mikeldunham

"Mikel Dunham Remembers March 10, 1959"-- Clip from upcoming film "CIA IN TIBET"

March 10, 2010

CLICK HERE for film clip

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Why Nepal has gained Geo-Political Significance in the last two years: Tibet

February 27, 2010

 

Last week, The Economic Times published an excellent analysis on a Chinese foreign policy shift in regards to Nepal:

 

China intensifies tug of war with India over Nepal

For years, Nepal never bothered too much with policing its northern border with China. The Himalayas seemed a formidable-enough barrier, and Nepal’s political and economic attention was oriented south toward India. If Nepal was a mouse trapped between elephants, as the local saying went, the elephant that mattered most was India.

But last week a Nepalese government delegation visited Beijing on a trip that underscored, once again, how China’s newfound weight in the world is altering old geopolitical equations.

As Nepal’s home minister, Bhim Rawal, met with China’s top security officials, Chinese state media reported that the two countries had agreed to cooperate on border security, while Nepal restated its commitment to preventing any “anti-China” events on its side of the border.

Details of the meetings were not yet known, but the two countries were expected to finalize a program under which China would provide money, training and logistical support to help Nepal expand police checkpoints in isolated regions of its northern border.

The reason for the deal is simple: Tibet.

At a time when President Barack Obama’s decision to meet with the Dalai Lama has infuriated China, Rawal’s meetings in Beijing could have greater practical effect on the lives of Tibetans. Prodded by China, Nepal is now moving to close the Himalayan passages through which Tibetans have long made secret trips in and out of China, often on pilgrimages to visit the Dalai Lama in his exile in India.

If it once regarded Nepal with intermittent interest, China is now exerting itself more broadly toward its small Himalayan neighbor, analysts say – partly because of its concern that Nepal could become a locus of Tibetan agitation, partly as another South Asian stage in its growing soft-power fencing match in the region with India.

“Nepal has become a very interesting space where the big players are playing at two levels,” said Ashok Gurung, director of the India China Institute at The New School. “One is their relationship with Nepal. And the second is the relationship between India and China.”

In the broadest sense, India and China share similar goals in Nepal. Each wants Nepal’s political situation to stabilize and is watching closely as the country’s Maoists negotiate with other political parties over a new constitution that would fundamentally reshape the government. Each is also worried about security, as India is concerned about political agitation on the Nepalese side of their shared border, as well as the possibility that terrorists trained in Pakistan could transit through Nepal.

But India is also paying close attention to what many India experts consider newfound Chinese activism in South Asia, whether by building ports in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, or signing new agreements with even the tiniest South Asian nations like the Maldives. An expanding Chinese presence in Nepal would be especially alarming to India, given that India and Nepal share a long and deliberately porous border.

“India has always been concerned about what access China might have in Nepal,” said Sridhar Khatri, executive director of the South Asia Center for Policy Studies in Katmandu. “India has always considered South Asia to be its backyard, like a Monroe Doctrine.”

From China’s perspective, Nepal’s geopolitical significance rose after Tibetan protests erupted in March 2008, five months before Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. Those protests began inside China; in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital; and other Tibetan regions, but also spread across the border to Katmandu, where an estimated 12,000 Tibetans live.

Even as Chinese officials were able to block international media coverage of the crackdown under way in Tibet, the protests in Nepal attracted global attention as photographs circulated of the Nepalese police subduing Tibetan protesters. In a few cases, media outlets mistakenly identified the photographs as coming from inside Tibet.

“There was a shift after March,” Gurung said. “The Chinese realized that Nepal is going to be an important site where they could potentially be embarrassed on Tibetan issues.”

V.R. Raghavan, a retired general in the Indian army, said that China for years had tacitly allowed Tibetans to cross into Nepal, many of whom were making pilgrimages or attending universities in India. But the March protests made China realize that it had a “southern window” that needed to be closed, he said.

“Every movement of important personages and priests and others from Tibet has taken place through Nepal,” said General Raghavan, now director of the Delhi Policy Group, a research institute.

Chinese officials tightened security on their side of the border in the name of preventing pro-Tibet agitators from slipping into, or out of, the country. They also pushed Nepal to become more vigilant.

Last fall, Rawal announced that Nepal, for the first time, would station armed police officers in isolated regions like Mustang and Manang on the border with Tibet.

Meanwhile, Tibetan advocates say the tightening border security has already sharply slowed movement. Until 2008, roughly 2,500 to 3,000 Tibetans annually slipped across the border, according to the office of the Dalai Lama. By last year, the number dropped to about 600, a change that Tibetan advocates attribute to closer ties between China and Nepal.

“As they get closer,” said Tenzin Taklha, secretary for the Dalai Lama, “it is becoming more difficult for Tibetans.”

In fact, many Nepalese believe that moving closer to China is in the best interests of the country.

For more than a half century, India has been deeply influential in Nepalese affairs and remains Nepal’s biggest trading partner and economic benefactor, even as some Nepalese resent India’s role in their affairs. Nepal’s currency is pegged to the Indian rupee, and citizens of the two countries are allowed to pass freely across the border. More than one million Nepalese work in India, sending back remittances.

But trade with China has quadrupled since 2003, according to government statistics, and Nepalese business leaders want to increase economic ties.

In recent years, Chinese airlines have opened routes into Nepal as the number of Chinese tourists has risen steadily, and Nepalese officials also want China to extend rail services to the border so that Nepal can be linked to the same high-altitude line that connects Beijing to Tibet.

Kush Kumar Joshi, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said his group was trying to establish special economic zones to lure Chinese manufacturers to Nepal – and for Indian companies, too.

“We need to have both countries as our development partners,” he said.

Khatri, the analyst in Katmandu, said that India would remain Nepal’s dominant neighbor, but that China’s expanding global reach would inevitably make it more engaged than before. To assume that China would not exert itself more in South Asia and Nepal, he said, “would be to neglect the reality.

 

 

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Extraordinary rare color footage of Tibet from 1930's to 1950s

December 12, 2010

A treasure trove of rare color films shot by British, Tibetans and Chinese -- and up until now preserved by the British Film Institute -- has just been made into a invaluable documentary by the BBC. You can see it on YouTube by clicking on the three links below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks goes out to photographer Don Farber for bringing this to my attention.

YouTube links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwBeO6cdGiw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7F2zqUU7HI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vio0P1DBebw&feature=related

Dunham’s review of TIBET’S LAST STAND? – the excellent new book by Warren W. Smith, Jr.

November 27, 2009

 

Warren W. Smith Jr. has emerged as the preeminent writer on Tibetan history and Sino-Tibetan relations. Smith, a research historian with Radio Free Asia's Tibet Service in Washington, D.C., is also the author of Tibet Nation, and China’s Tibet?

His newest work solidifies that position by offering the most comprehensive account available of Tibet’s resistance during the buildup to the Beijing Olympics – an uprising that challenged China’s claim that it has a legitimate right to colonize and suppress the Tibetan people. Smith relates Beijing’s paranoid reaction to the uprising in fascinating detail.

The organization of the book is extremely helpful for readers who would like to extricate fact from fiction. He begins with a deeply knowledgeable chronology of the 2008 revolt and moves on to examine China’s reaction, not only to the Tibetan protestors but international criticism as well.

Especially insightful is Smith’s examination of the traditional themes of Chinese propaganda, used with tremendous success since the 1950s.

Finally, Tibet’s Last Stand? convincingly reveals that – far from becoming more lenient in response to Tibetan discontent – China has determined to eradicate Tibetan opposition internally and coerce the international community (including Nepal) to conform to China’s version of Tibetan history and reality.

Anyone who is genuinely interested in the Tibetan issue of the nature of modern Chinese nationalism must read Tibet’s Last Stand?, a seminal and mesmerizing book.

 

Available through Rowman & Littlefield Publishers click here

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Nepal: Tibetan refugees photographing Tibetan refugees -- PART 10

November 29, 2008

From time immemorial Tibetans have relished theatrical performances. Even in the more remote areas of Tibet, hundreds of years ago, there was a tradition of traveling minstrels crossing great distances to unpack their costumes and put on shows wherever they could find a crowd. Yak caravans or pilgrims who had seen the minstrels along the mule paths would notify villagers in advance. The actors were a distinctive group: The hats they wore were maroon and conical with pointy tops that flopped from side to side with cream-colored tassels. Their repertoire was based on a mixture of religious teachings and folk tales, with clear-cut villains and heroes – morality plays of good against evil.

After Mao’s People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1949, the communists brought with them their own brand of theatrical productions, propagandistic in tone and content, and mandatory viewing for the Tibetans. The theme was always the same: The Tibetan estate owners and lamas had kept the serfs in bondage for centuries, but Mao had come to liberate them from the evil aristocracy and the evil monasteries.

Today, theatrical productions written, staged and performed at refugee settlements are still quite popular and a staple of exile settlement existence. The photographs (below) record a political drama recently mounted at a Pokhara camp, illustrating the treatment that Tibetans living in Tibet continue to receive from the Chinese communists, whose ruthlessness remain the same in the 21st century.

 


























































 
 

On the other side of the mountains, seen from Pokhara, awaits the Tibetan border.

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Mikel Dunham’s exclusive interview with Nepal’s Finance Minister Dr. Bhattarai

September 23, 2008

Early this morning, I had my third interview with Maoist-second-in-command Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, the newly appointed Finance Minister of Nepal. Dr. Bhattarai’s first act in office was to introduce the national budget on September 19. This morning we spoke on several issues –tourism, Tibetan refugee deportation, crime against women, inflation – all of which have an impact on the stability of the world’s newest republic.

Tourism
DUNHAM: Mr. Minister, if this new administration succeeds, history will remember it as the government that broke the chains of the old ways, returned peace to the land, and charted a completely new and innovative course toward Nepali prosperity in the 21st century. As the Minister of Finance you have a great deal to say as to the manner in which the government proceeds.

In the last two weeks I’ve talked to a variety of leading businessmen and what’s most surprised me is that, no matter what political affiliation they may be with, they seem to genuinely hope that you and the Maoist –led government succeed. They are saying, “Let’s wait and see and be patient and hope for the best.”

Patience may be a virtue, but in the political world, an administration cannot expect to enjoy public patience indefinitely. A year from now, you will need to be able to identify improvements that have been made in the financial sector. People will want to see at least the beginnings of a better life for them.

Your government’s plans are bold in meeting those challenges. But there are certain sectors within the Nepal business world that already show vigor – asking only to be left alone, at least for the time-being.

I’m thinking particularly of the tourist industry. Its leaders tell me that they are poised for a very robust October and November 2008, for instance. Foreigners will be pouring in and filling the hotels and seeking Nepal’s natural beauty like never before.
But…

One thing they are concerned about is the visa hike reportedly proposed. They’re saying, “Please not yet, Mr. Minister. Because of the shaky financial market and high oil prices, tourists are looking at all travel costs very closely. The visa hike would be a real turn-off for many tourists. Once we’ve got a full head of steam, then it’s a good time to raise the visa. Don’t cut us off at the ankles just when we have gotten back on our feet again.”

Here is one of those industries that you can hold up to the public a year from now and say, “See how tourism has improved since our administration?”

