On the same day that historic protests started by monks in Lhasa began and were to sweep all over Tibet in the subsequent months, Dhondup Wangchen was nearly 3,000 kilometers away in Xian, in China’s Shaanxi province. It was the last day of filming for his documentary film project that sought to give voice to Tibetans in the run-up to the Olympic Games. As was the case throughout China, Xian was caught up in an Olympic fervor. Big red banners were hung all over the city, the Olympic mascots peered from shop windows in unspeakably bright colors. None of this however, seemed to have the slightest connection to Tibet or the discontent of the Tibetan people.
For many around the world, the protests that began March 10,
2008, were a surprise. International media were suddenly giving unprecedented
coverage to a struggle that had been going on for more than 50 years.
Journalists, NGOs, governments and even exiled Tibetans were given a stark
reminder that a conflict was unresolved and that, in the run-up to the
Olympics, Tibetans were still risking everything to be heard. It hadn’t take
months of protests and a military crackdown in Tibet, however, for Dhondup
Wangchen to be aware of the suffering of his people. It was something he had lived,
and it was this that he was seeking to convey through film and simple
testimony.
I had travelled 1,200 kilometers from Beijing to Xian to meet Dhondup Wangchen and
learn about his film project. It was to be the first and only time that I would
meet him. On arrival at the train station, I bought a local Chinese paper; I
wanted to remember this day. Later on in the day, we even filmed Dhondup
Wangchen with this newspaper as a record. Within minutes of our meeting, I was
struck by his determination and drive to accomplish something that he felt was
important—to depict the injustice of life as a Tibetan under Chinese rule. As
one of his interviewees so eloquently said, “We Tibetans living in the PRC are
like stars on a sunny day, we can’t be seen.” Just hearing the sheer scale of
Dhondup Wangchen’s project was impressive, traveling through remote areas of
eastern Tibet
in the Tibetan winter of 2007-08 and recording under the harshest imaginable
conditions the views of more than 100 ordinary Tibetan men and women, amassing more
than 40 hours of video footage. All this with just a cheap video camera, no
professional training in journalism or film-making, and constantly in fear of
being detained for his citizen journalism activities.
Despite painful toothache that day in Xian, Dhondup Wangchen
told me that he, together with his friend Jigme Gyatso, a monk, had come up
with the idea to make a documentary as early as 2006. The year and a half
before beginning filming, Dhondup Wangchen planned how he would make the film,
even taking his parents, wife, and four children to India
to safety so they would not be at risk when he returned to Tibet to make
the film. Having a cousin in Switzerland meant that once the footage was safely
out of the country, the documentary could be edited and prepared for an
international release in time for the Olympic Games.
On August 6 2008, his documentary film, now edited into 25
minutes and titled “Leaving Fear Behind”, was screened to a select group of
foreign journalists in Beijing. But Dhondup Wangchen, along with Jigme Gyatso,
had already been in secret detention since the end of March. On completion of
filming, they had gone back to their respective hometowns only to find the
places in turmoil with almost daily Tibetan protests occurring and a huge
military deployment under way. On Jigme Gyatso’s release in October 2008, it
was learned that they had both undergone severe interrogations and torture in
detention that included electrocution. It wasn’t until a well-known Beijing human rights lawyer took up his case early this
year that Dhondup Wangchen’s sister in Xining
even learned of her brother’s incarceration, another outright violation of China’s own
detention laws.
Dhondup Wangchen’s trial reportedly started behind closed
doors in September this year. According to Amnesty International he is being
charged for “subversion and incitement to separatism” and has contracted
Hepatitis B in prison for which he has received no treatment. After his Beijing lawyer was forced
by the Chinese government to stop representing Dhondup Wangchen, local lawyers
were appointed, leaving little hope of a fair trial.
I spent less than a day meeting Dhondup Wangchen. When we
parted back at the train station, he told me to take care of myself and gave me
a little bag containing some drinks and snacks for my journey. A few months ago
on YouTube, I saw a video clip of pictures of Dhondup Wangchen in his teens, a
casual-looking young man eager to leave behind the constrictions of his village
on a quest for adventure greater than he could have known. The Dhondup Wangchen
that I had met was older and thoughtful. The many months of constant traveling
had clearly been physically exhausting. I had always thought of him as a kind
of Tibetan hero, a citizen journalist and human rights activist but last month
I was walking down the street in Dharamsala, northern India, with a
friend who stopped to talk to the woman who sells bread there early every
morning. The bread-seller was Dhondup Wangchen’s wife, Lhamo Tso. After
spending time talking with her I suddenly thought about their separated family
and of Dhondup Wangchen as a husband, a father, and also a son—and their own personal
sacrifices.
Since August 2008, “Leaving Fear Behind” has been screened
in more than 30 countries worldwide and translated into five languages,
including Chinese. The worldwide campaign for his release continues. Looking
back, it’s hard to believe that Dhondup Wangchen, with just a small camera, a
motorbike, his blue backpack and the help of trusted friends, found a way of
expressing himself truthfully.
The simple truth is that just spending 25 minutes watching
“Leaving Fear Behind” gives all the background necessary to see that some kind
of uprising was surely inevitable in Tibet. But truthfulness in a state
like China
is always an act of defiance and can‘t survive without a struggle.
Dechen Pemba has been the spokesperson for “Leaving Fear Behind”
since she left Beijing
in July 2008. She is based in London.
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WOW!!! Dhondup Wangchen la and his FAMILY is my hero, since the moment i saw the Documentary video..I thank him and his family to remind the World and our own Tibetan people in EXILE, who are lost in this materialistic world. By sacrificing everything to make this documentary to show the destructive behavior of PRC for PAST 50 YEAR PLUS on our PEOPLE, Culture, Religion, and our LAND..
Thank you so much for sharing this..
FREE-TIBET!!!
It is nice to get some personal insight into Dhondup Wangchen-la´s story. And it should be circulated to politicians as it makes it human, something that goes missing in political life.