The Dalai Lama and The CIA

[Stephen Morgan]

You know I was just reading Seven Years in Tibet. I couldn't help notice how biases and pro-Lamaist it was. Even, possibly especially, by German standards. I wouldn't have understood a lot of it if I knew nothing else about Tibet. The bit where he mentions in passing people with butter-smeared faces, for example.

That's not a very educated statement. They were living in the past, in an old system. Doesn't mean it was a brutal system. The Chinese system can be said categorically to be brutal.

There is a very big difference between the two governments.

The Chinese system was brutal, but so was what went before, despite the efforts of awe-struck and occultically inclined westerners to white-wash it (Younghusband, Harrer, etc.). It was a feudal system which tolerated no dissent and practiced whipping (often fatally) and amputation as criminal punishments. The best you can say about them is that they tolerated Muslims, which was their only concession to freedom of worship. China was bad too, but at least there wasn't a feudal system for the peasants or forced monastic conscription any more.

I know, you probably think Tibetan Buddhism is a Nazi plot by underground space-men to brainwash and control the world.

That had crossed my mind, yes.

[theeKultleeder]

Funny, the word "Lamaist" hasn't really been used in respectable anthropological literature since, i don't know, the early 1900's.(?)

The book I quoted in response to chlamor is a social anthropology study written by a chair in religious studies. He covers pre-Buddhist Tibet through to the Chinese invasion. He doesn't apologize for Tibetan culture, nor does he demonize it or romanticize it.

He studies the culture as it was in an objective manner.

[H_C_E]

Geez, this has gotten a bit absurd for my tastes.

First of all, I began with stating that in no way was in interested in defending the Dalai Lama and I stand by that because I make it a habit of never trusting any so-called authority until they have earned my trusted by a display of consistent repeated action over time that I have been witness to. And even then it is a limited trust because all human beings are fallible.

And while not having been a student of Tibetan and Chinese history, I'm very well studied on JFK's presidency. Before anyone ever throws around this utter bullshit of "You better study your history before you say anything about "X" boy" let's remember that history is vast in it's scope and that ALL OF US can only know so much about any given subject, so to use that line is specious manure.

If one doubts this then without going to a book or using the Net how much do you know about:

Bon shamanism
The impact black pepper had on European history
The Madison Presidency
The life and times of President Hindenburg
The historical events that moved the Norman people across Europe
The suffragette movement
The impact of French culture in South America in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds

You get the idea.

And one last thing. Illustrate for us how to effectively disband or shutdown the CIA that WILL WORK and is irrefutable in its effectiveness and I'll be glad to hear more of what you have to say. Otherwise you're just wasting pixels.

HCE

[Horatio Hellpop]

I think the Dalai Lama is equivalent to JPII. A media friendly face for a traditionally rotten and corrupt system.

[theeKultleeder]

I think the Dalai Lama is equivalent to JPII. A media friendly face for a traditionally rotten and corrupt system.

Maybe. But answer honestly: if you had to live under one of the two, who would you choose?

[Horatio Hellpop]

Sorry mate, can your clarify?

[theeKultleeder]

Sorry mate, can your clarify?

Scenario:

You are born in a region controlled either by the Pope's government and belief system, or the Dalai Lama's.

Who do you choose to live under?

[Horatio Hellpop]

I'm more partial to the concepts of Buddhism as I understand them, however as far as my understanding of the most recent incarnation of Lama rule, I think I would be better off being born in a Catholic nation in terms of opportunities for advancement in life.I.e. once a serf always a serf.

Anyway, you may as well ask me if i'd prefer to be kicked in the nuts by a monk or a priest.

I believe you have an interest in shamanism. Does it not disturb you reports of torture and murder against Tibetan's who refused to give up the old religion/ways??

[theeKultleeder]

I'm more partial to the concepts of Buddhism as I understand them, however as far as my understanding of the most recent incarnation of Lama rule, I think I would be better off being born in a Catholic nation in terms of opportunities for advancement in life.I.e. once a serf always a serf.

Anyway, you may as well ask me if i'd prefer to be kicked in the nuts by a monk or a priest.

I believe you have an interest in shamanism. Does it not disturb you reports of torture and murder against Tibetan's who refused to give up the old religion/ways??