How do you respond to this and what discussions have you had with the leaders of the tourist industry about the raised visa cost and other industry-related concerns?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABARAM BHATTARAI: As you know, the Nepalese people have been going through exciting times these last few years – very exciting times in Nepalese history. The people have put their faith in us. We are in a newly formed government, only one month old. We have put forward the policies and programs and the new budget. There has been comparatively positive response to all of this.

As you know, our main task is peace and development. Peace and development are interlinked. Until and unless we have peace, we can’t have development. And until we have development, we can’t have sustainable peace. So that’s why we are focusing on development: to have sustainable peace. That’s why, in our budget and policies and programs of the government, we have prioritized certain sectors.

One is modernization of our agriculture sector. Our agriculture had been traditional, feudal and two-thirds of our labor force has been engaged in that. That’s why we want to modernize and commercialize agriculture: so that the majority of the labor force engaged –two-thirds – can switch over to non-agriculture jobs in the service sector jobs. 

The other sectors we have focused on are tourism and hydropower. We will be focusing on these sectors in the coming days.

You have correctly pointed out that tourism is one of the kingpins of our development process. And for that, the situation is comparatively positive and favorable. With the coming of the tourist season, there is a lot of expectation for the success in this sector. To stimulate the economy, we are trying to develop plans to attract more tourists and to provide good tourism infrastructure.

As you asked, the visa should be a non-issue. I haven’t gone through visa charges. I’ve just learned this from you. If it is too high, then we can look into that.

But the main thing is we want to welcome tourists. Nepal is a very beautiful place and the tourism industry can be a very good contributing factor for our long-term development. Therefore, we don’t want to put up any such barriers, which would discourage the tourist arrivals. We will look into that.

The possibility of re-settling Tibetan refugees: Send them to America?
DUNHAM: In order to achieve your fiscal goals, you must cut out the fat when and where you see unnecessary expenditure occurring. It seems to me that one way to reduce expenditure and win foreign hearts is to allow any Tibetans currently living in Nepal who want to, to be repatriated to American soil. The American government has made it clear that they would be willing to bring these Tibetans to the U.S, but have felt blocked and shut out by previous Nepali governments. Why not let those who want to go, go to American if invited? As it stands now, aren’t they a burden on the budget rather than an asset?


FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: We will look into the Tibetan issue.

Since the new government has just formed since one month before, we haven’t had time to go into that. We will look into that. We don’t want them to make a burden on our economy. But in our budgetary allocation, and elsewhere, there is no allocation for Tibetan refugees. I think they have been surviving from other some other sources of income.

The Tibetan issue is slightly tricky, also. Since Nepal is sandwiched between the big countries, China and India, we have to balance our foreign policy very delicately. Keeping that in mind, we will try to solve this issue.

DUNHAM: Recently, 137 Tibetans were detained at the Tibetan Reception Center. It’s been predicted that at least half of them do not have the refugee certificate card. They will therefore be deported to India. When I spoke to the Home Minister a few days ago, he assured me that, in the future, they will continue to be deported to India, contrary to the rumor that they might be deported to China.

Couldn’t it also be possible that, if there are future deportees and the United States is willing to bring them to American soil, couldn’t the deportees just as easily be sent to America? Is that a possibility?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: That…that we have to look into that. I would like to look into that further.



Crimes against women and the need for more policewomen
DUNHAM: In the past few weeks, I’ve been talking with a number of women in the police force. Out of 57,000 police officers only 2000 of them are women. But this small minority has made a real difference out there in the field in helping victims of domestic violence and sex trafficking. Women are essential in creating a trust between the victim and the police officer. Female victims need to be able to talk to other women.

The Women’s and Children’s Service Center, for example, is doing a terrific job even though they are extremely understaffed and financed to operate a successful operation. Reducing violence against women and curtailing sex-trafficking will be, over the long run, sound economic policy.

So what I’m saying is: Here’s a department that’s already working admirably but really needs help. Have you included in your budget significant monies to pay for an increase in the number of policewomen to specifically deal with women in crisis? And wouldn’t this increase in policewomen be a very cost-effective measure to take for the new government?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: Yes, definitely, yes. I fully agree with that. If there are more women in the police, it will give a more human face to the police force. In general, it will send a good message to the public.

As far as crime against women goes, it’s very rampant in this society – sex-trafficking and all these things – domestic violence. To look into that also, if there are women officers in the police force, it will ease the whole situation. That’s why I fully agree with your assessment.

DUNHAM: You support the idea of increasing the women personel --?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: Yes, definitely, definitely. In fact, our policy has been to increase the number of women in all sectors of the state, including the security forces. So, if not 50%, at least 33% should be the target. This has been the position of our party.

DUNHAM: And are you running up against any resistance from other parties to achieve that goal of increasing women in all sectors of the state?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: Of course there will be resistance. Ours is a feudal society and this patrimonial culture is still here. Keeping that in mind, there will be resistance. Even then, we have to fight against that. And we are ready to fight against that. 

Inflation
DUNHAM: I see we’re running out of time. One more question, Mr. Minister. Businessmen in Kathmandu, at least the one’s I’ve talked to, say their biggest concern about the new budget is whether or not you will be able to control inflation. What measures are you prepared to take in order to curb inflation?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: No, in spite of the people’s apprehensions, the budget is not inflationary. People think it is a very ambitious budget, but that is not so. Even if you go by the international norms and standards of macro-economic stability, it is within the bounds. We have not crossed that limit. We have very meticulously calculated it and I don’t think our budget will lead to inflation.

But the inflationary pressure is an international phenomenon. You see, we have a very open economy, an open border with India, so some of the inflation would be imported from outside Nepal. That would be very difficult for us to contain.

DUNHAM: That’s right.

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: But internally, we will revise policy. The best way to control inflation is to improve the supply side, you see? -- if you make good supply arrangements that can check inflation, and other measures also were working.

DUNHAM: When you talk about other outside forces… right now, America’s financial debacle seems to be spreading in every direction. It’s a mess. As Finance Minister, to what degree do you think the American problem will ripple into Nepal’s economic stability?

FINANCE MINISTER DR. BABURAM BHATTARAI: Actually, it has some impact. But it doesn’t have a very big impact because our economy is a very peripheral economy. We are at the far periphery of the global economy. In that sense, I don’t think there will be a very big impact, but it will have some impact. So we will work out measures, keeping this in mind.

DUNHAM: Thank you very much for giving me this time.


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Dunham’s trip to Tibetan refugee camps in Nepal

September 22, 2008




From the early 1960s to 1974, Tibetan freedom fighters congregated in Mustang, a high Nepalese principality jutting out over the Tibetan plain. Direct conflict with Mao Tse-tung’s People’s Liberation Party, which had overrun Tibet in the 1950s and forced the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to flee for his life in 1959, was negligible in Mustang. But the Tibetan resistance did stage incursions and lethal raids back inside Tibet, sometimes with significant reconnaissance results. In one instance, Tibetan freedom fighters killed an officer, then confiscated his leather satchel, which later revealed enough communist classified information for the CIA’s flagging interest in the resistance to be somewhat revived. One CIA officer later told me that there was enough information in that bag to supply them with “intel” for the next ten years. Washington assistance for the freedom fighters surged for a short time afterwards.

In the meantime, Communist China had been leaning heavily on King Birendra to do something about the troublesome Tibetans. Baba Gen Yeshi, who had earlier commanded the Tibetan troops in Mustang, but had consequently been ousted in disgrace, provided invaluable information to the Royal Army as to the precise whereabouts of the thirteen resistance camps hidden in the rough Mustang high country.














In 1974, with Baba Gen Yeshi’s assistance, the Nepal army chased down General Wangdu, the last leader of the Mustang freedom fighters. General Wangdu fled west for the safety of India. He almost made it. At Tinker’s Pass, in far-western Nepal, within eyesight of India, Wangdu was ambushed and murdered. His mangled body was brought down to Kathmandu and put on public display at Ratna Park for many days until the stench was so bad that officials were finally obliged to remove the corpse.

This marked the end of armed Tibetan resistance of the Chinese communist takeover in Tibet. (For the complete history of Tibetan resistance, read my book Buddha’s Warriors.)

Tibetan Life After the End of the Resistance
Nepal’s solution to the burgeoning Tibetan refugee problem was to create refugee camps in and around Pokhara and Kathmandu. Already, in the 1960s, a Tibetan-run welfare center and Office of the Dalai Lama had been set up in the nation’s capital. For decades, this proved to be an effective system for dealing with the continual influx of Tibetan refugees from China. In the last decade, the number of new arrivals averaged somewhere around 2500 per year.

However, in February 2005, Nepalese authorities demanded the closure of both the Office of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Welfare Office on the grounds that they had not been registered properly despite operating in an open, transparent manner since the 1960s. Since then, the task of dealing with Tibetan refugees has fallen on the shoulders of the UNHCR and the Tibetan Reception Center, located below the famous Monkey Temple (Syambhunath) in Kathmandu.

Last week I made a trip to Pokhara to investigate the current conditions of the five refugee camps. I had first visited them in 1999 while conducting research for Buddha’s Warriors. The scene in 1999 was pitiful and heartbreaking. Evidence of neglect and under-financing permeated the dilapidated settlements. The school at Jampaling refugee camp was so destitute that the lama-instructor told me the parents were too poor to even pay for pencils for their children. The Old People’s Home was equally impoverished – barely holding on.

I revisited Jampaling. I’m happy to report that, with the help of donors from the West, the situation has improved. But it is still far from a happy environment. The Tibetans must rely on the land to provide for much of their subsistence; the land they were given to till is rocky and not really suited for agriculture. Their only other means of making money is by handcrafting trinkets and souvenirs for the tourist trade that pours into Pokhara, the picturesque lake community with the breathtaking view of Machchhapuchhara, one of the most beautiful mountains in the Himalaya.

There is nothing romantic about the camps.

































Below are some sobering 2008 statistics about the five refugee camps that I gathered during my visit.

From the table, one can see that the majority of  Tibetan refugees do not possess a Refugee Certificate (RC) card, the qualification that the new Nepali government has announced as necessary to remain in Nepal. Tibetans without the RC card are now targets for deportation to India.

Here’s a breakdown of source of income by camp:

It’s not just the fact that the above occupations do not provide substantial income; it’s also the negligible possibility of transforming these occupations into a growth industry. Children are leaving in ever-larger numbers in search of jobs either in the capital or abroad.

Without exception the Tibetans I talked to expressed genuine appreciation for the many decades during which the Nepalese government has provided them with safe haven. But it was also without exception that they expressed fear that the preponderance of family members who lacked RC cards will soon be forced to leave Nepal, deteriorating the already fragile sense of community and Tibetan culture, the only things left for them to cling to.

I asked one extremely bright young man whose talents are obviously wasted in a refugee camp environment if he thought residents would want to leave for American shores, if provided with the opportunity. Here’s his written reply:

“I would guess that at least 80% would go to America quite willingly. In Nepal, we have no scope of getting a good job even when you are a graduate or have a diploma in any subject. Because of Nepali students they even don’t get a good job in govt. even after a good graduation so it’s far more difficult for us to get a good job. And secondly our Tibetan students would rather go to the US because of the better facility in education, to exercise in true democracy and have the opportunity to work. So as written above, 80% would prefer to go outside than live here and do nothing proper.”

