OPINION
Palden Sonam* expresses outrage at the suspicious circumstance in which Tulku Rigzin Hungkar Dorje, a victim of China’s campaign to assimilate Tibet and transnational repression, died in Vietnam on March 28, and calls the outrageous manner in which he was cremated there not only disrespect for the dead but also a humiliation for the living, all more because it issued a white paper on the human rights situation in Tibet on the same day.
In August 2024 Rigzin Hungkar Dorje (56), a prominent Tibetan lama with followers not only in Tibet but also in China and Vietnam, went missing. After eight months, he reappeared, but only on a suspicious death certificate in the hands of Chinese security agents. On April 3, Chinese security authorities informed his monastery (Lungngon) in Golok, eastern Tibet, that their long-missing abbot had died in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on March 29.
However, according to some sources in Vietnam, Lama Hungkar, in fact, died on March 28 in a hotel where operatives of China’s Ministry of State Security kept him in collusion with Vietnamese police. March 29 was not the day he died; but the day his dead body was transferred to a hospital –seemingly to create the impression that his death had occurred in a hospital due to some illness rather than at the hands of Chinese operatives. However, the circumstantial evidences make it clear that there was nothing natural or accidental about the death.
If the lama really died due to illness, then what problem was there for China and also Vietnam to carry out an autopsy so that there won’t be any doubt at all? Secondly, if it is too expensive or inconvenient to perform a single autopsy in Vietnam, why not bring the body to China to do the same thing. If that’s also beyond the capacity of Chinese pathologists, then, at least, hand over the body to his bereaved family so that they can perform a funeral ceremony in accordance with Tibetan tradition. That the Chinese authorities rejected all these options suggest only one possible explanation – MURDER.
Despite appeals from Tibetans as well as international organizations, calling for investigation of the causes of his death and for the handover of the body to his family, the Vietnamese government allowed China to cremate his body secretly on April 20.
This was not only a disrespect for the dead and a humiliation for the living but should also be a national shame for every proud Vietnamese, that their government permitted China to commit crime against humanity on their sacred soil.
Forced disappearance, custodial death and denial of bodies to family have almost been standard Chinese practice in Tibet. If there is any bit of self-respect in Beijing, it should know that this was an act of cowardice and disgrace – denying his body to his family. By cremating the body without the consent of his family, China not only tried to destroy any evidence of torture or poisoning used to kill him but also to prevent the body from turning into a symbol of China’s repression and Tibetan resistance.
Despite Chinese tactics of fabrication and intimidation, nothing can stop, at least the Tibetan people, from eventually learning of the fact that it was Beijing which was responsible for the death of the Buddhist lama, for even in his death, China could not deny the respect and pride the Tibetan people had for Lama Hungkar.
Moreover, a glance at the chronology of events betrays, again, the wide gap between China’s propaganda claims and its actual practices in Tibet. While its operatives carried out a transnational political murder of a Tibetan Lama in Vietnam on March 28, Beijing released, on the same day, a white paper on the human rights situation in Tibet. As usual, it tried to paint an idealist landscape of freedom and human rights in Tibet, protected by rule of law –something which doesn’t exist even in China.
Setting aside the rosy picture painted by the white paper, let’s try to understand this murder of yet another Tibetan cultural figure in the larger context of Chinese colonial policy and practice in Tibet. Rather than an atheist regime simply targeting a religious figure for following his faith, this murder must be seen in the context of China’s cultural genocide – the systematic destruction of the cultural and linguistic identity of a national group.
There is a clear pattern of China targeting Tibetan cultural personalities and activists for their works related to Tibetan culture and language. Besides being a prominent Buddhist leader, Lama Hungkar was also a man of many responsibilities and talents –an educator, author, poet, translator and philanthropist. It was his role as an educator that attracted the attention of colonial Beijing.
Under Xi Jinping, China has intensified its cultural genocide campaign in Tibet by targeting both the old and young generations with a strategy of two preventions. The first is to prevent adults from passing on the Tibetan culture, particularly the Tibetan language, to the younger generation through restrictive and repressive measures that include killing, torture, and incarceration. The second is to prevent the younger generation from immersing in the Tibetan cultural environment by putting them away in colonial boarding schools to be assimilated into Chinese culture and indoctrinated with state propaganda.
The intention has been to reduce both the agents and avenues for intergenerational cultural transmission with walls of restrictions, intimidation and separation, for the end game of eradicating any sense of Tibetanness in the future generations of Tibet.
This strategy of cultural genocide has, at least in the recent past, been relatively more aggressive in Lama Hungkar’s hometown in Golok region of Tibet which falls under Qinghai province in today’s Chinese rule. For instance, Gonpo Namgyal, a Tibetan village leader in Golok died on 18 December 2024, three days after his release from a seven-month detention due to Chinese torture. Chinese authorities released him only to avoid his imminent death in their custody so that they could blame it on something else.
It has been a normal Chinese practice in Tibet to release Tibetan political prisoners before completion of their prison terms only to have them die shortly – often due to torture-related injuries or long-denied medication. China arrested Gonpo with 20 other Tibetans including a prominent Buddhist scholar Khenpo Tenpa Dhargye for their Tibetan language initiatives. To this day, we do not know anything about the remaining 19 Tibetans including their condition and whereabouts. Their crime was their love for their language and culture. So has it been the case with Lama Hungkar.
As an educator, he established schools for local Tibetan children and often encouraged Tibetans to study their language, highlighting that it is the foundation of Tibetan culture and civilization. As a highly respected Buddhist lama and scholar, the influence of his words and initiatives spread beyond his hometown to the rest of Tibet.
However, under the prevailing situation in Tibet, it was only a matter of time that his endeavors and initiatives for Tibetan cultural protection would come in conflict with China’s policy of cultural assimilation. His murder is also a confession of Beijing’s failure to use him and his stature as an influential religious figure in serving the political interests of its colonial rule in Tibet.
Under a colonial system built on violence and injustice, one tragedy often leads to another in a series of unhealed wounds and traumas –passing even from generation to generation. After Lama Hungkar disappeared, his 85-year-old mother, Dugkar Dolma, got seriously ill due to severe anxiety. She could not recover from it despite medical treatment. The tragic death of her son clearly snatched away any will in her to live any longer only to suffer from a sense of extreme injustice and emotional pain. She passed away on May 6 at her home.
But Dugkar Dolma is not the first Tibetan mother who suffered such a terrible sense of loss and emotional pain, and will not, unfortunately, be the last Tibetan mother to suffer similar trauma and tragedy. Likewise, her son, Lama Hungkar, is not the first Tibetan cultural leader killed by China. Unfortunately, he will also not be the last Tibetan cultural figure Beijing will butcher as long as Tibet remains under its colonial occupation.
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* Palden Sonam is an India-based independent political analyst researching on issues related to Tibet and Sino-India relations and Chinese domestic politics. He writes for international and national newspapers like The Diplomat, The Tribune, Taipei Times, Asian Times and others.