Tenpa Wangdrak, a 53 year-old former monk of Ganden Monastery, comes from Yartoe Yarzam in Lhoka Nedong County. His parents are no longer living but he has a sister who has occasionally visited him whilst in prison. He received a 14 year prison term for openly shouting the independent status of Tibet. While serving his prison term in Drapchi, he attempted to expose the wretched prison conditions for which he suffered grave punishment. Tenpa Wangdrak is presently in Powo Tramo and his former inmates fear he is undergoing the most severe punishments as Powo Tramo is notorious for its ruthless treatment of prisoners.
Tenpa’s activism began in November 1987 when he was involved with a plan to make copies of speeches of the Dalai Lama and distribute them widely.
On March 5, 1988, while participating in a demonstration in Ganden monastery which protested the imprisonment of Yulo Dawa Tsering and declared Tibet’s independence, Tenpa was arrested. He was taken to Seitru Detention Centre, where a series of interrogations were conducted by Chinese officials.
Tenpa Wangdrak was accused of being the leader of the Ganden demonstration and this, combined with his vehement opposition to the Chinese presence in Tibet led to his sentencing on 17 December to 14 years imprisonment.
After sentencing, he was taken back to Seitru Detention Centre. At Seitru he was asked whether he thought he had deserved his sentence and was told that if he was not satisfied with the verdict he could appeal before the Higher People’s Court within 10 days of the pronouncement of the sentence. Aware that such action would have little effect or could result in even harsher sentences, he decided not to appeal.
During his three months in Seitru, he was constantly interrogated on the following questions : “Why do you protest? Do you really want feudalism to revive? What have you done in the last 7 years? What relations do you have with outsiders? Who inspired you to do it? What kind of people do you co-operate with?”
On the basis of his answers, his sentence was informally finalised. Officials subsequently issued him with a formal arrest warrant and notice was served to appear before the court.
After being detained for three months in Seitru he was transferred to Drapchi prison and kept segregated from other prisoners in Rukhag no. 5 ( a unit where only political prisoners are kept in isolation ). Tenpa Wangdrak was assigned the responsibility of managing the vegetable farm such as feeding manure to the plants. For his labour, he was provided with 30 yuan a month.
On March 31, 1991, Tenpa Wangdrak and another prisoner attempted to hand a letter to the then US Ambassador to China, James Lilly. The letter described the miserable prison conditions, including the indiscriminate beatings, discrimination between political prisoners and criminal prisoners, inadequate medical facilities and the frequent blood extractions carried out on the political prisoners.
The letter, which appealed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to consider the plight of the political prisoners, was snatched from Lilly’s hands by the official interpreter. He was later severely beaten and transferred to unlit isolation cells.
On April 27, 1991, after other prisoners had protested against his continued isolation, Tenpa Wangdrak and three others who were present at the time of the initial Gaden demonstration, were chained hand and foot and taken to Sangyip prison. The following day, they were moved, handcuffed, to the labour camp in Powo Tramo county in Kongpo (Chinese: Nyingchi) and were held in Damchu, a unit within the prison complex.
That evening, when the Drapchi prisoners returned to their cells and found that Tenpa Wangdrak and the other prisoners were missing they immediately called for the return of their five inmates. The prison guards responded by severely beating the prisoners, including 80 year old Lobsang Tsundue, popularly known as Hor Lagen (the oldest known political prisoner in Tibet), and 68 year old Thupten Namdrol.
Powo Tramo work camp is renowned for its regime of hard labour and reduced food rations. Visitation rights have been reduced to the possibility of once a year and correspondence is strictly prohibited. A former political prisoner describes Powo Tramo as representative of “the true identity of intense labour and sufferings”.
A series of poltical education sessions were held in Powo Tramo in which prisoners were asked to enrich their ideological thought, to oppose His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to denounce the Panchen Lama recognised by the Dalai Lama and to love communism. During these sessions the prisoners were subjected to severe beatings but never relented.
Today Tenpa Wangdrak is reported to be losing his eyesight. This could be as a result of being kept in isolation for four weeks, much of the time in dark.