After six years in a Chinese prison, a shy Tibetan musicologist looks back to those he left behind and forward to freedom.
By Heather Stephenson
When Tibetan music expert Ngawang Choephel vanished in his homeland in 1995, he was virtually unknown on the world stage. A former Fulbright scholar at Middlebury College in Vermont, he had raised money for his trip by selling T-shirts on campus. He set out for Tibet with little more than a video camera and a stated wish to document a dying culture. A year later, China announced that he had been sentenced to 18 years in prison for spying. The trial was closed, and no evidence has ever been made public.
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Ngawang Choephel in happier days as a Fulbright Scholar at Vermont's Middlebury College, 1994. © Caleb Kenna |
Choephel's arrest and conviction raised an outcry from human rights groups around the globe. For years, the name of this shy academic has been on the lips of activists, legislators, and ordinary citizens, who wrote letter after letter pleading for his release.
Those efforts paid off at last in January, when Choephel was granted his freedom. After serving more than six years in Chinese prisons, he flew on January 20 to the U.S., where he is seeking political asylum. "You just can't believe he got out," said Kate Lazarus, AIUSA's Tibet specialist, who met Choephel soon after his arrival. "You dream and you hope that these people will be released, but you never know."
Choephel was granted medical parole, having reportedly suffered from bronchitis and hepatitis in jail. But U.S. doctors found him in good physical health. His main complaints are related to insomnia and stress, according to an official with the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.
Choephel has declined to talk to reporters, but said in a written statement, "I sincerely hope that my release is the first of many more to come in the near future."
He also hopes to be reunited soon with his mother, Sonam Dekyi, who traveled the world drumming up support for him while he was in prison. She is in India, so the two have spoken only by telephone since his release.
Choephel, now in his late 30s, fled from his native Tibet with his mother in 1968 and settled first in India, where he took an interest in traditional Tibetan music and dance. "He eventually studied at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala, a northern Indian town that is home to the Tibetan government in exile that the Dalai Lama set up. Choephel applied for the Fulbright and spent 1993 to 1994 at Middlebury, learning techniques to document his embattled culture.
MUSIC OF THE POLITICAL SPHERES
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On her vigil for her son, Sonam Dekyi sits on a New Delhi street holding his weathered photo. © Zana Briski |
For years, activists and celebrities have been pressing for Choephel's release. Musicians such as British singer-songwriter Annie Lennox, as well as Amnesty chapters in the United States, Finland, Chile, Ghana, Mexico and other nations adopted his case. Vermont's congressional delegation lobbied hard for Choephel, and because of his Middlebury connections, even Vermont Governor Howard Dean wrote a letter on his behalf.
Every effort helped, but the involvement of the legislators was key to the campaign's success, says T. Kumar, Amnesty's Asia advocacy director in Washington, D.C., Kumar cites American Amnesty activists' focus on persuading their political representatives to approach Chinese officials as crucial. "Every time a Congressmember calls, the ambassador gets nervous," he said.
Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., echoed that analysis. He said that he helped win Chinese approval for Choephel's mother to visit him by threatening to speak about the case on the Senate floor during debate of China's trade status. Dekyi was allowed to visit her son in prison in August 2000, and found him to be shockingly frail.
That news raised Choephel's profile even higher. He was first on a list of concerns presented by the State Department to Chinese officials in July 2001, according to John Kamm, a U.S. businessman who lobbies China on human rights. Kamm said there were indications as early as last fall that Choephel might be freed, but his eventual release was timed to precede the February summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. "It was just an opportune time with the president's visit coming," Jeffords agreed. "They gain a lot and really lose nothing" by the release.
While critics welcomed the good-will gesture, they remain concerned about China's human rights record. AI has called for China to free all those who are jailed in Tibet in violation of their fundamental human rights. The International Campaign for Tibet is pressing for self-determination for the Tibetan people and dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet.
THE POLITICS OF LAW
Some activists hope to use Choephel's case as a precedent to free other prisoners. The first Tibetan ever released directly to the United States, Choephel was freed in accordance with a previously unpublicized Chinese regulation, dating back to 1990. It states that a prisoner who contracts a serious and chronic illness while in prison and does not respond to treatment is eligible for medical parole after serving one-third of his or her sentence.
Kamm said that the London office of Amnesty International is looking for other cases where this rule would apply. "I wouldn't be surprised if there were other Tibetan releases in the near future," he added. But he also acknowledged that the rule was only one factor in Choephel's release and does not guarantee that others will be freed.
"Lots of laws, if applied consistently, would result in a lot of good things," he said.
Kumar put it more directly. Granting medical parole is a way for China to save face, and so is discovering previously overlooked rules, he said. "If there is a candidate they want to release who has completed one-tenth of the sentence, they may find another law coming up to justify that."
Despite such strategic questions, many people said the main lesson of Choephel's case was clear: Never give up. Michael O'Reilly, Amnesty's director of case work in Atlanta, Georgia, said the much-awaited release proved the need to be tenacious and maintain hope. "There had been indications from the Chinese government that his case was one they were not inclined to review, and it was important that Amnesty and others did not let that dissuade them," he said. "The power of international pressure still works."
PIZZA AND PAINFUL MEMORIES
Meanwhile, Choephel is readjusting to life outside prison. Shortly after his arrival in Washington, D.C., he was reunited with two friends from Middlebury College, cousins Jon and David Barlow. Together, they ate a lot of pizza and talked, often through the night, with the Barlows sometimes taking shifts to catch some sleep while Choephel continued to tell stories. "He really needed friends who knew him before his celebrity status," David Barlow said.
In between visits to Capitol Hill and doctors' offices, Choephel bought a dramyan, a traditional Tibetan stringed instrument that he hopes to play again soon. He told his friends that he was not able to play an instrument while in prison, but sang instead, sometimes with his fellow inmates.
"He even jokes about learning some Chinese songs," Jon Barlow said. Choephel spent the bulk of his sentence in a prison in Tibet, but served the last year and a half in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in China. He does not speak Chinese.
Choephel told his friends that he learned through radio reports and from Tibetans imprisoned after him that people around the world were pressing for his release. Now that he is free, the fate of his fellow prisoners weighs on his mind and he is trying to think about how to help them and how best to preserve his culture. But he is more immediately concerned about seeing his mother.
The Barlow cousins say he may not choose to take the political stage, despite the fame his imprisonment has brought him. "He's a shy person. He doesn't need a lot of adulation," David Barlow said. "He's going to be active in his own way and time."
Even if Choephel doesn't speak out, his case serves as an inspiration. "I think Ngawang Choephel is a lesson in hope," said Mary Beth Markey of the International Campaign for Tibet. "He never gave up hope. We shouldn't either." 