Tell me more. Bon was absorbed by the Nyingmapas, who were also suppressed by the Gelugpas. The Dalai is a Gelugpa, it is the newest sect on the block.

There is a healthy back and forth between Bon and Nyingma Dzogpa Chenpo.

In my view, the best Teachers were the ones who "went crazy" and fled to the mountains to live a peaceful life. Still, the books and the universities have to be maintained by someone...

From what I can tell, the Nyingma clan "kept it real," while the Sakyapa were always more aristocratic. The Kagyupa were somewhere in between, while the Gelugs rose to dominance through truly un-Buddhistic political will, even though their founder, Tzongkhapa, is quite a scholar.

Still, the Dalai's power never extended far beyond Lhasa, as it was a country of tribes and nomads...

[Horatio Hellpop]

Tell me more.

LOL. Not bloody likely. I've just come across writers who do not have a Red agenda (which is admittedly what a lot (most?) of the anti Dalai Lama articles do seem to have) and generally these writers tend to have a deep interest in shamanism. They make claims about brutal suppression of shamans etc.

This is why I asked - not because I'm able to educate you on the topic.

[American Dream]

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/602187

The CIA's Buddhist affair
March 14, 2009
BRETT POPPLEWELL
STAFF REPORTER


Around the world this week, as monks, exiles and supporters of the Dalai Lama marked the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising, politicians and state-run media outlets in Beijing preached at length about the Communist Party's liberation of Tibetan slaves.

Meanwhile, in suburban Washington, John Kenneth Knaus, a retired CIA officer who led a covert command centre from New Delhi 50 years ago, worked on a new book about 100 years of American involvement in Tibet, including his own experiences feeding weapons and supplies to monks and resistance fighters.

On March 10, 1959, thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama's palace in Lhasa for fear that their spiritual leader might soon be abducted by the occupying force Mao Zedong had maintained in Tibet since 1950. Soon, protesters across the region were declaring Tibet's independence.

Seven days later the Dalai Lama was gone, spirited out of the country on horseback to India.

Some estimate more than 85,000 Tibetans died in the conflict that ensued as the Chinese army cracked down on the revolt.

Knaus had been working on the CIA's Tibetan file since the mid-1950s. Before taking up his post in New Delhi, he had helped train some 300 Tibetan resistance fighters in Colorado.

He says no American operatives were ever dropped into Tibet, though he says that in July 1958 and February 1959, the CIA did airdrop guns, hand grenades and rounds of munitions.

"The Tibetan revolt was instituted by the Tibetans and carried out by them," Knaus, 85, said in a phone interview this week. "It was not a CIA operation in essence."

In 1954, the Dalai Lama paid a diplomatic visit to Mao in Beijing. Soon after returning to Tibet he found many of his people, including monks, armed and open in revolt.

"You had monks carrying guns," says Knaus.

"The Chinese were trying to take their guns away from them. They (the Chinese) were really asking for it. The revolt was self-generated, completely."

In 1957, the Dalai Lama's older brother, Gyalo Thondup, recruited five men to be trained by the CIA on the Pacific island of Saipan. They were returned to Tibet to assess and organize the resistance. "At the time it was thought that this could make a difference," Knaus notes.

"The CIA had had a bitter experience by not being able to supply any real support to the Hungarian revolt a year earlier," when civilians in Budapest rose up against Communist rule and received encouragement and supplies from the CIA, only to be crushed by the Soviets when the Red Army rolled into the city. "So (the agency) didn't want to raise any false hopes and false expectations about what could be done in Tibet."

Knaus left the U.S. for New Delhi in 1960. Knaus estimates that in the years that under his watch he estimates, the CIA dropped 700,000 pounds of supplies to Tibetan rebels. But he says that by 1968, with the U.S. caught up in Vietnam and with the Chinese in control of the situation in Tibet, the resistance seemed "no longer technically or morally supportable," and the CIA withdrew its support.

In his 1999 book, Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival, Knaus laments the failure of the operation. But he says the essence of what the CIA-supported resistance fought for lives on in the peaceful protests sanctioned by the Dalai Lama and carried out by hundreds of thousands around the world today.

Knaus, who worked at the American Embassy in Ottawa for a time following his tenure in Asia, has met the Dalai Lama in the years since the CIA involvement in Tibet ceased. He says that although the Dalai Lama knew of the CIA's operations, he never gave them his blessing.