America’s Role
During the Bush administration, there has been a genuine effort to resettle Tibetans in Nepal to America. Time and again the proposal has been stymied by resistance to the idea from whoever is in power in Nepal. Chinese pressure can only be presumed to play a part in this resistance. According to Beijing, there have been no Tibetan refugees coming to Nepal in recent years – only illegal aliens who should be regarded as criminals and preferably returned to China.


An Old Man Remembers

At the Jampaling refugee camp, I asked an old fellow in the Old People’s Home, to pull up a chair and tell me how he ended up in this forgotten camp.

He originally came from Ganze, in eastern Tibet, but ended up in Mustang during the decade of resistance. I asked him if he had been in Mustang during Baba Gen Yeshi’s leadership, or if had he been there later, when General Wangdu had been ambushed. He replied, “Both.” I assumed that he had been a freedom fighter.

“When you were forced to leave Mustang and resettle in Pokhara, did you have a wife and family coming with you?” I asked.

“What?” He seemed not to understand for a moment. “I’m a monk!”

“So if you were from Ganze, you must be of the Gelugpa school.”

“That’s right. I’m the caretaker of the temple.”

“And do you have a residing lama at your temple?”

“No. Not anymore. Our old high lama passed on and the young lamas are not willing to stay out here anymore…too far away from everything.”

My final question was: “You’ve been living here for so many years. Has the situation improved here or gotten worse?”

His answer: “When we fled from Tibet we had nothing – not even anything to carry with us. Thanks to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and thanks to Western sponsors, we have food and shelter and we are thankful to all of them for their help.”


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Mikel Dunham’s exclusive interview with Nepal’s Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam

September 18, 2008 – Kathmandu, Nepal

This morning I conducted a filmed interview with Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam at the Ministerial Residence Compound in Pulchok. Gautam serves as Deputy Prime Minister, the number-two man in Nepal’s new government. He has also been appointed Home Minister, a position that oversees all matters of security in Nepal. Known as a long-time advocate of a multi-party democracy in Nepal, Gautam played an integral role in 2004 when he helped orchestrate meetings between the rebel Maoists and the Seven Party Alliance –a political merging that eventually led to the demise of the 260-year-old monarchy. This morning, Gautam and I spoke on a variety of issues including corruption, gang violence, rule of law in Madesh, sex trafficking, intra-party strife and the question of Tibetan deportation. As far as I am aware, it was during my interview that Gautam said for the first time, unequivocally, that Tibetans would not be in danger of being deported to China – not now nor in the future.




DUNHAM: I believe that improving the infrastructure in Nepal  -- and as soon as possible  -- should be a priority in the new government. But it is also my opinion that, before you can build infrastructure, the government must establish rule of law and nation-wide security. Do you agree with this?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: What you say is right, to some extent, but the development of infrastructure is not the only important work. Right now, the most important work is to achieve political stability. Forward-looking programs and the writing of the constitution are the most important tasks to pursue at the present time.
 
To do all this, it is very important to establish rule of law as well as establishing peace and security for the people—these are the main conditions that must first be achieved.


LAW AND ORDER IN MADESH

DUNHAM: There is already evidence that security has improved in the Kathmandu Valley. But what about law and order in Madesh [southern districts of Nepal that  bordering India]? Isn’t this a more challenging goal for the Home Ministry? How can we expect the Ministry to deal with future Madeshi unrest?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: I would like to thank you for your assessment that the security condition in the Kathmandu Valley has improved. But I don’t consider it as improved. It is only on the way to being improved.  When we implement the process strictly, the situation in Kathmandu will gradually improve.

As far as the security situation in Terai [Madesh] is concerned, it is weak. There are lots of problems because the past government’s policies on security did not work properly.
Especially when you talk about the Madesh movement, which was started as a movement for the identification of the whole Terai region, that movement –along with other problems --is interconnected with the inaction of the previous government.
But now we have seen two different kinds of activities in Terai. One: activities that are politically motivated. Two: purely criminally motivated activities.

We have clearly understood both kinds of problems and defined them. We will begin the peace negotiation process to solve the political problem. A few days before, the Prime Minister has already called upon those who will sit in on the negotiations. When the Prime Minister returns from India, we will form a negotiation committee and get to work.

On the other hand, using force will control those groups that were formed with criminal intentions. Some progress has already started in that direction.

The most important thing to remember is that the people of Nepal want peace, progress and prosperity. To achieve this, maintaining law and order –peace and security – is vital.
The government has already begun to move in that direction.


VIOLENCE BY GANGS AND THUGS

DUNHAM: My next question relates to this. Gangs of thugs and criminals are a big problem in Nepal. What is the best way the Home Ministry can break apart their power structure? More specifically: What impact do gangs coming from India have on Nepal? What can Nepal do to fight back?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: For the last two or three years, Nepal has been in a state of transition: The old regime is finished and the new regime has not yet been properly established. But we are confidently moving ahead to establish a new system in the state.

In this transitory period, several elements such as gangs, thugs, and international criminals have entered Nepal and harassed the Nepalese population.

First of all, we have started to control the violent activities of the thugs, gangs and looters who are now within the city limits of the capital [Kathmandu]. We have been getting positive feedback. We have already attacked the bases and sources of these criminal gangs. We won’t let up with our efforts.

During the old regime, improvement within the security sector did not happen. Therefore, the present government is finding it difficult to make up for lost time.

Regarding the Indian criminals entering Nepal, we recognize the fact that they exist, that they come in from Indians bases, and that they have been involved in criminal activities on our soil. We plan to coordinate with the Indian government to stop these criminals.

Now, in Terai, those criminals who are coming from India are involved in murder, violence and abduction. But I believe that we can control them.

DUNHAM: There are twenty or thirty groups identified as political groups in the Terai. However, it’s presumed that many of them are simply criminal gangs posing as political groups – smoke screens. Do you have a good idea as to how many of these groups are genuinely politically motivated?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: Both the political and non-political groups in Terai are involved with criminal activities. We see that. However, we are currently trying to determine which of these groups are authentically politically motivated.

The past government believed that there were two or three of these groups that fit into that category and attempted negotiations with them – especially with the two factions of Terai Janatarantrik Mukti Morcha – one led by Jwala Singh and the other led by Goit.

But the current government has not yet been able to meet with these groups because of our busy schedules. Our plan is to invite all the groups to come to the table and negotiate. If the groups are genuinely politically motivated, they should come talk to us. The ones who participate will be regarded as politically motivated. Those who do not participate will be assumed to be criminally motivated. In the latter case, we will deal with them accordingly.


THE TIBET ISSUE

DUNHAM: Last week it was announced that Tibetans who do not have refugee certificate (RC) cards face deportation. It’s reported that those Tibetans who are currently detained at the Tibetan Reception Center – those who lack RC cards -- will be sent on to India. Does that mean that India has been designated as the standard destination for Tibetans without legal residence status, or is it also possible that Tibetans could be deported to China sometime in the future?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: Nepal is a country that has a very close and friendly relationship with both of its neighbors, India and China. We have enjoyed this relationship for a long time. From the very beginning, we have not let anyone use Nepal territory as the base for anti-Indian or anti-Chinese activities. Nepal has always been consistent in honoring this policy. We will continue to do so.

Regarding the Tibetan refugees: They have been living in Nepal for a long time. We have provided them with identity cards. However, we cannot continue to keep all the Tibetans who arrive in Nepal as refugees.

The Nepalese government recognized those who came at the beginning, especially those who arrived during the 1960s, as refugees. We have limited capacity to take care of refugees, so it must be limited to those who are recognized as refugees. All other Tibetans who come to Nepal, we hand them over to the UNHCR and, in turn, the UNHCR takes them to India. Once in India, the UNHCR coordinates with the Dalai Lama’s office in Dharamsala, where they will be settled. We do not send them to India ourselves.

In the recent past, [since March 2008] Tibetans in Nepal have become involved in many activities [that have been problematic to the Nepalese government]. We told them that, while they are living in Nepal as refugees, they should honor the law of the land. We told them that they were not allowed to be involved with whatever they desired. We made ourselves clear on that point.

If they break the law, we arrest them and hand them over to the refugee camp and warn them against getting involved with such activities again.

Regarding the Tibetans who lack RC cards: They cannot be involved in any unlawful activities. If they do so, they are abusing the Nepalese government’s friendliness and openness, which the government has extended to them.

If they are involved in such activities, we have been arresting and handing them over the UNHCR. We arrested those who were protesting in front of the Chinese embassy and then we talked to them. It was at this time that we discovered that none of them were refugees living in Nepal. As a result, we handed them over to the UNHCR. That is what we did.

We have not arrested nor deported any Tibetans to China. We will not deport them to China.

DUNHAM: In the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese and Nepalis very effectively sealed off the northern border of Nepal in an effort to prevent movement between Tibet and Nepal. Will the northern border of Nepal remain sealed now that Olympics are over?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: We tightened the Nepali-Chinese border because of the Beijing Olympics. Chinese officials closely monitored all the border points. At the request of the Chinese government, Nepal also tightened those border points.

Some people tried to disturb the march of the Olympic torch to the summit of Mt. Everest. In order to prevent that from happening, it was necessary for us to tighten security measures.

But it will not remain like that forever. We are in the process of easing those measures.
The Nepal government will request that the Chinese government do the same on their side. Some of the border points have already returned to normality. For example, the Tatopani border point, the border in Mustang, and in Humla [a northwestern district] have become very easy [to cross]. The Nepalese government sincerely hopes that, soon, all the border points where there was public movement along the Nepali-Chinese border will be as before [the Olympics].


VIOLENCE AMONG THE VARIOUS POLITICAL YOUTH GROUPS

DUNHAM: You are known as being a preeminent supporter of a multi-party democracy in Nepal. It seems to me that one of the major obstacles standing in the way of achieving multi-party democracy is the bad feelings between the various political parties—especially among the youth political groups. Everyday there are reports of clashes between the YCL, the Youth Force (UML) and/or the Tarun Dal (NC). Curfews have been imposed in some areas. But what other tactics can the Home Ministry implement in order to resolve the disruptive ongoing fighting?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: I will always remain on the side of multi-party democracy. I will always try to strengthen it.

In our context, the activities of youth political groups should be regarded as a transitory phase. The past government failed to establish political stability, as well as law and order. Because of that, the political parties established these youth wings, which were of an aggressive nature, in order to protect their respective leaders and to keep up the pressure in the political arena.

Among them, YCL, the youth group established by the Maoists, looks like its activities are inappropriate. Because of the YCL’s activities, all the other political parties established youth organizations. UML established Youth Force, for instance.

Now, when political stability is established and the trust of the public in the new government is earned, then the youth organizations will no longer be required. If they continue their [unlawful] activities, they will lose the support of the people. If they continue to take the law into their own hands, creating anarchy, the government will take tough action against them to control them.

Furthermore, if the youth groups continue such activities, the various political parties will shut them down. If the parties fail to shut them down, those same parties will find themselves ostracized.

There is no point of having this government if the various parties maintain warrior-like youth groups who take the law into their own hands.

I don’t believe that the situation will remain as it is. I believe that we will be able to control the youth groups and transform them into civil organizations.


LAND GRABBING AND THE RETURN OF SEIZED LAND

DUNHAM: Yesterday, according the Kathmandu Post, the National Human Rights Commission urged the government to take strong legal action against those guilty of land grabbing. What is your strategy for putting an end to this seemingly endless activity? The recent involvement of Matrika Yadav, Minister for Land Reform and Management, in appropriating land in Siraha seems particularly troubling.

