By Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, July 29: Chinese authorities in Drakkar County, located in Tsolho (Ch. Hainan) Prefecture in the Amdo (Ch. Qinghai) region, have completed the demolition of the 19th-century Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Atsok Gon Dechen Choekor Ling, to make way for the construction of the Yangqu hydropower station on the Machu River (internationally known as the Yellow River).
A video shared by Radio Free Asia (RFA) revealed that the once-prominent religious structure has been completely obliterated, with the main prayer halls and numerous surrounding stupas razed to the ground.
According to a report in June by the research group Tibet Watch, the demolition of the 135-year-old monastery began with the imposition of stringent restrictions on the movements of local Tibetans in Drakkar County. Authorities prohibited the public from taking and sharing images or videos of the monastery’s demolition and the construction of the Yangqu hydropower station on social media. Additionally, residents were banned from visiting the monastery and its planned relocation site, while monks were relocated to temporary makeshift iron shelters, and the monastery’s properties were stored in a warehouse in Palkha Township, three to four kilometers away, during the demolition process.
Another report from April noted that authorities held a meeting at the monastery on September 29, 2023, ordering the monks to comply with the government’s decision to relocate them. This meeting occurred as the local government neared its two-year deadline to commence construction of the Yangqu hydropower station. The report indicated that local Tibetans and monks appealed to authorities to halt the relocation, citing their reverence for the monastery’s sanctity and antiquity. However, a year later, the local government revoked the monastery’s cultural relic protection status, claiming that consultations with various experts, monks, nuns, laypeople, and relevant departments had determined that the monastery’s halls were of modern architecture and thus did not qualify for cultural relic protection.
The relocation of Atsok Gon Dechen Choekor Ling Monastery is part of the Yellow River Yangqu hydropower station project, a 1.2GW run-of-the-river hydroelectric power station. This project was approved on November 29, 2021, by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), a top ministerial-level department responsible for implementing the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s policies and decisions on development and reform. The project has an estimated total investment of $2.53 billion and is expected to enter commercial operation this year.
Atsok Monastery, established by Atsok Choktrul Kunchok Choedar in 1889, housed over 157 monks and served as a center for Buddhist education. In 2021, the Chinese government prohibited the enrolment of monks under 18. Tibetans hold the monastery in high regard, considering it sacred due to generations of prayers and practice over its 135-year history. This relocation marks the second major construction project in the Karmo Yeakhyil. From 2014 to 2017, nearly 400 Chinese labourers built the Gama Yangqu River Highway Bridge to support the construction of the Yangqu Hydropower Dam.
The forced relocation of local Tibetans by authorities to accommodate the construction of a series of hydropower stations mirrors the situation in Derge County, Kham region in Tibet. In February, protests erupted there, demanding a halt to constructing the Kamtok (Gangtuo) Hydropower Station on the Drichu (Yangtze) River, which would displace thousands of residents from two villages and six monasteries.
2 Responses
Heart wrenching sight of an ancient monastery scrubbed clean without a trace! This is the classic Chinese communist trade mark of anti- Buddhist and anti-religious campaign! It hates all religions and we have witnessed the wholesale destruction of Tibet’s most sacred monasteries as soon as the communist invaded our country. Our freedom fighters branded them as བསྟན་དགྲ་རྒྱ་དམར་ ENEMY OF THE FAITH! Our ancestors laid down their lives for our country and our precious Dharma. Holy Tibetan Lamas proclaimed at the time that killing Chinese communists was a virtues deed དགེ་བ་because the Dharma is the basis of happiness of all sentient beings. The Dalai Lama himself says in the words of truth (ཚད་མེད་ཡོན་ཏན་)སྲིད་ཞིའི་གདུང་སེལ་ཡོངས་རྫོགས་ཐུབ་པའི་བསྟན་(The Buddha’s teaching are the dispeller of all forms of suffering in samsara and nirvana”. Therefore it is good for all sentient beings to free themselves from their suffering. If such a precious Dharma is either threatened or destroyed by anyone, that is an astronomical loss to all sentient beings. As it were, in order to save the Dharma for the good of humanity, the one who is against the Dharma and seeks to destroy it must be liquidated! It is for the greater good of humanity and all other beings. That is why, the famous freedom fighter Ratruk Ngawang, in a interview with Voice of America said it without apology that when the freedom fighters killed the Chinese PLA soldiers, they could not bring themselves to say ཨོཾ་མ་ཎེ་པདྨེ་ཧུཾ་ while Tibetan Buddhists always say, Om mani Pad me Hung when someone, be it a human or animal is killed or dying! This goes to show the abject disdain Tibetan freedom fighters showed against the heathen Chinese communists who are enemies of our faith! The Tibetan resistance fighters derived self confidence, purpose, devotion and fearless fighting spirit through such animosity against the Chinese communist heretics!
