From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Tibetan monk murdered
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 22:49:41 GMT

/** gn.peacemedia: 124.0 **/
** Topic: Monk's `Suicide' in Tibet **
** Written 10:00 am  Apr  7, 1992 by gn:peacemedia in cdp:gn.peacemedia **
TIBETAN MONK'S `SUICIDE' IN LHASA APPARENT ASSASSINATION

[Peace Media Service] Champa Tenzin, a 49-year-old monk active in
the Tibetan independence movement, was found dead February 22, a
rope tied around his neck, in the main Temple at Lhasa. According
to police it was a suicide. But those who knew the monk say he was
assassinated. Charging foul play and a cover-up by the Chinese
authorities, they have succeeded in relaying details to the Tibet
Information Network in London, which released a report April 7.

Champa (sometimes spelled Jampa) Tenzin became famous in the west
when he ran through flames to release prisoners trapped inside a
burning police station during a pro-independence protest in Lhasa
on October 1, 1987. Although badly burned, he was later carried
shoulder high around the streets by other demonstrators, and
photographs of him raising his burnt arms and waving a white scarf
in the air became a symbol of the Tibetan independence movement.

Champa Tenzin, an attendant at one of the chapels of the Jokhang
Temple, the major shrine in Tibet, was found lying in his bed,
half covered with a quilt, with blood ``all over,'' said the
sources. One end of the rope around his neck was tied to a leg of
the bed, but the bed had not been disturbed or up-ended, say the
sources.

The official account suggests self-strangulation, a form of death
which medical experts in London told the Tibet Information Center
is extremely rare if not impossible. Strangulation does not lead
to extensive bleeding, said one of the doctors, who described the
unofficial account as ``indicating very suspicious
circumstances.''

Public Security officials in Lhasa were said to have ``examined
the body and on the spot declared it to be a suicide case,'' said
the report from Lhasa, adding that they ``made the head of the
Jokhang Temple sign a document accepting the decision.''

``Usually a case of this kind is thoroughly investigated,
including friends and relatives of the person who has died,'' said
the report from Lhasa. ``The Jokhang monks should have been
thoroughly questioned, and everyone's version of events taken
down, but no such action was carried out.''

One foreigner who knew Champa Tenzin well said that the monk had
been in good spirits when last visited six months ago. ``He
invited me to come back to his room so we could talk. He was eager
to talk and I can say that he did not seem depressed to me at
all,'' said the westerner, who asked not to be named. ``He seemed
to be the sort of activist whose strength of spirit is evident,
and once certain of the company with whom he spoke would be
forthright and unhesitant about his stand and his feelings.''

``If he had been contacted by westerners or by a human rights
delegation, [Champa Tenzin] would not have hesitated to reveal the
truth about the situation here,'' said a source in Lhasa. ``He was
very brave and he would never commit suicide.'' 

Born in the Year of the Water Sheep, 1943 by the western calendar,
he first became a monk when he joined Muru monastery in Lhasa at
the age of twelve, five years after the 1950 invasion of Tibet by
the Chinese. He was briefly arrested after the failure of the 1959
uprising, but was released because he was only 15. He later
described the experience of life during the Cultural Revolution
(1966-76) as being ``treated like animals.''

``Some of my relatives were killed during public trials and some
were tortured and beaten,'' he said. His mother, who died in 1981,
pretended for nine years that she was deaf and dumb in order to
avoid persecution during the Cultural Revolution.

The resurgence of protest in Tibet came with a major demonstration
in the Tibetan quarter of Lhasa on October 1, 1987. The protest
began when 30 monks were beaten by police and taken into a police
station opposite the Jokhang Temple. A large crowd gathered,
demanding the release of the monks, eventually setting fire to the
front door of the police station so they could gain entry to the
building. Champa Tenzin and some other monks ran into the building
through the flames in order to get the other prisoners out. Police
opened fire as he ran into the building, killing a monk inside and
injuring others who escaped.

A British tourist who saw the demonstration described in an diary
account published later the response of the crowd, who were
apparently oblivious to police gunfire:

``The older monk and about ten to twenty monks run, to huge
cheers, through the blazing door of the building. About ten
minutes later the older monk re-appears having escaped through the
side of the building and is carried on the shoulders of the crowd
in front of the police station and around the Barkor; hundreds of
women in tears surround him; his arms are burnt seriously with
long shreds of skin hanging off but he is jubilant, although he
faints twice. He is placed on a window ledge next to me and
produces a `khata', a white silk scarf, and waves it
triumphantly.''

Later Champa Tenzin was taken into hiding by other Tibetans.
Official doctors were afraid to treat him, so Tibetans collected
medicine and advice from western doctors among the tourists in the
city. Convinced that the people hiding him would eventually be
discovered and in need of further medical treatment, 13 days later
he took advantage of a partial amnesty and handed himself over to
the police. He was held under guard in a hospital for a month
before being moved to Seitru prison in Lhasa, and was constantly
questioned by police anxious to know who had instigated the
demonstration. He rejected an offer of release in return for
denouncing other people and was released from prison three months
later, in January 1988, after a senior Buddhist leader in China,
the Panchen Lama, persuaded the Chinese to release some of the
demonstrators.

``When I was burnt I didn't feel anything,'' Champa Tenzin later
recalled. ``I was almost unconscious. When the people picked me up
I remember shouting `Tibet is independent' and `Long Live His
Holiness the Dalai Lama.' While they were carrying me on their
shoulders through the Barkor I didn't know what was happening.
Later, in hospital, the pain was at times excruciating; at other
times it subsided. The pain should have been of some benefit to
the Tibetan people. . .

``I told them [the police] why I had taken part in the
demonstration. I did it for the independence of Tibet and because
this was what the Dalai Lama had called for. I didn't do it
because I was told personally by the Dalai Lama to do this or
that. No-one had told us to demonstrate. The Tibetan cause is a
cause for truth and when you are fighting for truth you cannot
wait for someone to tell you to fight for it.

``This is what I think, and this is what I told them. And then
afterwards they said that I had to denounce other people. You are
young now, you are only 45 years old, they kept saying. `If you
give us other names we will release you immediately.' they said. I
told them that I had no names to give and I told them that dying
does not bother me.

``So I went on with the struggle. To fight for the independence
for your country is the duty and the right of every individual.
There is no time for people to talk and for people to listen.
There is no time now to sit and talk because now we live under
constant fear.

``I am convinced that truth will prevail.''

He seems to have been closely watched after his return to the
Jokhang Temple. In March 1988 he was badly beaten by police who
stormed the Temple after a major demonstration, but managed to
evade arrest by hiding amongst a group of building workers.

His commitment to the independence movement remained undiminished
despite his experiences in prison, and he continued to make
contact with foreign tourists whenever it was safe to do so, in
order to explain to them his view of conditions in Tibet.

In the last week of February the body of Champa Tenzin was given a
sky burial according to Tibetan custom, on the mountainside above
Sera monastery, north of Lhasa.

--- end ---

[Tibet Information Network: 7 Beck Rd., London E8 4RE, England;
tel +44.81: 533.5458, fax +44.81: 985.4751;
e-mail: gn!tibet.informat@igc.org]
** End of text from cdp:gn.peacemedia **

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