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: I do not know and have not yet received such a report about the NHRC informing the government about this issue.

Regarding the activities in Siraha of our Minister for Land Reform and Management, Mr. Matrika Yadav, they are inappropriate. When the Prime Minister returns to Nepal from India, there will be serious discussion about it. I believe that the Prime Minister will stop this inappropriate activity of land grabbing.

DUNHAM: Speaking of the Prime Minister and the Maoist party, what about land that was seized by the Maoists in recent years and which has not yet been returned to its rightful owners? How will you proceed on this problem?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: The Maoist party had agreed with the former Seven-Party Alliance and the government to return the seized land and property. Recently, the Prime Minister expressed his commitment through the government’s policy and program, [presented by the president in the Constituent Assembly] to return all the seized land and properties.

It’s not true that they have not returned any land or property. The land has been returned in many areas, but not all.

Some of the land has been distributed to the homeless, landless poor people. In these instances, the people have not returned the land even after the Maoists made the request to do so. There are also some other reasons for failure to return land.

Now it is a governmental policy to return all the seized land and property to the rightful owners. This was agreed upon by the Maoists --the Common Minimum Program [guidelines for the unity government between CPN-Maoist party, CPN-UML party and the Madeshi Janadhikar Forum] --as a condition that must be guaranteed before we decided to join the government. This national unity government was formed only after the Maoists firmly expressed its commitment and made us believe that they were willing to return the seized land and property.

I believe that the Prime Minister will bring this process forward, in which case the Home Ministry will work toward the eventual return of the seized land and property to the rightful owners. If that doesn’t happen, then it can be said that the agreement upon which the national unity government was formed, will have been breeched. If the agreement is breeched, a new scenario will arise and our party (UML) may consider other options, of which I cannot comment at the present time.


TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN

DUNHAM: I would like to end with an issue that plagues most of the South Asian countries: sex slavery and the trafficking of women. What are your plans to help curb the abduction and sale of girls and women in Nepal? Is this going to be a priority for the new government?

HOME MINISTER GAUTAM: Even though this is a problem throughout South Asia, Nepal is particularly hard-hit by sex-slavery and the abduction of girls. All the past governments have worked to end this problem in one way or another. But they were not successful. Their programs proved ineffective.

The sale of women by thugs –abduction, false promises, etc., to lure them away from their homes – is a criminal activity. On the other hand, because of the poverty – lack of food, clothing and shelter among poor families – families have been forced to accept the selling of their girls into sex trafficking.

Either way, whether the girls are abducted or sold by their families, the new government will not tolerate it and strictly put an end to it. In order to do that, we will create an environment in which there is alternative employment for these women. We will promote self-employment programs. Even in the cases of women working in foreign countries, we will try to ensure that they are employed in respectable jobs rather than in the sex industry.

Those who are involved trafficking by abduction or false promises or whatsoever means will be punished with the most severe sentences allowed in this country: life imprisonment.

The Home Ministry will do everything in its power to effectively implement the law and to protect the people.


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Update on the fate of Tibetans detained in Nepal, awaiting deportation

September 16, 2008--Kathmandu








137 Tibetans are currently in detention at Kathmandu’s Tibetan Reception Center (TRC). As reported on September 11, many of them face imminent deportation.

Last week, growing Chinese pressure on Nepal to curb the “anti-China movement” and seven-month-long protests in Kathmandu resulted in Nepal’s new Home Ministry’s issuing a decree saying that, from now on, Tibetans without proper documentation would be deported. The assumption by many Tibetans was that the group would be deported to China, where further punishment would be inevitable.

The good news: Those currently in detention who do not possess Refugee Certificate (RC) cards will be deported to India rather than China.

The bad news: If it hadn’t been for American and UNHCR swift intervention, the detainees seemed destined to be shipped off to China.

The question now arises: Where will the next group of Tibetans who are arrested be sent? Will all future deportations require last-minute interventions by the American Embassy and the UNHCR?

Based on numerous reliable sources, here is the chain of events that has spared the 137 Tibetans from having been handed over to Chinese authorities.

The Tibetans who were arrested last week were singled out because they had been detained many times over the last half –year for protesting in front of the Chinese embassy. Last week, however, instead of being released from jail after a few hours later, (as had become the standard police procedure), the 137 were held in prison over night. A grilling process began. When many of the detainees refused to answer police inquiries about their resident status in Nepal, officials told them that if they didn’t possess RC cards, they would be deported to China. “Even if you aren’t sent back to China,” police officials were reported to have added, “You will serve a five-year sentence in a Nepali jail.”




The American Embassy and UNHCR then intervened through negotiations with Nepal’s Home Ministry, which resulted in the Tibetans’ temporary relocation to the Tibetan Reception Center – a safe haven for them until the identity and resident status of each individual is either authenticated or discounted by the UNHCR.

In the meantime, the media has been sealed off from Tibetan Reception Center.

But in conversations I’ve had with Tibetan leaders outside the compound, I have learned that “at the very least 50% of the detainees do not possess RC cards and will soon be shipped out. Those who have RC cards will be allowed to return to their home here in Nepal.”

















Tip of the iceberg.

There are approximately 20,000 Tibetans now living in Nepal. Many of those thousands are without RC cards. The question is when will they also be arrested and deported, as has been decreed by the new Home Ministry? Will it be a fight each time a batch of refugees are brought into jail as to whether or not they are sent to India or China?

This is not the first time Tibetans have been saved by a last-minute UNHCR intervention.

In the fall of 2005 during the Dashain Festival, I happened to be visiting the Tibetan Reception Center when the then director received a phone call saying that a teenage Tibetan, who had just escaped over the Himalaya into Nepal, had been picked up by the Nepali police and thrown into the Dillibazaar prison in Kathmandu.  The boy was penniless, but was told he had to pay a $325 fine within the next 24 hours. If he couldn’t come up with the cash, he would be taken to the Sino-Nepali border and handed over to Chinese officials on the other side.

The director and I rushed down to the Dillibazaar jail. We persuaded police officials to let us see the boy. He had not been harmed but he was obviously shaken. He told us that he was a young monk trying to make his way to Dharamsala, India, so that he could study with lamas of a higher caliber than those available in Chinese-controlled Tibet.

I paid the police fine and eventually the young monk reached safe haven in India.

But the point is: No one knows how many other Tibetans– without someone to bail them out – have been whisked back to China and certain imprisonment.

In 2004, a well-know case of 18 Tibetans, who were detained in Kathmandu, were eventually sent back to China, in spite of worldwide protest.

In February 2008, Chinese authorities successfully snatched a newly arrived Tibetan on Nepali soil. The Chinese insisted that he was a known criminal in Tibet. He was returned to China soon after.

How the Chinese define “criminal”
The reality is that any Tibetan who now tries to escape China and enter Nepal without a proper visa, is regarded as “criminal” and should be promptly returned to Chinese authorities. According to International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) in Washington, DC:

"The Nepal government has taken a series of moves against the Tibetan community in Kathmandu, in deference to what it says is Chinese pressure to stop activities by Tibetans that it deems as anti-China. In January 2005 it closed the Office of the Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Welfare Office, both of which had been operational with the consent of the Nepal government since the 1960s. Tibetans perceive themselves as increasingly vulnerable under the new Maoist regime in power in Nepal, and many fear their status will deteriorate further.”

It already has.

 

 

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Deportation: Nepal Government lowers the boom on Tibetans

September 12, 2008

 

It rained all last night here in central Nepal, but as sunlight broke through the clouds this morning, and a murder of crows spread quickly across the valley, so did some very dark news. Yesterday, the new Nepal government announced an ominous policy change toward Tibetans living within its borders.

Growing Chinese pressure on Nepal to curb the “anti-China movement” and seven-month-long protests in Kathmandu finally culminated in the new Home Ministry’s decree:

"We will not allow our territory to be used for anti-China activity…
The government has begun investigating the cases of Tibetans living in Nepal. The ones without proper documents will be deported," Modraj Dottel, home ministry spokesman, told AFP.

Dottel said police and immigration department officials have been ordered to take action because the Tibetans have not stopped their protests despite repeated appeals from the government. "We have been forced to take this measure as Tibetan immigrants continued with their anti-China protests. We don't want to spoil our friendly relations with China," the spokesman said.

More than 20,000 Tibetans live in Nepal. Thousands fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Those early arrivals were given refugee status in Nepal. But new exiles from Tibet cannot stay in Nepal, which hands them over to the U.N. refugee agency for their onward journey to India, where their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama lives.

The big policy shift is that, from now on, Nepal may deport Tibetans to China – all, that is, who are without either official refugee status or UN documentation. If these “non-status” Tibetans are returned to Chinese-controlled Tibet, they will certainly face punishment and imprisonment by Chinese authorities.

This has spread dread throughout the entire Tibetan community. Thirty percent of the Tibetan refugees living in camps, for instance, are without the Refugee Certificate (RC), the legal recognition of their refugee status.

The Nepal Government has issued the RC to Tibetans who entered the country before 1989. But the local administration has not issued any RCs since 1995.




In the meantime, the Home Ministry wrote to the District Administration Office on Thursday asking it to keep surveillance on Tibetan refugees residing illegally in the district. The ministry, however, had no answer about the plight of refugees who were unable to acquire the RC after 1995.








Basically, we’re talking about the possibility of mass deportation of Tibetans back to a very hostile Chinese government, which controls their homeland with an iron fist.

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Gut-Wrenching Documentation of China’s Crackdown in Tibet: ICT Report

April 14, 2008








During the buildup to the Olympics, Beijing sealed off the entire Tibetan plateau in order to hide its repression of native Tibetans. Hu Jintao, the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China – his other titles include General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, President of the People’s Republic of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (in case anyone doubted his autocratic credentials) – has used force and intimidation to restore control. He has imposed a brutal crackdown that owes more to the political extremism and paranoia of the Maoist era than to a 21st century country seeking prominence on (and respect from) the world stage.

ICT has just published an extensive report based, in part, on evidence gathered at great risk to its in-country reporters. It shows, without doubt, the extent to which Beijing is committed to continuing to keep Tibet under lock and key, even after the Olympics and the resumed promotion of Tibet as a “blissful” tourist destination. China has not only dramatically tightened security in Tibet, it has also announced new “anti-Terror” plans for Tibet. Relief for the Tibetans, at least in the near future, seems virtually impossible.

As a friend of mind recently said to me: “In my twenty-plus years of working on Sino-Tibetan issues, it’s been my experience that the Chinese never give up ground once they gain it.”

The ICT report is indispensable for anyone who wishes to have the facts at hand about what is happening inside Tibet. It includes documentation of:

>>>The “disappearance” and detention of hundreds of Tibetans, including monks, nuns and schoolchildren, who are treated with extreme brutality in custody;

>>>Unarmed peaceful protestors who have been shot dead, and names of those who have died following torture in prison or as a result of suicide due to despair over the crackdown or being made to denounce the Dalai Lama;

>>>More than 125 protests across the Tibetan plateau – the overwhelming majority non-violent;

>>>Sweeping new measures to purge monasteries of monks and ban worship in the wake of the protests, revealing a systematic new attack on Tibetan Buddhism led by Hu Jintao --  repression reminiscent of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.

