III. SONAM GONPO

Sonam Gonpo, twenty-nine, is a singer and songwriter who since April 1997 has been in Dharamsala, where he and his wife manage a cafe. He is also the former student of Tsegyam, above, and like him, grew up in Aba county in Sichuan's Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

With his older sister and younger brother, Sonam was raised in what he describes as a poor nomad family in the high mountainous village of Thabo in the area of Tshenyi, in Aba county. By 1994, Tibetans made up only 48.8 percent of the population in the autonomous prefecture, but the sparsely populated county was still 90 percent Tibetan and only 4 percent Chinese. It is one of several Tibetan areas that Chinese authorities consider particularly restive, and parts of it are closed to foreigners.

Sonam said his family was one of the poorest of some 500 families in the area. "We didn't have many yaks or sheep, no goat, no cows. No good food to eat, no good place to stay. With no education, it was difficult to find work. We did whatever came our way."

Although the family had no permanent housing, living year round in tents, the Tshenyi area was developed enough and large enough to house four schools for first through third graders, and one six-grade primary school. There, Sonam studied math, Tibetan language, Chinese, political science, history, and arts, before going on to lower middle school in Aba and then on to upper middle school in Skakdom, Dzoge county. He was the only one in his family to be formally educated and then only because a cousin who was a monk was able to help.

By 1989, when he was twenty, Sonam was back home teaching Tibetan language to third-graders in the all-Tibetan, 135-pupil primary school he had attended as a student. The school's head had recruited him even before he finished upper middle school. Happy to have the promise of a job, Sonam never took the State Universal College Entrance Examination that would have enabled him to pursue his studies; he said financially, it would have been impossible to go to college.

Two months before the teaching job started, however, Sonam did a risky thing.

I went into the market. There are a lot of shops and restaurants there-Tibetan and Chinese. So about midnight I put up seven large posters that said in Tibetan, "Long live free Tibet" and "Tibet belongs to Tibetans" and things like that. I wasn't caught until October when I had already been teaching for four months.

And I had done something else when I was in school. I wrote a letter to my middle school Tibetan language teacher, Tsegyam, who was in prison. I heard that he was arrested because he worked for the Tibetan cause. He put up wall posters and distributed a lot of leaflets in Aba. Then I heard that he confessed what he did and was released, and I was very happy. So I wrote a letter to express sympathy [for what he had suffered].

I wrote, "Dear teacher, I was very sad that you were arrested, and I'm sure you had a lot of trouble in prison, like beating and everything. But do not worry anymore, because I hope that one day the Tibetans will be able to gain happiness."

Like that-just a letter to comfort him. And I wrote that Tibet will be independent and the Chinese will be out of Tibet. Then I wrote his address on an envelope, put on the stamp, and put the letter in the post office. But at that time, Tsegyam was really still in prison. So the letter was sent to his address at school. The police took the letter and opened it and read it, and my name was in it. After that they started watching me, and after a few months I was arrested.

Six Public Security Bureau (PSB) policemen came to my room in the staff quarters at school and said I had to go with them to the police station in Aba. They had some questions to ask me. They were all Tibetan. As soon as we got to the police station they started saying I should confess my guilt. I said, "I don't think I am guilty. I haven't done anything." But after five days, they showed me one letter, the letter I wrote to my teacher. And also they showed me posters from the market and said, "The handwriting is the same as on the envelope of the letter you mailed to your teacher." And then I couldn't find anything else to say. And finally I accepted [that they knew what I had done].

Sonam also reported that between the time he was detained and the time the policemen showed him his own letter, four Tibetan policeman repeatedly took him from the detention center to an office in the police station where they beat him with sticks, kicked him all over, and gave him electric shocks.

Once Sonam confessed, he remained alone in a cell in the detention center for nine months without any idea of what was going to happen to him. The chief of the political section of the Public Security Bureau actually told him, "You'd better stay in the cell. We don't know what to sentence you to. We still haven't decided." Contrary to many other political prisoners' experience, Sonam's family knew where he was almost from the moment he was detained and once a month could leave a package of clothes and supplementary food for him. The detention center provided only one meal a day, usually rice noodles at lunch.

There was little for Sonam to do while he waited other than read the books provided by detention center authorities.