"The first time I met him in 1964, I didn't think he was terribly anxious to see me," recalls Knaus.

"Then I realized that I represented him with this moral dilemma. He knew that the CIA by then was and had been providing arms to his people. But he, as a Buddhist, it was a terrible, complete moral dilemma for him."

[American Dream]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KD04Dg01.html

Tale of two lamas: The battle for Tibet's soul
By Kent Ewing

HONG KONG - The Chinese leadership's answer to the Dalai Lama, the 19-year-old Panchen Lama, has emerged after a prolonged childhood-to-adolescence hibernation. He speaks Tibetan, Puthongua and - rev up the global PR machine - scripted English. Whatever language he chooses, however, he invariably uses it to back the central government.

As Beijing last week marked the 50th anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising that prompted the Dalai Lama's flight into exile in India, the Panchen Lama had nothing but praise for Chinese rule of the troubled Himalayan region. Meanwhile, stewing in his headquarters-in-exile in Dharamsala, the 73-year-old Dalai Lama accused China of creating "hell on Earth" in Tibet.

This week the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile made a point of traveling to New Delhi to thank India for taking him in as a "refugee" and offering "care and support" following his dramatic escape on horseback in 1959. Also this week, scientists at the University of Toronto's Munk Center for International Studies issued a report claiming that hackers based in China had infiltrated at least 1,295 computers of governments and private offices in 103 countries, including the Dalai Lama's headquarters.

The fact that the Chinese chose to celebrate the Dalai Lama's 50th year in exile by inaugurating a new holiday on March 28 - Serfs Emancipation Day - no doubt added insult to injury in Dharamsala. And the Panchen Lama, traditionally regarded as the second-highest religious figure in Tibetan Buddhism, did his part to support Beijing's portrayal of the Tibet Autonomous Region as a backwater of feudalism before the Chinese takeover and clearly denounced the Dalai Lama, albeit without naming him.

"I want to sincerely thank the Communist Party for giving me a set of clear eyes, so I can tell right from wrong," the Panchen Lama said at a forum marking the new holiday. "I can clearly recognize who loves the Tibetan people and who for personal motives unscrupulously wrecks Tibet's tranquility and stability."

In addition, the party's chief mouthpiece, the People's Daily, carried an essay by the Panchen Lama in which he described himself as a "descendent of serfs" and stated: "Facts show that it is only under the leadership of the Communist Party of China that Tibet can enjoy its current prosperity and an even better future."

The Panchen Lama also made a splash at the Second World Buddhist Forum, which started in the lakeside city of Wuxi in eastern Jiangsu province last week, and this week moved to Taiwan's capital of Taipei. He was the only one of the 1,300 monks, nuns and scholars from around the world to arrive in Wuxi accompanied by a security detail.

It was at the first such forum - held in Zhejiang province in 2006 - that the Panchen Lama gave his maiden speech as a religious leader. At that time, he spoke in Tibetan.

Significantly, targeting a worldwide audience for whom the Dalai Lama has become an enduring symbol of resistance to Beijing's heavy-handed policies in Tibet, he used English in his six-minute Wuxi address last Saturday.

"I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to our central government for their kindly concern in hosting this forum," he said. "This event fully demonstrates that today's China enjoys social harmony, stability and religious freedom, and also shows that China is a nation that safeguards and promotes world peace."

Different language, same message: all praise to the Chinese leadership for its wise and compassionate rule. The Wuxi leg of the forum certainly provided a grand backdrop for this theme with its imposing recreations of Buddhist prayer palaces situated in a large park that is also home to an ancient Buddhist site.

A 300-member orchestra and choir opened the conference, which was attended by representatives of more than 50 countries and regions and titled "A Harmonious World, a Synergy of Conditions". Kung Fu film star Jet Li made an appearance in what, in the end, amounted to a show that was more style than substance.

Overall, the forum was a slickly staged attempt by Beijing, whose officially atheist communist doctrine has persecuted Buddhists in the past, to reclaim China's 2,000-year-old ties to Buddhism - minus, of course, the Dalai Lama and anyone who supports him.

It won't work.