The report also includes some gut-wrenching photographs taken inside Tibet, which, with ICT’s permission, I have included below. (There are many more photographs to be viewed by linking to the actual report.

Click here for complete ICT REPORT


What tourist guides won't take you to: Military camp in Lhasa, April 2008.




Bodies of protesters killed by police at a demonstration in Ngaba. At least 10 Tibetans were killed after police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.





Victim’s body resting at family altar, in Ngaba province.





Protesters demonstrate in Machu (Chinese: Maqu) county in Kanlho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu (Amdo) on March 16, 2008.




Art work and photos of the Dalai Lama and other senior religion leaders at Kirti Monastery in Ngaba county (Sichuan province) were damaged by armed police following a raid on the monastery in early April 2008. Kirti Monastery was at the center of the wave of protests in eastern Tibet when monks were joined by laypeople and schoolchildren in a major protest on March 16, calling for a free Tibet, with pictures of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan flags on display.

Tongkor (Chinese: Dongqu) Monastery 60 kilometers from Dardze (Chinese: Ganzi) town in western Sichuan. On April 3, police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators including monks from Tongkor, killing at least eight Tibetans. The monastery was later raded by armed police.


Troops arriving to conduct a search at Tsendrok Monastery in Mayma township, Machu county, Gansu, on April 18. A Tibetan source told ICT that the large military convoy from Lanzhou (Northwest Military Division), of approximately 27 vehicles, arrived at the monastery, broke down doors and windows, conducted random searches, and took with them precious religious artifacts. Similar searches – for items of political significance such as Dalai Lama pictures – took place in other monasteries in the area at around the same time.

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WATCH THIS: New Documentary with hidden camera in Tibet

August 12, 2008

An extraordinary opportunity has been given to us. A filmmaker, who wishes to remain anonymous, has just completed a 45 minute film shot inside Tibet, Dharamsala and Nepal. It was shot over a three year period and it's the best documentary I've seen to date in addressing the complex situation of Tibetans. Much of the film -- including the Lhasan brothels and the presence of the Chinese military -- was shot with a hidden camera. Short on histrionics, dense in content, I strongly urge you to take the time to view this. There is some amazing archival footage as well as footage of the March 2008 riots in Lhasa. The film also features one of my most esteemed friends, Wangchuk Tsering, once the administrator for the Tibet Reception Center in Kathmandu.

“Recollecting Tibet”
Documentaries Memories: Chronicles from a camera: A perpetual History

To view the film, click on the link provided below, then click onto
Watch "Recollecting Tibet" Documentary Film

click here to watch film

For more information on the film and receiving a copy email Photophormations: K69hagakure@yahoo.co.uk

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WHO OWNS TIBET? Mikel Dunham article in new issue of Tricycle Magazine

August 11, 2008







Warren W. Smith Jr. has more than twenty-five years of experience in Tibetan studies. From 1970 to 1981 he was a resident of Nepal. In 1982 he was one of the first Westerners allowed in Tibet. In 1994 he received a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, with a dissertation on Tibetan nationalism. He is the coauthor, with Manabajra Bajracharya, of Mythological History of Nepal Valley from Svayambhu Purana ( 1977) and the author of Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations (1996) and numerous articles on Tibetan politics. Since 1997 he has been a researcher and wrtier with The Tibetan Service of Radio Free Asia, where he has written more than seven hundred short programs on all aspects of Tibetan history and politics, Sino-Tibetan relations, Chinese politics and Sino-U.S.relations.

The new Fall Issue of Tricycle Magazine features my analysis of Smith's new book, China's Tibet, which I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in understanding the dynamics between Mainland China and Tibet.




CHINA’S TIBET:
AUTONOMY OR ASSIMILATION?
Warren W. Smith, Jr.
Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield, 2008
400 pp.; $49.95 cloth

Here is an excerpt from my article in Tricycle Magazine:

This year, Tibetan riots became a lightning rod for Chinese nationalism, as seen on TV news programs broadcast from many Chinese cities. Even Chinese students in the United States, normally regarded as models of preoccupied scholasticism, hit the streets fuming in protest against the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Diaspora’s call for autonomy and cultural—if not national—identity. 

Why are ordinary Chinese citizens so adamant, yet so sensitive? Why are they suspicious of international intentions? Why do they tend to assume that foreign concern for Tibet is, in fact, hostile—fabricated in order to denigrate, humiliate and even split China? Where did their viewpoint come from? Are there two separate universes at work here?

Warren W. Smith, Jr.’s China’s Tibet: Autonomy or Assimilation, a groundbreaking study in disconnect, goes a long way in explaining why China’s bitter reaction to any and all criticism about Tibet, including religious and human rights issues, may be an abyss too vast to be spanned by traditional reason or negotiation.

To read the complete article, link to Tricycle Magazine , or pick up a copy of the magazine at your local bookstore or newsstand.

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Nepal’s Prez Boycotts Olympics--Chinese Ambassador Interview

August 8, 2008--Opening day of Beijing Olympics

The Nepali Olympic team – eight athletes and 24 others including coaches, sports officials and government officials -- left for Beijing two days ago. The team will compete in five events: shooting, swimming, judo, tae kwondo and the marathon. But the Olympic mood has been anything but celebratory in Nepal. Even the team’s departure at the Kathmandu airport was conducted under a shabby cloud of controversy.

Politically, the 2008 Olympics have done more to unify Tibetans in Nepal than any event in decades. Today, well over a 1000 Tibetans were arrested in protest while trying to storm the Chinese Consular offices – the latest in a multi-month series of protests and demonstrations.





Nevertheless, the boycott of the Olympic Games is not confined to Tibetan protestors.



The Question of Chinese vs. Indian influence in Nepal

In an apparent rebuff to China, Nepal’s newly appointed President Ram Baran Yadav has spurned his invitation to attend the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and meet top Chinese leaders. All preparations for the 60-year-old leader's Beijing visit had been made; he was scheduled to have had separate meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Yadav insisted his decision was based on his tight schedule and preoccupation with getting a coalition government off the ground. (Indeed, Yadav has his work cut out for him in Kathmandu.) But Yadav's visit to China would have been unprecedented and controversial without the political turmoil in Kathmandu: Previous heads of government in Nepal have traditionally chosen India for their maiden trip abroad after assuming office.

G.P. Koirala, the interim Prime Minister (Nepali Congress) is reported to have advised Yadav against the Chinese trip, bringing into play the question: Is Koirala acting in the interests of New Delhi?

China may be the big dog in Asia but India has much stronger geographic, economic, cultural, religious and political ties with Nepal. To what extent has that relationship eroded in the last few years since China has, economically, cast its shadow across the rest of the continent?

Since the Tibetan controversy exploded in March of this year, China has maintained the stance that as long as the Nepal government represses Tibetans’ rights in Nepal, Sino-Nepali relations will grow and Nepal will enjoy the economic benefits.

A few days ago, Zheng Xiangling, China’s Ambassador to Nepal, delivered a speech at a program organized by the Nepal Council of World Affairs in which he focused on Beijing’s official stance towards Nepal.

On the opening day of the Beijing Olympics, it therefore bears repeating excerpts from the Ambassador’s long message.


Ambassador Zheng Xiangling on Sino-Nepali History and Reality

After I started my work here, I got a better understanding about the China-Nepal relationship. China's historical scriptures have recorded lots of wonderful and detailed data about the contacts between China and Nepal. In 406 AD, Master Monk Fa Xian of Eastern Jin Dynasty recorded in Account of the Buddhist Countries his visit and detailed impression in Nepal. In the 7th century, well-known Master Monk Xuan Zang of Tang Dynasty wrote in The Traveling Notes of the Western Region in Great Tang Dynasty about his visit to the birth place of Buddha. His Notes have now become valuable historical materials to study that period of history in Nepal. Since Tang Dynasty, there had been constant exchanges between China and Nepal and lots of historical events have become household stories for the people of both countries such as Princess Bhrikuti's marriage to King Songtsan Gambo and Arniko's guidance in constructing the White Pagoda.

Sine the establishment of diplomatic relations between new China and Nepal on August 1, 1955, the bilateral relations have ushered into a new era. In the past five decades, the two countries frequently exchanged visits of high-level leaders and expanded exchanges and cooperation in various areas.

Two countries enjoy mutual understanding and support in international and regional affairs. China-Nepal relations are an example of friendly coexistence between countries of different size. The two countries have signed 17 important documents such as the Friendship Treaty, Border Treaty, Trade and Commerce Treaty, Transportation Treaty and so on. China and Nepal treat each other equally and enjoy mutual understanding and support. The friendship between the two countries has rooted deeply into the heart of both peoples. Although the size of trade and people-to-people exchanges remains limited, it grows fast with great potential. Nowadays, two Chinese mainland airlines have started air service respectively from Chengdu and Guangzhou to Kathmandu, and the direct bus service between Lhasa and Kathmandu is also resumed. There are no pendent issues left over from the history between the two countries. China and Nepal live in peace with each other with a long border of 1414 km.

Ambassador Zheng Xiangling on China's policy towards Nepal

China consistently upholds the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence sas the basic principles to guide the bilateral relations. China always maintains that all the countries, big or small, rich or poor, strong or weak, are all equal. China consistently pursues the principles of mutual respect of sovereignty, independence, territory integrity and non-interference to internal affairs and holds that it is up to the people to run the internal affairs of their country, and the major issues of the world should be solved through equal negotiation on the basis of mutual respect. On the basis of these principles, the bilateral relationship has grown rapidly and smoothly.

China and Nepal always understand and support the concerns and interests of each other. China-Nepal relations have withstood the test of changes in the world and grown smoothly, which are regarded as an example of countries of different sizes to coexist equally and friendly and to cooperate mutual-beneficially. The Chinese Government and people highly appreciate the valuable supports given by the Nepalese side on the issues of Tibet and Taiwan. We will continue to support the Government and people of Nepal in their efforts to uphold sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, and to achieve peace stability and development.

Year 2008 is also an unusual year for Nepal. With the joint efforts of the concerned parties of Nepal, the election of the Constituent Assembly was successfully held on April 10, and the Federal Democratic Republic was founded. As a good neighbor, friend and partner of Nepal, China sincerely hopes that Nepal would continue its peace process and realize political stability, economic development and national unity.

Ambassador Zheng Xiangling on Nepal’s future

The Chinese side has provided economic assistance within its capacity to Nepal for many years, and will continue the support in the future, especially in road and bridge construction. While maintaining the current road connectivity between China and Nepal, we have started the construction of another road. We can mark out the road construction in the far west region of Nepal in the years ahead. Ali region of China's Tibet has planned to build more road links in China-Nepal border. With more channels and links and natural increase of personnel and goods exchanges, China-Nepal relations will be greatly enhanced. According to statistics, 60% tourists arriving in Nepal have visited Tibet. Last year, the tourists in Tibet both at home and abroad exceeded 4 million. If 10% of the tourists in Tibet could visit Nepal, it would benefit a lot. The stability and development of Tibet will promote the growth of China-Nepal relations and will also give a boost to Nepal's tourism.

China's policy towards neighbors is creating an amicable, secure and prosperous neighborhood. China's economic growth will boost its neighbors' development, and we would like to share with neighbors our development experience. Nepal is situated in a favorable geographical position in South Asia, and a passage linking China and South Asia. With the continuous growth of China-India economic relations, Nepal, which is between China and India will attract more attention. As the political situation in Nepal goes stable, I think there will be more and more Chinese enterprises invest in Nepal.

