbi (U.S.$96,400).
Other accounts vary as to the identity of the Tianfu Square bomber, how and when he was apprehended, and the nature of his alleged confession. They also include contradictory information regarding the presence or absence of pro-independence leaflets at the blast sites. Without access to official court documents, particularly the procuratorate indictments and the court verdicts, the discrepancies cannot be resolved.
According to conflicting Chinese government accounts, the detonation was the culminating event in either a series of six bombings beginning in 1998 or a series of four beginning in 2001. Quasi-official reports that Lobsang Dondrup and Tenzin Delek “confessed” to direct responsibility for five attacks cannot be reconciled with the lower figure. Other reports put the number of bombings at seven and are inconsistent in reporting where and when they occurred.
Details about the other explosions are sketchy and vary as to the sites where the bombings took place and the extent of injuries and property damage. What appears probable is that two explosions occurred in 1998 at Lithang Gonchen monastery, some 300 kilometers west of Chengdu. They took place near the living quarters of one or possibly two high-ranking lamas, one of whom was a prominent Sichuan provincial official. One of the two made offerings to Dorje Shugden, a deity whose worship the Dalai Lama strongly advised be stopped. Tenzin Delek had actively campaigned in the area to promote the Dalai Lama’s view. (See “Opposition to Worship of Dorje Shugden,” page 44 for details about the Dorje Shugden controversy). After official accounts alleged that handwritten leaflets were found at that site, security officers detained a number of Tibetans, including local monks, in order to check their handwriting.
Some accounts report a third explosion in 1999 near the Lithang County government office. At least two people suspected of involvement were detained but never tried. Another two or three bombs went off in Dartsedo (Kangding in Chinese), the Kardze prefectural capital, in 2001. According to an official account, the most serious occurred on October 3, 2001 at an office building of the traffic police. One person, a “watchman” died and monetary damages amounted to 290,000 renminbi (U.S.$35,000). Tenzin Delek reportedly was not charged with responsibility for that incident. Lobsang Dondrup was.If this last account is accurate, it suggests that Lobsang Dondrup might have been charged in connection with six incidents. Another account implies that Tenzin Delek was charged in connection with only four bombings and Lobsang Dondrup with five.
Accounts are consistent in reporting that a bomb went off at a bridge in Dartsedo in January 2001. The third 2001 bomb is variously reported as having occurred at Party headquarters, government offices, or an official guesthouse. According to an account that located the incident at the prefectural offices in Dartsedo, it resulted in two injuries, one of which was “serious,” and extensive damage to the building and to vehicles parked in the compound.35 The probable date is August 2001. An account that located the explosion at the main gate of Party headquarters said that for several weeks the area immediately surrounding the gate was covered with tarpaulins, that traffic had to be diverted, and that the explosion blew out the windows of buildings opposite the site. Both Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dondrup were charged in connection with that incident.
After the Chengdu bombing, the count stood minimally at seven and possibly as many as ten bombings. There is no known evidence other than Lobsang Dondrup’s alleged confession to connect the incidents.
8 months after their arrest, Tenzin Delek and Lobsang Dhondup were bought to trial. Several of Tenzin Delek's followers had also been arrested, and many beaten in their monastery. Guns had been confiscated months from all Tibetan in the local vicinity before the explosions, and when Tenzin Delek was arrested several days after the explosions, locals were unsurprised. For a long time it had been feared that the Chinese authorities would arrest Tenzin Delek as he clearly ired them. Many believe that the trial was a mere formality, and that higher authorities had already decided that the two would be found guilty. Tenzin Delek was sentenced to death on December 2nd, 2002. Lobsang Dhondup, was executed days later. The two-year suspension of Tenzin Delek's sentence expired on January 26th, 2005, and Chinese authorities, under intense international pressure, commuted his sentence to life in prison. Human rights organizations around the world believe Tenzin Delek was framed because he is viewed by the Chinese government as a threat to their control of Tibet.
The Chinese government did not present credible evidence against Tenzin Delek Rinpoche or any of the Tibetans detained in connection with this case. They were denied access to independent lawyers and did not have a fair trial. A life sentence in a Chinese prison, where torture and mistreatment are commonplace, is a death sentence of a different kind. It is claimed that Tenzin Delek has already been a victime to toruture and mistreatment, and there are reports he has gone blind in prison.
Information in this article is taken from Trials of a Tibetan Monk: The Case of Tenzin Delek (Human Rights Watch Report, February 2004)- which is highly recommended as further reading and www.savetenzin.org
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