Larung Gar Nuns Urged by Monastic Leaders to Volunteer For Removal

Destruction at Larung Gar is shown in a September 2016 photo.

Photo sent by an RFA listener

Faced with Chinese demands to sharply reduce the population of Sichuan’s Larung Gar Buddhist Institute, monastic officials have offered nuns facing expulsion the chance to volunteer for removal, saying that those who step forward will be sent to places where they can continue their studies, sources in the region say.

Of the 2,000 nuns now ordered to leave the large study center located in Sichuan’s Serthar (in Chinese, Seda) county, 400 come originally from Golog (Guoluo) prefecture in neighboring Qinghai province, with 300 coming from Qinghai’s Yushul (Yulshul) prefecture and the rest from other areas near Sichuan, a local source said.

Speaking on Sept. 23, monastic officials at Larung Gar told nuns threatened with eviction that anyone registering their names for removal by Sept. 28 would be transferred to monastic institutions elsewhere in Serthar or in Sichuan's Nyagrong (Xinlong), Dege (Dege), or Draggo (Luhuo) counties, and that senior teachers would be sent there to look after them.

Anyone not volunteering for transfer would be understood to be at risk of forced removal by Chinese authorities, with no guarantee they would be permitted to resume their studies, monastic officials said.

That deadline has now passed, with no information immediately available regarding the number of those volunteering for removal.

However, at least 100 Larung Gar monks and nuns who had come originally from the Tibetan regional capital Lhasa or elsewhere in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) were loaded onto buses on Sept. 29 and sent away, sources said.

Dwellings demolished

Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese study at the sprawling Larung Gar complex, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world’s largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.

The order now to reduce the number of Larung Gar’s residents by about half to a maximum level of 5,000 by Sept. 30 next year “comes from higher authorities,” with China’s president Xi Jinping taking a personal interest in the matter, sources told RFA in earlier reports.

Chinese work crews meanwhile continue to demolish monastic dwellings at Larung Gar, with 550 houses torn down between July 20 and Sept. 23, a source at Larung Gar with close knowledge of the situation said.

Local sources had said in earlier reports, now believed to be in error, that as many as 600 had been destroyed in the first week of demolition alone.

Rights groups have slammed the government-ordered destruction at Larung Gar, with New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) saying that Beijing should allow the Tibetan people to decide for themselves how best to practice their religion.

“If authorities somehow believe that the Larung Gar facilities are overcrowded, the answer is simple,” HRW China director Sophie Richardson said in a statement in June, when the plan to destroy large sections of the complex was first announced.

“Allow Tibetans and other Buddhists to build more monasteries.”

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

From RFA

L'argent, le sang et la démocratie

L'argent, le sang et la démocratie by publicsenat A documentary covering the events surrounding the attack in 2002, in Karachi of a bus loaded with French naval engineers. It involves and links the funding of Mr.Balladur's presidential campaign, highlights Mr. Sarkozy's role, as well as the Pakistani secret services, and other key players. The murdering of the American journalist Daniel Pearle is as it seems connected. In French by Arte Tv.

Crask, Scotland

‘A Slow Genocide’: Gunmen Attack Indigenous Again In Brazil

Courtesy Campanha Guarani via Survival International

Attacks against Guarani communities have increased in frequency since a large territory was approved for the tribe by the outgoing Dima Rousseff administration.

Gunmen attacked a Guarani Kaiowa village in northern Brazil this week, killing one man and wounding six others, including a 12-year old boy.

Activists and Indigenous leaders assert the gunmen were hired by local ranchers who are trying to push the Guarani Kaiowa people out of the Tey’i Jusu community.

Local sources noted that the Indigenous group had just recently moved to the area, which is legally theirs but is also considered part of the Ivu Ranch. Observers speculate that this move may be related to the attack.

The young man killed in the June 14 attack was community health worker Clodiodi Aquileu (said to be in his 20s) and the 12-year-old boy is Josiel Benites who along with the other five wounded people was taken to a nearby hospital.

Guarani Kaiowa villagers filmed the attack; that video shows men in dark uniforms firing at the Indigenous people and yelling racist insults at the villagers.

According to an account by Survival International (SI), an organization championing for tribal peoples around the world, “Gunshots and screams are audible in the footage and fires appear to have been lit in nearby fields.

“The attack is highly likely to be part of escalating attempts by the powerful local agri-business and ranching interests – closely linked to the recently established interim government – to illegally evict the Guarani from their ancestral land and to intimidate them with genocidal violence and racism,” according to the SI press statement.

SI also reported that in the prior week there was an attack by gunmen against a Guarani community known as Pyelito Kue.

Guarani Kaiowa leader Tonico Benites went on a speaking tour in Europe in May in an effort to publicize the need for international support and pressure on the Brazilian government.

“A slow genocide is taking place. There is a war being waged against us. We are scared. They kill our leaders, hide their bodies, intimidate and threaten us,” Benites said.

“We are fighting always for our land. Our culture does not allow violence but the ranchers will kill us rather than give it back. Most of the land was taken in the 1960s and 70s. The ranchers arrived and pushed us out. The land is good quality, with rivers and forest. Now it is very valuable.”

As a result of the continuing violence, SI, along with the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and other human rights groups are lobbying for protection of the Guarani Kaiowa and other Indigenous Peoples being killed and harassed in various parts of Brazil.

However, the Aty Guasu movement of the Guarani communities in Brazil have issued a call in social media for 30,000 men to prepare for an organized resistance to the violence.

As of press time the Brazilian government has not officially responded to the activists or the Guarani Kaiowa communities.

Rick Kearns

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Kunjrab pass, Pakistan-China border. Loads of wild marmots and Chinese soldiers racing on hairy camels, unfortunately not included.