I'm deeply convinced that with the joint efforts of the governments and peoples of our two countries, China-Nepal good-neighborly friendship will continue to grow and write a new chapter. Therefore, I, together with all staff in Chinese Embassy in Nepal and Nepalese friends, will try our best.

Ambassador Zheng Xiangling on the Beijing Olympic Games

Year 2008 is the year of Olympics for China. The International Olympic Movements approach the world's most populous country for the first time. Beijing has made a solemn commitment to the world to hold a high-level Olympics with distinguishing features on July 13th of 2001 when the city successfully won the Olympic bid. Now Beijing is ready for test in several days.

The theme slogan of Beijing for Olympics is "One World, One Dream". In my understanding, it demonstrates the dream of the Chinese people as the host of the Games, to join hands with people from the whole world to pursue peace and cooperation through passionate competition in the games under the guidance of the Olympic spirit. Hosting the Olympic Games in China is something that the Chinese people have been longing for more than 100 years. The Chinese people used to be humiliated as the "sick men of East Asia". In 1930s, the first Chinese athlete spent 30 days to cross the oceans to participate in the Olympics in Europe, and China only achieved zero break-through in Olympic Games Golden Medalist in 1984. So, hosting the Olympics is a dream of all Chinese people both at home and abroad to diligently strive after. The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics is at 17:45, August 8 in Nepalese time and nearly 10 thousand athletes from 205 countries and regions will participate in the games. What's more, 30 thousand journalists will cover the event in Beijing and 200 thousand foreign tourists will visit Beijing to watch the events. The audience of the opening ceremony is expected to reach 4 billion.

In the preparation for the Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese Government and people have received strong support and cooperation from the Government and people of Nepal. On May 8, the Olympic flame historically reached the top of Mt. Qomolangma, which is the border peak of China and Nepal. It is a significant event for the friendly relationship of China and Nepal. Moreover, the Nepalese side has successfully held in Katmandu the 100-day countdown to the Olympic Games. Hereby, I would like to, on behalf of the Chinese Government and the Chinese people, extend sincere gratitude and highest appreciation to the Nepalese Government, Nepal Olympic Committee and all friends who love peace, concern for the Olympics and commit themselves to China-Nepal friendship.

………………………………………………………….

Nepal's New Restrictions on Tibetans' Rights: An Anatomy of Appeasing China

August 1, 2008

Human Rights Watch, one of only two international human rights organizations operating worldwide in the most severe areas of oppression and abuse, (Amnesty International is the other), has just released an outstanding report on Nepal's ongoing policy of appeasing its giant neighbor to the north -- the People's Republic of China -- by further restricting the rights of the nearly 20,000 Tibetans refugees living within Nepalese borders.

Here are some highlights of the report.

Summary:
This report documents violations of human rights by the Nepali authorities,
particularly the police, against Tibetans involved in demonstrations in Kathmandu,
Nepal. These include unnecessary and excessive use of force, arbitrary arrest, sexual assault of women during arrest, arbitrary and preventive detention, beatings in detention, unlawful threats to deport Tibetans to China, and unnecessary restrictions on freedom of movement in the Kathmandu Valley. Nepali authorities have also harassed Tibetan and foreign journalists and Nepali, Tibetan, and foreign human rights defenders.

At least 8,350 arrests of Tibetans were made between March 10 and July 18 (many people were arrested more than once). While the frequency of protests has
diminished since May, protests have continued to take place on an almost weekly
basis, with continuing abuses by Nepali authorities in response. Few of those
arrested have been provided with a reason for their detention and virtually all have been released without charge.

Human Rights Watch has directly observed many of the Tibetan demonstrations in
Kathmandu and the police response to them. From March 10 to 28, Nepali police
consistently responded to the demonstrations with unnecessary or excessive force, using lathis to beat protesters in the head and body, and by kicking and punching them. Police officers have sexually assaulted Tibetan women during arrest. Many women and girls have reported male police officers groping them and kicking or hitting them with a lathi in the groin.

Beginning around March 28, perhaps because of media coverage of the authorities’
abusive tactics, police officers began using force in less visible ways, such as by
having a group of police surround protesters before kicking and punching them in
the lower body.

The police have also used unnecessary force to carry out arrests, at times with the apparent intent to disperse crowds of protesters. Threats of violence and sexual intimidation also appear to have been used to deter future demonstrations.

The authorities typically detained those arrested for several hours before releasing them in the evening without charge. On two occasions Tibetans were detained overnight: 99 people were held in four locations on April 16, and 68 were held at Ghan II Police Barracks on April 2.

Since March 20, Nepali authorities have also been arresting Tibetans to prevent
them from reaching protests and as an apparent means of intimidating and
harassing the Tibetan community in Nepal. Tibetans and Nepalis resembling
Tibetans, such as monks and nuns, have been arrested in Kathmandu’s streets, from taxis and public buses and from tea shops.

Human Rights Watch has documented ill treatment of Tibetan detainees. Police,
especially at Boudha Police Station, have severely beaten detainees. Detainees,
many of whom suffered injuries while being arrested, have been provided limited—or no—medical care. Dozens of people have been held overnight in places with wholly inadequate facilities.

Nearly all Tibetan protesters interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being
threatened with deportation to China. This threat is being used during arrest and
against those in detention with the apparent aim of instilling fear within the Tibetan community or to discourage future protests. The authorities’ widespread use of this threat suggests it is Nepali government policy. Returning Tibetan demonstrators to China would violate Nepal’s obligations under international law not to send individuals to a place where they are likely to be tortured or, in the case of refugees, face persecution.

The Nepali government has placed severe restrictions on the movement of groups of Tibetans within Kathmandu and in the Kathmandu Valley, including nuns, monks, and elderly religious practitioners, who regularly move between the three main Tibetans areas (Swyambu, Boudha, and Jawalakel). Police reportedly have put under surveillance individuals perceived to be leaders of the protests and have closely monitored locations of importance to Tibetans in Nepal, such as Jawalakel Tibetan Camp, the Tibetan Reception Center, Kopan monastery, and a nunnery in Swyambu.

Nepali police have also engaged in physical attacks on and harassment of Tibetan
and foreign journalists and intimidation of human rights defenders. On March 24,
the authorities arrested members of the nongovernmental organization Amnesty
International-Nepal and Nepali human rights defenders prior to a planned
demonstration. Human rights monitors and journalists have been photographed and questioned by individuals identifying themselves as Nepali Intelligence.

China has played an important, if at times hidden, role in the Nepali government’s crackdown on Tibetan demonstrations. The unusual number of statements from Nepali leaders reiterating the ban on “anti-China” activities suggests increasing pressure from Beijing (see below). Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on several occasions vowed to prevent demonstrations by Tibetans in Nepal, stating that “no anti-China activity will be allowed on Nepali territory.” Nepal’s Home Ministry spokesperson was quoted saying, “We have given the Tibetan refugees status and allow them to carry out culture events. However, they do not have the right for political activities.… We will not allow any anti-China activities in Nepal and we will stop it.” Soon after the protests began, on March 19, 2008, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M), the largest party in the recently elected constituent assembly, issued a statement expressing solidarity with China and saying, “We want to draw the attention of the concerned [Nepali government] authority to the activities against China at the Nepal-China border.”

China has long claimed that the bedrock of its foreign policy is “non-interference” in the internal affairs of other countries. Yet it has directly involved itself in Nepali affairs. China’s ambassador has publicly exerted China’s influence on the Nepali government through strong and frequent statements, calling for the arrest of protesters and urging the government to take strong action. Senior Nepali
government officials, and officials involved in the detention of Tibetans, have cited the relationship between China and Nepal, and Nepal’s “one China” policy as the reason for the arrest of Tibetan protesters. With the exception of three Tibetans arrested at their homes under the Public Security Act on June 19, 2008, Nepali law has not been used to justify arrests and those detained have not been charged.

International human rights law guarantees refugees and other non-citizens freedom of assembly and expression, and freedom from mistreatment. While this report focuses on events in Kathmandu from March through April 2008, protests and government crackdowns continue. The rights of Tibetans in Nepal continue to be under assault as peaceful Tibetan protesters are arrested for purely political reasons.

Woeser: Tibetan writer, a rare outspoken voice against Beijing's policies, sues Chinese government

July 23, 2008

The following article, by Adura Ang, an Associated Press writer, was filed today in Beijing and published by Phayul.com


The poet Woeser has long been a rarity _ a Tibetan living in China who doesn't flinch from publicly criticizing the Chinese government. Now the activist is taking another unusual step.

After being repeatedly denied a passport for three years, the Beijing resident has sued the government demanding to be given the document she needs to travel outside the country, hoping the fight will draw more attention to China's tight grip on Tibet and its people.
 

Freedom in Tibet: Photoghraphic Reflections on Independence Day

July 4, 2008

A photojournalist sent to me photographs of a trip he made to Lhasa just before the March riots. What is it like to be a minority in your own country? What is it like to walk down the streets of your capital with the signs written in a foreign language? What is it like not to be able to protest without fear of imprisonment or worse? What is it like to have the center of your faith diminished by open prostitution? How does it feel to be on the outside looking in? We Americans take so much for granted.

Just Published: Anthology of Tibetan works including two pieces by Mikel Dunham

Published by Mercure de France, 2008

An anthology of writers including
Mikel Dunham
Pema Chodron
Sogyal Rinpoche
Milarepa
Tenzin Gyatso, His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Henrich Harrier
Alexandra David-Neel
and others

available only in French: click here

Nepali Buddhists face Starvation due to Sealed Chinese Border; Tibetan leaders arrested on serious charges in Kathmandu

June 19, 2008

Famine in Mustang
Enraged over continuous anti-Chinese protests in Nepal since the pro-freedom demonstrations flared up in March, China finally put its foot down and restricted movement at its border with the northern Nepali district of Mustang, leading to food scarcity in the area.

"CIA in Tibet": Three-Part Documentary with Mikel Dunham

June 12, 2008

Currently in production, CIA IN TIBET is an inside look at the CIA's involvement with Tibet in their covert war with China from 1957 to 1973. This three-part documentary project is being produced by the daughter of a former CIA case officer who worked on the Tibetan Task Force in India and Nepal. Combined with rare archival and personal footage, her father's never-before-told stories mix with other key player's accounts and diverse perspectives in this timely examination of a seminal time in Tibet's continuing struggle for independence from China.

CAST INCLUDES

Clay Cathey 
CIA case officer in India and Nepal. Primary contact for Gyalo Thondup and Lhamo Tsering - chief leaders in the Tibetan resistance.

John Greaney
Case officer in charge of communications at CIA headquarters.

Ken Knaus
CIA case officer in charge of American covert operations inside Tibet and abroad. Author of "Orphans of the Cold War".

Bruce Walker
Training instructor in Saipan and Camp Hale, Colorado, later a case officer in India. The only CIA officer that spoke Tibetan.

Mikel Dunham
Author of "Buddha's Warriors". Spent over 7 years collecting information from CIA case officers and Tibetan resistance fighters & refugees.

For further information: CIA in Tibet

.....................................................................

