By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, July 27: Tibet’s government in exile Tuesday said it received reliable information confirming the suicide of a 70-year old monk of Shag Rongpo monastery in the Nagchu County of the so-called “Tibet Autonomous Region” (TAR).
Just last week Ngawang Tharpa, an exile Tibetan with contacts in Nagchu, told Phayul that the 70-year old monk named Ngawang Gyatso of the monastery had committed suicide on May 20 after failing to withstand growing religious oppression in the monastery.
According to information received by Tharpa, a “suicide note” left by the deceased monk was confiscated by Chinese authorities. The authorities had even warned the monks not to discuss about the suicide and told them to resort to the official explanation of a “natural death”.
The exile Tibetan government, in a post on its official website, said the 70-year old monk was forced to commit suicide due to “intolerable depression caused by the Chinese government’s draconian measures to oppress Tibetan monks”.
The report said the events leading to the monk’s suicide started with the stepping up of the controversial “patriotic education” campaign in the monastery and the subsequent arrest of the monastery’s head lama, Dawa Rinpoche, sometime back.
Following the widespread anti-China unrest in 2008, Chinese authorities in the ‘TAR’ and other non-TAR Tibetan areas have launched renewed and intensified “Patriotic Education” campaign covering almost every sections of society.
Under the campaign, Chinese “work team” officials are sent to especially monastic institutes, which are long considered hot-bed of political dissidence, on a regular basis to “educate” monks and nuns to be patriotic towards nation and one’s religion, and to oppose ‘splittist’ forces, which include denouncing the revered Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, whom China reviles as a “splittist”.
Meted out with serious threats involving imprisonment and expulsion from monasteries, monks are compulsorily forced to give their signatures or finger prints to express their non-allegiance to the Dalai Lama.
Chinese police had arrested Dawa Rinpoche and four others, including three monks belonging to the monastery, from Lhasa on May 17.
Following the arrest, around 50 Chinese “work team” officials arrived at the monastery heavily guarded by around 150 armed security personnel to conduct “patriotic re-education” sessions. During the sessions, the monks were ordered to disassociate themselves from the Dawa Rinpoche, and to denounce the Dalai Lama.
Moreover, monks were forced to oppose His Holiness the Dalai Lama and counter Rongpo monastery’s Lama Dawa as a coterie of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” the Tibetan government said in its report.
Chinese authorities charged Dawa Rinpoche of consulting the Dalai Lama over the search for the 5th reincarnation of Rongpo Choeje and removed him from all posts of the monastery. A ruling was also been made that the aging Rinpoche, 75, would not have any association and contact with his monastery.
Rinpoche is currently said to be held incommunicado at his residence near a place called Thoego La. The monks are also barred to visit him or even be near the place.
On July 17, another seventeen monks of Shag Rongpo monastery were forced to leave their monastery after Chinese authorities turned down their repeated requests not be subjected to patriotic re-education and denunciation of the Dalai Lama.
According to Tharpa, Chinese police last week arrested two more monks of the monastery after they confronted Chinese “work team” officials during a meeting held at the monastery.
With constant surveillance by security forces, Tharpa said, the situation in the monastery is extremely tense and disturbing at the moment.
