I lived in a simple two room apartment that was part of the Tibetan
Library of Archives’ facilities in Dharamsala. There were a good
number of these small apartment-like buildings grouped on the hills
surrounding the library. One afternoon, in the final month of my stay,
I visited some Tibetan friends who worked at the library, Sonam
Dhargey and Chokyang Tharchin in front of their room. They had
just finished talking to an elder monk that lived just by them and who
also was working at the Library. They mentioned that he had talked
to them about some of the torture techniques that he had
experienced while in prison in Tibet. After hearing this I told them
about this project and asked if they would introduce me to him.
Sonam Dhargey carefully approached his door, knocked and in his
soft spoken respectful way, explained to the elderly monk about me.
The monk then came outside to hear what I had to say. As I spoke in
English, Sonam-la translated. With every syllable and through every
sentence, his eyes kept focused on my eyes with intensity. I felt that I
was being examined internally and had never experienced such a
‘mental scan’. While I spoke, I could not help reexamine my own
intentions. I drew confidence in my motivation and purpose choosing
my words carefully as I spoke. Thonsur Losang Tenzin agreed to
participate.
Thonsur said that after the Chinese invasion and occupation of
Tibet, over one hundred former Tibetan government civilian officers,
including him, were arrested on March 22, 1959 by the Chinese
authorities. This group was imprisoned until October 1, 1978.
Thonsur states: “Although it is difficult to express and describe in
words the torture I suffered during those nineteen years of
imprisonment, I will try to say some of the main points that I can
recollect.”
He tells how he was handcuffed together with a former Tibetan
civilian officer, Losang Gyaltsen. A movement of any hand or even
the palpitation of his nerves would tighten the handcuff slowly, and
the pointed part of the handcuff “pricked like hell.” The prison
guards, were Han nationals, ethnic Chinese. One of them named
Shawo Teng, ignored his requests to loosen the handcuffs even as
Thonsur asked many times to loosen them. “I couldn’t help crying
out for help as the handcuffs caused swelling of my hands and such
unbearable pain.” After one month, the prison guard loosened the
handcuffs a little bit which relieved him a little.
The Chinese introduced what was called the “Self-Criticism
Campaign” to be implemented among the prisoners. The campaign
was headed by a specially trained group and Thonsur was taken to
a meeting where forty other prisoners were waiting for his arrival...He
was then asked to narrate whatever ill-feeling he had against the
Chinese. Thonsur states, “Since I did not utter even a word, I was
alleged to be ‘Bourgeois Conservative Minded’. Out of the forty men,
ten were selected to beat me and pull my ears in any way they like.
As a result of all of this my ear drums are permanently damaged and
I lost my hearing.” There has been some improvement after
continuous medication received while in exile, he says.
This was not to be the end of Chinese torture, as he was taken to
the eastern vicinity. They forced him to move and carry huge stones
and mud for about two weeks. Food was only watery gruel, served
twice a day, which could only just sustain his “soul and body
together”. Then the most part of 1961 was spent on taking out huge
masses of ice from the expansive mountainous land of Western
Lhasa. Because of not having extra clothes to change and being
devoid of any medical care, his limbs and thighs were frosted.
During those early years, he says, “I was of course alive – but
without much sense of feeling owing to the strenuous manual labor
and scant provisions for health.”
In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began, prisons became
manned by Mao’s Red Guards. Prisoners were forced to give up
everything that related to Tibetan traditional values or customs.
Thonsur said, “Even sitting crossed legged was a crime and those
who sat that way, were beaten and punished.” The reason being,
Thonsur says, was that one of the major targets for launching the
Cultural Revolution was to annihilate what the Chinese called the
‘Four Old Values’. These consisted of: Belief in Old values;
Preserving Old Literature; Attachment to Traditional Ways of
Thinking; and Inclination to Old Cultural and Linguistic Values. He
said that any sense, even minimal, that one was observing any of
these values, would be the cause of unprecedented torture. For
example, Thonsur was inversely tied to a tree for eight hours
because he was wearing a yellow monk’s vest.
“There is no end and no words to describe the torture I suffered
during those years of imprisonment. Worse than the suffering which I
survived, were the great numbers of my fellow countrymen and
women, young and old, who suffered beyond the scope of one’s
imagination. Consequently, 1.2 million Tibetans died, not naturally,
but as a direct result of the Chinese invasion and occupation of
Tibet. For all of this, the only ‘fault’ from our part as Tibetan people
was that we made an effort to maintain our Tibetan identity.”
May the account of Venerable Thonsur Losang Tenzin, one of the
survivors of Chinese long term imprisonment, be known and
remembered.
CYBEReTOWER™ LLC. All text and photographs above are copyrighted by the artist, David F
Shever, all rights reserved.