Nepal: Tibetan protesters continue to push the envelope

June 9, 2008

In recent days, after a moratorium to commemorate China’s horrific earthquake, Tibetan protesters have resumed daily demonstrations in Nepal’s capital.

 

Ruminations on Robert Thurman’s new book “Why the Dalai Lama Matters”

June 5, 2008

Why the Dalai Lama Matters: His Act of Truth as the Solution for China, Tibet, and the World

Robert Thurman is Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, Co-Founder of Tibet House US, and author of over a dozen books, including several key translations and analyses of Tibetan literature. Thurman is one of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s oldest Western friends. They first met in Sarnath, India, in 1964, five years after His Holiness fled the communist Chinese takeover of Tibet. In 1979, Thurman was responsible for securing the Dalai Lama’s first visa to the United States – just one of his many efforts over the years to assist the Tibetan Diaspora. It’s fair to say that he has spent most of his life dedicated to preserving and restoring Tibet's unique cultural and spiritual heritage, often without deserved recognition.


 

Nepal Political Update: Troubled Waters for Maoists, Monarchy & Nation

May 23, 2008

After the Maoists’ sensational victory, the dust has settled revealing an unenviable set of hurdles for the party to jump before a viable government in Nepal is possible. Although they won the largest number of seats in the April 10 elections, they have neither a majority nor the luxury of forming a government by themselves. Sleeves are rolled up but uncertainty continues while leaders within the party seem to disagree with each other on policies. And just when Prachanda seemed to be leading his party in a more statesmanlike direction, the Maoists’ Youth Communist League regressed to its old specialty, thuggism. The murder of one man in particular outraged much of the nation; Prachanda made a hatchet job of the affair by initially denying Maoist involvement, then admitting involvement but only after it became a public relations nightmare.


 

1st Time Published in English: Sherpas’ Declaration of Support for Tibetan Refugees

May 6, 2008

Since March 10, Tibetan exile protests in Kathmandu have proceeded almost on a daily basis. Tibetans keep returning to the streets even though they know the police’s version of “crowd control” may degenerate, as likely as not, into police brutality. The Tibetans’ newfound determination to continue their movement of civil disobedience, in spite of the Nepali government’s long-standing intolerance of anti-Chinese demonstrations, is creating a standoff that cannot continue indefinitely.

Fidel Castro writes about Mikel Dunham’s “Buddha’s Warriors” – Or is it Mikel Dunshun?

MAY 1, 2008

On 31 March 2008, the Communist Party of Cuba released a newly penned essay by 90-year-old Fidel Castro. It was brought to my attention because, ironically, Castro cites my book, Buddha’s Warriors, to serve his ideological treatise. The essay, “Reflections on Tibet/China”, is a lengthy and ambitious work intent on proving that China’s rule over Tibet circumscribes thousands of years. Castro praises China for its “legitimate” presence in Tibet, as well as the communist party’s handling of the current resistance inside Tibet. Here is the excerpt leading up to and including Buddha’s Warriors:

FEARLESS: Chinese Intellectuals, Living inside China, Protest the Beijing Government’s Repression of Tibetans

APRIL 29, 2008

An unprecedented document has surfaced -- I discovered it in this week’s issue of The New York Review of Books (Volume LV, Number 8) – in which 368 of China’s leading intellectuals, currently residing in China, have written and signed an appeal to the Chinese government to alter its draconian policy toward Tibet. After further investigation, I’ve learned that some of the signatories are already either under house arrest or in prison. All of them are fearless in their criticism and deserve our support.

At the end of the document there are three e-mail addresses where other Chinese national dissidents, who have not yet signed the document, can register their protest against their country’s leadership.

Twelve Suggestions for Dealing with the Tibetan Situation, by Some Chinese Intellectuals:

Mongolia: Tibetan protester running for his life begs Dunham to intervene

April 25, 2008

Mongolian police arrested Kalsang, a Tibetan lecturer, for painting “Free Tibet” on the walls of the Chinese Embassy in Ulaan Baatar. He also threw photographs (showing police brutality against Tibetan protesters in Lhasa) over the embassy fence. Kalsang’s brother was shot dead by armed Chinese policed during the recent riots in Lhasa. Kalsang was released by authorities, but after a press conference in Ulaan Baatar, Kalsang and his family have gone into hiding. As a last resort, he contacted me through my website. Here are his letters to me, sent in the last 36 hours. I’ve deleted parts that give away where he is hiding.

Nepal: The Stakes have been Raised for Anti-China Protestors

APRIL 22, 2008

For the last six weeks, pro-Tibetan demonstrators in Nepal have risked injury and arrest from armed police in order to protest China’s rule in Tibet. But now protestors could pay with a much higher price — their lives.


25 police and soldiers, all trained mountaineers, have already reached Everest's Camp II, situated at 6,500 meters (21,300 feet) above sea level. The Nepali troops will be tasked with keeping mountaineers from scaling the Nepal side of the mountain while a Chinese team is on the north side, which is closed off altogether to private expeditions. Video cameras have also been banned from Everest base camp and officials said additional security had been deployed there and on the approach trail. The Nepali troops have been ordered to open fire, if necessary, to prevent disruption of the Olympic Torch Relay by China.

Nepal: Tibetan protests resume after Maoist Victory

April 18, 2008



Yesterday around 500 Tibetan demonstrators were rounded up outside the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. Today, armed police detained another 100 Tibetans as they attempted to repeat yesterday’s protest.

The 20,000 Tibetan refugees who call Nepal home, beginning with their exodus from Tibet after the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in 1959, have once again stepped up their public agitation after a hiatus during last week’s national elections in Nepal. The fact that the Maoists enjoyed an overwhelming victory in the elections and that the Maoists have made it clear that they will not tolerate political dissension directed against China has not seemed to cower the refugees.

For years the Tibetans have had to be extremely careful what they say and do in Nepal. Before King Gyanendra was ousted in 2006, he bowed to Chinese pressure by closing the offices of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Kathmandu. But as one refugee protester put it to me, in light of the ascension of the Maoists, as well as in regards to the recent communist clampdown in Tibet: "Do we really have anything else to lose?"







................................................................................................

America’s Geopolitical Amnesia: Nepal, Tibet, China and India

APRIL 15, 2008

Last Sunday, during a nationally aired discussion of whether President Bush would attend the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing, Stephen Hadley, President Bush's National Security Adviser, repeatedly and erroneously referred to Tibet as “Nepal”. Said Mr. Hadley, “The president thinks that the way to address the issue of Nepal is not by a statement that you are not going to the opening ceremonies…what he is doing on Nepal…” and so on. Five times Hadley spoke of Nepal, meaning “Tibet”, and five times the interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, either didn’t deign to listen or didn’t see the big deal in correcting the jarringly obvious mistake. Even the producers glued to their offstage monitors apparently didn’t get it.
Click here for youtube download 

Hadley is not a moron. Somewhere in his memory bank, Hadley knows that Nepal is an independent nation recognized by the United Nations while Tibet is an ancient civilization that was colonized and subsumed by the Chinese in the 1950s. But the sloppy speechifying which stood uncorrected by prominent newsman (who, after all, gets paid to exploit such blunders) points to a far deeper, systemic and ominous problem in the United States. America’s complacency with dodgy Asian geography is, in fact, one of the reasons the 21st century will be Asia’s century, not America’s. Asians have their globes dusted off, their bifocals squeaky clean and their attitudes greedy and fine-tuned for getting the fine print right.

Why should Americans give a damn about Tibet or Nepal?


  

Updated Map of Tibetan sites of protests and conflicts

April 5, 2006

A Chart of Chinese Military Hierarchy in Tibet

April 5, 2008
CHART OF CHINA’S POLITICO-MILITARY POWER PLAYERS—FROM PRESIDENT HU TO SECURITY CHIEFS STATIONED IN TIBET

This visual came from a website called Intelligence Online – a previously unknown entity to me. Although I cannot verify the veracity of the website’s assertions in its accompanying article, (click here ), the analysis within is worth further investigation.

Updated Chronology of Demonstrations in Tibetan Areas of China

March 9th through 30th, 2008

March 9
----------
Jyekundo (Ch: Yushu), Qinghai Province.  Hundreds of banned portraits of the Dalai Lama are confiscated from a number of homes during a midnight raid by Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials. 

March 10
----------
Tibetan Autonomous Region
Lhasa.  Fifteen monks, visiting from Sera Monastery outside of Lhasa, stage a peaceful demonstration in the Barkhor area of Lhasa carrying Tibetan national flags and shouting pro-independence slogans.  Chinese police arrest the monks and ordered all shops in the Barkhor area to close down.  Raids are conducted in the homes of former political prisoners by authorities looking for banned CDs, especially those of the Dalai Lama receiving the Congressional Gold Medal which have been widely circulated among Tibetans.

Political Updates in Nepal and Tibet & the U.S. Congress Tibet Caucus

March 30 through April 5, 2008

Here is the UPDATED list of Members of the Tibet Caucus as it now stands:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46)
Rep. Neil Albercrombie (HI-01)
Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11)
Rep. Steve Chabot (OH-01)
Rep. Jim Walsh (NY-25)
Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-03)
Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-09

Update on Tibetan Unrest Including Eye-Witness Accounts from Lhasa and Interview with Robert Barnett

March 29, 2008
Photos from Tibetan protests in Nepal

 Nepal, which has about 20,000 Tibetan refugees, has been drawn into the crisis that began with protests inside Tibet and the subsequent Chinese crackdown. Nepalese officials have diligently attempted to stop Tibetan demonstrations because they are afraid of upsetting their powerful neighbor to the north, China. Human Rights Watch this week accused the Nepalese government of "pre-emptively arresting Tibetans" and threatening the refugees with deportation back to communist China.

Mikel Dunham's "Buddha's Warriors" Confiscated by Chinese Authorities

February 25, 2008

I'm not one for censorship, particularly when it comes to my own books. But lest anyone fall into the propaganda trap that the spruced-up "Beijing Olympics" version of Communist China signals a breakthrough for people's rights -- particularly freedom of speech -- here's a cautionary update. Tim Johnson is the Beijing Bureau Chief for the McClatchy Company, the third-largest newspaper organization in the United States. Johnson covers both China and Taiwan. On February 23, he posted the following in his blog CHINA RISES:
Stopping 'false' ideas at the airport
I should have known. When I came back to China a few hours ago, returning from a five-week trip to Pakistan and Nepal, I was only concerned about one thing. I had an extra bag with two small Afghan carpets that I had bought in Islamabad. Would customs stop me and charge me duty? My Air China flight took me first to Lhasa, where we went through customs and immigration, then on to Chengdu and Beijing.
Sure enough, the agents stopped me at Lhasa airport even before I could pick up my bags. But it wasn’t the rugs. Instead, it was the little cloth bag with five new books I had bought in a Kathmandu bookstore the night before. 

Dunham's Interview with Arjia Rinpoche, Eye Witness to the Rigged Chinese Selection of the Panchen Lama

From the Fall 2007 Issue of Tricycle Magazine

The editorial staff of Tricycle Magazine has graciously allowed me to post, for the first time, my interview with Arjia Rinpoche, originally published in its Fall 2007 issue. Apart from the previous Panchen Lama, (Arjia's mentor), no lama has had closer connections to the communists' Central Party in Beijing. The interview not only covers his political connections with Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China), but also his account of the 1987 riots in Lhasa, the suspicious death of the Panchen Lama and Arjia's harrowing escape from China when his role as a spiritual leader became irreversibly compromised. Next to the Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet in 1959, Arjia Rinpoche's exile has been the most embarrassing for Beijing's propaganda unit.  Given the current Chinese clampdown in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and its neighboring districts, Arjia's description of the manipulation of "religious freedom" in Tibet seems particularly relevant and, sadly, consistent with sixty years of Chinese repression in Tibet.

