Lhasa, China - CHINESE officials have reopened one of the largest monasteries in Tibet after a rare act of protest against Chinese control of the region prompted authorities to close its gates.
Since a series of sporadic riots led by monks rocked the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a large police presence and frequent monitoring of monasteries and temples have sharply reduced the number of protests. However, the latest incident happened on February 14 at the Ganden monastery to the east of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. The arcane nature of the protest sheds some light on the complexity of Tibetan Buddhism and the difficulty China faces in governing a people whose allegiance remains to the Dalai Lama.
Seventeen monks destroyed a statue of Shugden, a Tibetan deity. They apparently intended to demonstrate loyalty to the Dalai Lama, who banned the worship of this god in 1996, saying that the deity was a threat to his personal safety and the future of Tibet. A fight ensued inside the Nyangre Khangtsen college, which is part of the sprawling monastery. It was unclear whether the disturbance was between monks and security officials or with monks who opposed the destruction of the statue. The monastery was sealed off and the army was sent in.
Chinese officials said that the monks attacked the figure with a hammer after the Dalai Lama told followers this year that Tibetans should not worship this deity. Zhang Qingli, the acting secretary of the Communist Party of Tibet, said: “The Dalai Lama violated the believers’ freedom of religion.” The authorities then used their tried-and-tested tactic in Tibet of sending in a “work team” with the task of re-educating the monks. The teams can spend months, if not years, in a monastery, requiring monks to study party-approved documents and to write humiliating self-criticisms.
Officials said that 15 of the monks had turned themselves in to the police after the attack. Other sources said that two monks had been arrested for their part in the protest. The work team spent 20 days in Ganden, a monastery official told The Times. He said: “Everything is quiet now and they have left recently.”
Recent visitors to Lhasa said that the monastery reopened this month. Monks have few means to show their allegiance to the Dalai Lama since he fled into exile in India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. All photographs of the spiritual leader of Tibet have been banned since 1995, when he enraged Communist Party rulers in Beijing by announcing the discovery of the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-holiest Tibetan monk.
China responded by overseeing a search for its own Panchen Lama, now a 16-year-old monk who lives mainly in the Chinese capital. Beijing condemns the Dalai Lama as a “splittist” who is intent on separating Tibet from China. However, party officials said that China would consider allowing a visit by the Dalai Lama if he renounced independence for Tibet. The exiled god-king and Nobel Peace Prize laureate has said repeatedly that he does not seek independence.
China has held five rounds of talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama in recent years but these have yet to yield progress on his possible return. After the latest round of talks, in February, envoys of the Dalai Lama said that differences remained.