We are witnessing another cultural revolution in occupied Tibet at the behest of the Chinese dictator Xi! The closure of Ragya School and other school run by a monastery are recent events. Many schools run by Tibetans but financially supported by Tibetan exiles have been closed which have not been reported in the press because the Chinese muzzled Tibetans inside occupied Tibet and outside Tibet. Out of fear of falling out with the CCP authorities, they closed their eyes and mouth. If they fall out of favour with the CCP authorities in occupied Tibet, they will not get visas in future visits, that is why no one dared to speak ill of the CCP.
The sinister plan of the CCP is to dump all Tibetan children in the colonial boarding schools in order to strip them completely from their mother tongue, their culture, religion and way of life and turn them intrinsically into Chinese! The children are not only banned from having anything to do with Buddhism but they are not even allowed to celebrate Tibetan Buddhist holy days nor meet the monks! As far as education is concerned, Tibetan children are taught only non-religious subjects and are barred from learning anything that is traditional! This is their diabolical effort to drive a wedge between the monk/nun community and estrange the children from their religious roots! With this the CCP seeks to diminish the Tibetan people’s devotion and enthusiasm for the Dharma and as the children grow up, they will be Tibetans without an inkling of their religion. This will rob the monasteries of any new recruits for the monasteries since no young men and women have any appetite to join a monastic life! In this way, the CCP seeks to completely uproot Tibetan Buddhism by alienating the young generation from their religion and lose all their faith in the Dharma. The monasteries will thus lose support from the Tibetan masses and go bankrupt in both man-power and livelihood! This will give the pretext for the CCP to demolish all monasteries and scrub them all clean. It would have then achieved its mission of annihilating Tibetan culture, religion and language! REMEMBER: THE DESTRUCTION OF RELIGION IS THE ETERNAL GOAL OF THE MARXISTS!!!!! Therefore, we must fight the evil ideology of the CCP and seek to destroy it! If we lend support to this insidious ideology ridden regime and its reign of genocide, it will only hurt ourselves in the end. In conventional wisdom, every human being despises the enemy and seeks to undermine them and eliminate them in order to save yourself and your family from the dangers posed by the enemy. With the same logic, we should seek to dismantle the ideology of the CCP and its adherents in order to save ourselves from extermination. If we suck up to them, that only legitimises the evil and it will only embolden them to destroy us. The CCP is facing numerous troubles with a slowing economy and international isolation for its aggression and imperialist expansionism. It is ruling China and occupying TIbet through sheer military force. Such a regime cannot last and we have seen it with the USSR and whole of Eastern Europe! The CCP’s greatest fear is people’s revolt and that is coming more likely as the dictator has fumbled and economists are skeptical of the Chinese economy bouncing back. The economic slump spells real danger to the CCP regime since it has no other legitimacy to keep the people of China under perpetual dictatorship other than economic growth and improving their lives. Tibetans must see the CCP for what it is and not be delusional for its treatment of the Tibetans or the destruction of Tibetan religion, culture and language. Make no mistakes! THE CCP IS HELL BENT TO DESTROY TIBETANS AS A PEOPLE WITH DISTINCT CULTURE, RELIGION AND LANGUAGE BECAUSE THEY SEE IT AS A THREAT TO THEIR ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF TIBET!
Free Tibet