They gave me a lot of books, including the four volumes of The Autobiography of Chairman Mao and articles Mao wrote. They told me, "Your mind is not clear; it is not pure. You can read these and purify your brain." I read the four thick books, all in Chinese. About once a month, occasionally twice a month, I was called to work in the center's vegetable garden, sometimes harvesting and sometimes digging to break up the ground. And about once a month, sometimes more often, I was driven, or two guards with guns in their hands walked me, the kilometer between the police station and the detention center. They asked some questions, like "Is it all right in prison?" "Did you read the books we gave you?" "Did you get some knowledge from the books?" Because I was a political prisoner, no one was allowed to visit me.

Sonam remained in detention until the Public Security Bureau accepted a petition for his release from students and staff at his school. The petition, routed through the Aba county education department, read in part, "Our primary school is in need of our teacher. We have a shortage of teachers. So we request that the police officers release him. We will pay a fine." The fine amounted to 5,000 renminbi (approximately U.S. $700) and was paid to the Public Security Bureau. Sonam explained:

This was my school's money. The school gets money from the higher authorities, the Chinese government. They give a certain amount of money to every school. Sometimes the school gets donations from the public. And [when I was released], I was warned, "You should be careful in the future. If you continue these activities, then you know what we will do."

For years after the incident, Sonam was able to continue teaching Tibetan language to third-grade students, and he continued to perform with a music and dance group he had organized. During his August 1996 vacation, Sonam traveled with the group to some eight Tibetan counties in Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan to give two-hour-long public concerts. Performances, some fourteen or fifteen in all, included traditional and modern songs and solo and group dances. Tickets cost between one and five renminbi. Gross receipts ran about 3,000-4,000 renminbi (U.S.$425-565) which barely covered lodging and food, the money needed to rent the county hall, and an extra charge for electricity. Sonam explained why the tour cost him his freedom:

Some of my songs praised the Dalai Lama, and some words were related to "Free Tibet." The authorities found out, and on November 27, 1996, nine policemen came to my room in the school's staff quarters with a letter from the Public Security Bureau. The letter said that whenever the police came with this letter, they had the right to check everything in the house. After they showed me the letter, they started searching every part of my place. They finally confiscated seventy-two tapes and about fifty-two photographs of the Dalai Lama, all different sizes, some small, some big, and two song books. A lot of lyrics were written in the books. Some were mine, and some were written by others.

Sonam provided several examples of his own lyrics including his "Song of Prayer":

Cuckoo with your beautiful sounds,
You who come from Mon in the south,
Your sweet sounds resonate among the black-headed Tibetans,
An omen for the fulfillment of Tibet's hopes!

Red tiger, six smiling spotted yaks,
You who come from the dark fortress of China,
Your brave roar resonates among the black-headed Tibetans,
An omen of the spread of Tibet's power!

White lioness with a turquoise mane,
You who come from the peak of the white snows,

Karma's auspicious mark of self-respect now belongs to Tibet.
I pray for your long life!6

Sonam described what happened next:

They handcuffed me and said, "Come with us to the Public Security Bureau office." They asked why I went to those places in August, and I said, "To sing songs and get donations for our band." They started beating me and beat me on the face and broke my glasses. For two or three days it went on like this. They told me, "It was not for this reason you went. You had something else on your mind."

Then one day the PSB chief came to my cell and called my name out. I was in a cell with a Chinese businessman who was selling pictures of the Dalai Lama to make money. The chief said, "I know your sister's husband very well. We are almost like brothers. He wants me to release you. I haven't any way to release you unless you confess truthfully." My sister's husband is a rich businessman. Then the chief took out a small notebook and asked me the dates of the concerts, who sang, who played the guitar. "All right," he said. "Now tell the police officers the same thing." And after two months, probably February 1, [1997], they called me in, and the head of the PSB's political section said I would be released if I could meet five conditions. I had to pay a fine, 3,400 renminbi (U.S.$460) because I had "done something political against the nation and the law." I needed a guarantor. I couldn't travel outside my home area without police permission. I couldn't teach anymore. My sister's husband paid the fine, and the village head acted as guarantor.

Sonam Gonpo reported that he "confessed everything." His interrogators wrote it all down, but he never saw the transcript, nor did he ever appear in court. The only advice he received during the process came from the PSB chief who told him how to respond to questions and what not to say.

During his interrogation, officials suggested that before Tibetans gave up the comforts of Chinese government jobs and support, they should think twice about how hard it would be to earn a living under a Tibetan government. The police chief in charge of Sonam's case told him that there was no way "our government is going to pay for people like you."

According to Sonam, nothing ever happened to the thirteen others in the band because he was the only one who sang songs about the Tibetan cause. But, he said, there was no way he could remain home and earn a living. And, he said, he was under constant surveillance. On March 8, 1997, he and his family left Amdo, arriving in India almost one month later.