The youthful Panchen Lama, son of two Communist Party members, apparently will be leading the charge against the aging patriarch of Tibetan Buddhism. But no grandiose architectural recreation of China's Buddhist past - even if supplemented by a choir, an orchestra and a movie star - is going to compensate for his patent illegitimacy.

Born Gyaincain Norbu, the Panchen Lama was enthroned in 1995 as the 11th reincarnation of the second-most revered figure in the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism. The ceremony was organized by the Communist Party. His predecessor, who died in 1989, was at times imprisoned by Chinese leaders for refusing to toe the party line.

The child chosen as successor by the Dalai Lama disappeared from public view soon after his selection and has never been seen again.

Throughout his childhood and adolescence, the Panchen Lama was kept under tight wraps by Chinese authorities, so the last few weeks represent a kind of coming-out party for him. But its effectiveness has not, and will not, reverberate beyond China.

The Panchen Lama has never been interviewed by foreign media and is not, despite his grand title, accepted by Tibetans as a spiritual leader. While photographs of his predecessor are common in Tibetan temples, it is rare to see one of him.

In the region, the Tibetan diaspora and beyond, he is seen for what he is: another propaganda tool wielded to undermine the authority of the Dalai Lama. No objective observer can take seriously anything he says - no matter how many languages it is packaged in.

By all indications, when the Dalai Lama dies, Beijing will also select a faux reincarnation born to loyal members of the party. But the farcical result will be the same. This Dalai Lama, the 14th, could very well be the last whom Tibetans - and most of the rest of the world - will recognize.

Chinese leaders may hope that the Buddhist forum will project a new image of China as a bastion of religious tolerance, but that is unlikely to happen. For too many, there was a huge void where the Dalai Lama - winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize and the internationally recognized face of Tibetan Buddhism - should have been sitting.

The forum was intended to serve as an exemplar of Beijing's use of soft power, but instead, at least outside China, it is likely to be perceived as another glitzy propaganda show with a callow impostor taking center stage.

Indeed, Beijing has been far more effective in brandishing its economic might against the Dalai Lama than in any softer approach it has chosen. Naked threats seem to work, especially now that the global financial crisis has left the United States and its European allies in a weak economic position as China's gross domestic product continues to grow, although not by the leaps and bounds of the past.

Propaganda ploys, on the other hand, because they are so often as specious and unconvincing as the Panchen Lama's forum performance, ultimately wind up redounding against Chinese authorities while giving the Dalai Lama the moral upper hand.

The South African government certainly heard Beijing's economic message loud and clear when it refused to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama to attend a peace conference in Johannesburg last week. A government spokesman, after an initial denial, admitted that the country, China's largest trading partner on the continent, did not want to jeopardize relations with Beijing by appearing to embrace one of its enemies.

Even after two fellow winners of the Nobel Peace Prize from South Africa - retired Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the country's last white president, F W de Klerk - announced that they were boycotting the conference because of the visa flap, government officials stuck to their guns. The conference has since been postponed indefinitely.

President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan, who has made warmer relations and enhanced economic ties with Beijing a priority since he assumed office last May, has also stated clearly that the Dalai Lama is not welcome on the island - during the Buddhist forum or at any other time. The fact that Taiwan, regarded as a renegade province of China by the central government, is co-hosting this conference with the mainland is less about promoting Buddhism than continuing a political thaw in relations after eight rocky years under former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian, who is currently on trial for graft.

It is through its economic strength, backed by increasing military power, that Beijing aims to push Taiwan toward reunification with the motherland.

On the sidelines of the Group of 20 London summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao met his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday. The meeting came hours after China and France issued a press communique in which France pledged not to support "Tibet independence" in any form. And in the meeting, Sarkozy said that no matter how France-China relations changed, he believed there was only one China in the world, with Taiwan and Tibet constituting inalienable parts of Chinese territory, according to Xinhua News Agency. Relations between China and France worsened last December when Sarkozy decided to meet with the Dalai Lama in Poland.

As the global economy tanks, China is sitting on more than US$2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves. If Chinese leaders are to succeed, among their many other goals, in marginalizing the Dalai Lama and his followers, it will be with cold, hard cash, not lama puppets on a string.



Kent Ewing is a Hong Kong-based teacher and writer. He can be reached at kewing@hkis.edu.hk.