BACKGROUND ON ARJIA RINPOCHE
Arjia Rinpoche was born in 1950, the same year Mao Tse-tung’s People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet. But Arjia Rinpoche’s early years were ones of geographical and political isolation. His nomadic family herded their yaks across the high plains of the Tibetan-Mongolian border—their Mongolian ger never far from the vast Lake Kokonor. At the age of two, the boy was recognized, (by the 10th Panchen Lama), as the reincarnation of Tsongkhapa’s father.

At the age of seven, he was sent to live in Kumbum monastery, one of the six great monastic universities in Tibet, established by Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelupa sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

In the following years, the boy’s life became a series of extreme swings of fortune: first as a carefree child, then as a protected and revered incarnate, then as a youth singled out and ridiculed by the communists, then as a forced laborer in a Chinese camp until the age of thirty, then as a  “rehabilitated counterinsurgent” released from hard labor and, finally, as a favorite of the Beijing hierarchy rising through the ranks. He was named Head Abbot of Kumbum Monastery, where he had once been denounced. Being Abbot proved to be more political than religious; it paved the way for even higher positions including Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Youth Association, Vice-President of the Central Government’s Buddhist Association and a member of Beijing’s Central Government.

Arjia Rinpoche was also closely aligned with the 10th Panchen Lama. He acted as his assistant for many years and was with him the day before he died in 1989—an event still ensconced in the rumor of foul play.  After the Panchen Lama’s passing, Arjia was named a member of the communists’ nominating committee created to select a new Panchen Lama. He witnessed firsthand the Chinese machinations to secure their nomination. He was seated in the main altar room of the Jokhang, the holiest building in Tibet, when the communists choreographed the “lottery” for the 11th Panchen Lama.  (Tragically, the Chinese apprehended the little boy who had been the Dalai Lama’s choice; the boy’s whereabouts is still unknown.) After the rigged selection, Arjia Rinpoche was named tutor of the new Panchen Lama.

Demoralized and realizing that he could no longer support the grim charade of a false Panchen Lama, Arjia Rinpoche fled China. Against tremendous odds, in 1999, he successfully eluded China’s search for him, reached American soil and was granted political asylum by the United States government.

In 2005, the Dalai Lama appointed Arjia Rinpoche to become the Director of the Tibetan Cultural Center (TCC), in Bloomington Indiana. His Holiness’ eldest brother, Professor Thubten Jigme Norbu, established TCC in 1979. (Norbu was previously known as Taktser Rinpoche, Head Abbot of Kumbum Monastery, until 1950, when the communists suggested that he murder his little brother, the His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Norbu fled Tibet the same year and never returned.) 

INTERVIEW WITH ARJIA RINPOCHE:

DUNHAM: Rinpoche, one of the fascinating aspects of your life is the extent to which you were protected from the communists up until the very day that they publicly condemned you. You were eight years old at the time. Would you recount that day?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: It was in 1958, the beginning of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” and a year before the Dalai Lama fled Tibet. Freedom to practice Buddhism was deteriorating rapidly but I had no idea. The cadres who were stationed at Kumbum had been forcing all the monks at Kumbum to attend political sessions for months on end. But I guess because I was so young, I wasn’t required to attend. The monks—particularly the monks in their teens and early twenties—were being successfully brainwashed by the communists and trained to speak out against religion, landowners, reincarnates, teachers, etc.

One day that winter, the communist cadres called the entire monastic community outside for a meeting in Kumbum’s central square. There were somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 of us. Soldiers with guns surrounded the courtyard and lined the rooftops, their machine guns trained on us.

Some of the monks who had been drilled by the communists began to shout slogans at the rest of us: “Time for revenge!” “Time to uncover the wrongs of religion!” It was the first time that I had witnessed thamzing—a Chinese struggle session [that included denunciation, beating and sometimes murder.] The police grabbed a few of the most important lamas, including the Head Abbot of Kumbum, who was in his early sixties. They tied his hands behind his back with rope—very tightly. He cried out. Young monks yanked him by the rope and pulled him toward the bottom step of the high stage so that everyone could see him. They yelled, “You are sucking our blood! You are eating our flesh!” The Abbot was sobbing. He was the first one at Kumbum to be treated like that.

Within an hour, the cadres had arrested and bound about a hundred additional lamas—many Rinpoches—all forced to stand at the front of the stage. Then the Chinese began to beat them with whips and the handles of farm tools—shovels, hoes, whatever was around. After they finished beating them, they dragged them out of the square and into Chinese trucks that were waiting outside.

Then the cadres came back into the square and arrested an even larger group of monks still sitting on the ground. In all, over five hundred monks and lamas were arrested and dragged away that day. My tutor, my housekeeper, my assistants—all of them were pulled away from me where I was sitting. The only Rinpoches who were not arrested were very young boys like me—age six to ten, something like that.

The meeting lasted until late in the afternoon. I was paralyzed. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t even know where I was supposed to go. It was the first time in my life that I hadn’t had adults to take care of me. The only thing I could think to do was to go back to my rooms. But when I got there, young monks had been moved into my space. My residence had been re-organized into a commune: Team Number One, it was called.

In the following weeks, we were forced to cut up our maroon robes, dye them black or dark blue and re-fashion them into Mao suits. Those became our new uniforms. We had mandatory study groups every day—endless—the cadres taught us why religion was so bad, and why religious reform was so necessary, and why the most venerated lamas were the ones who most deserved thamzing. Basically, Kumbum became a school where children were taught to denounce monasteries and the elder lamas who ran them.

DUNHAM: The following March, in 1959, His Holiness the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, leaving the Panchen Lama the most powerful religious figure in Tibet. What was your connection with the Panchen Lama?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: There was a family connection. The Panchen Lama’s tutor, Gyayak Rinpoche, was my uncle. Also, there was the fact that we all came from the same area in Amdo. Historically, all the Panchen Lamas had been closely aligned to Kumbum Monastery, so there was that connection as well. It was the Panchen Lama who identified me as the reincarnation of Lama Tsongkhapa’s father when I was two years old. The Panchen Lama was only fourteen at the time. Then, in the early 1960s, he passed through Kumbum and made arrangements for me and another young monk to be transferred to Tashilunpo—the official seat of the Panchen Lama, in Central Tibet [Shigatse]—so that we boys could study the sutras without so many cadres watching us.

DUNHAM: Some historians have portrayed the Tenth Panchen Lama as little more than a communist puppet—a stooge for Party rhetoric and propaganda.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Not at all. After the Dalai Lama fled to India, the Panchen Lama became the number one protector of Buddhism inside Tibet. In spite of the difficulties presented by the communists, he stood up, spoke out and did his best. He traveled tirelessly and investigated many places to see firsthand what was happening to his people and their monasteries. He complained to Beijing: “You said that communism would be good for us, but you are doing bad things in my country.” In 1962, he met with Zhou Enlai, the Premier of the People’s Republic of China [PRC], to discuss a very critical petition he wrote about the worsening situation in Tibet and, eventually, of course, he got into serious trouble with the Central Government for being so confrontational, particularly after the onset of the Cultural Revolution. He was thrown in jail in 1968.

DUNHAM: You didn’t escape the hardships of the Cultural Revolution either.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: No, I didn’t. I was singled out because I was a recognized reincarnation. Apart from the mental abuse, I was also sentenced to hard labor, from the time I was fourteen until I reached thirty; fieldwork in the summertime—plowing, planting, hoeing, harvesting, animal husbandry—and the rest of the year I was sent out to work on the construction of dams or roads. Sixteen years I worked like that. Until about 1980.

DUNHAM: Why so long? The Panchen Lama got out of prison in 1977.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Well, yes, he was released from prison after Mao’s death in 1976, but he remained under house arrest in Beijing until 1982, at which time the PRC authorities pronounced him “politically rehabilitated.”

DUNHAM: When were you pronounced “politically rehabilitated?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Two years before the Panchen Lama, actually. Kumbum Monastery was re-opened. Monks could return to practice there, including my uncle, Gyayak Rinpoche . . . although he was held under house arrest at Kumbum. Whenever my uncle and the Panchen Lama needed to privately communicate with one other, I acted as their go-between. I traveled back and forth from Kumbum to Beijing to relay their messages. That was when I really gained the Panchen Lama’s trust, even though I was fourteen years his junior. Then, after he was “rehabilitated,” he quickly rose to important positions, including Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress. This allowed him an enormous amount of freedom, including trips abroad, which was quite unusual in those days. Often I went with him as his assistant: Nepal, Canada, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Peru, and other South American countries.

DUNHAM: You also helped him establish his private company, Kanchen, which, among other things oversaw the building of the only hotel in Beijing catering to nomads. What was that all about?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: The Panchen Lama wanted to establish an office separate from the Central Government. He wanted complete control of his activities. In order to do that, he had to be financially independent—thus his construction of the Tsongtsen Hotel in Beijing and other enterprises. Kanchen was quite successful. (Kanchen means, “the treasure of the snow lion,” by the way.) He created branches in different provinces. His idea was to supply all necessary funds for Buddhist projects without the Chinese authorities constantly breathing down his neck. Financially, the government would not have to worry, so his association with the Buddhist monasteries in Tibet became a more independent affair. It was a brilliant plan. Throughout the 80s, until his passing, the Panchen Lama was able to acquire significant funds for the monasteries. He was responsible for retrieving countless sutras and statues and sacred objects—all taken away from the monasteries during the Cultural Revolution. Those that hadn’t been destroyed, he would track down and persuade the communists leaders to “make gifts” to the monasteries, which was just a nice way of saying return property to the monasteries that had always been the property of the monasteries.

DUNHAM: Party leaders were never jealous or suspicious of his independence?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Well . . . there was always a lot of pulling and pushing—positioning of power, that sort of thing.

DUNHAM: But the Chinese never openly objected to the privileges his independence afforded him?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Not in so many words, no. Of course later, after the Panchen Lama’s passing, there was the rumor that he had died of poisoning. That was never medically proven. But if the rumor was true, I think the most likely reason for his poisoning would have been his establishment of Kanchen, and the independence his company gave him from the Central Government.

DUNHAM: In your forthcoming autobiography, you write about the difficulties the Panchen Lama faced in Lhasa in the autumn of 1987.  [Author's note: Yesterday -- April 8 2008 -- Robert Barnett of Columbia University wrote to me and pointed out that Arjia might have intended to write in his autobiography "1988 or 1989", since Hu Jintao wasn't posted to Lhasa until 1988. This is a common problem when changing dates from the Tibetan lunar calendar to the Western solar calendar. I apologize for the confusion.  Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this discrepancy soon.]

ARJIA RINPOCHE: [Nodding] A few monks from Drepung Monastery came into the Barkhor District [the old part of Lhasa] and shouted the two treasonous words: “Free Tibet”. Four days later, several hundred monks from Sera Monastery marched on Barkhor and all hell broke loose. The Chinese opened fire. Lhasa became a battleground. Beijing sent the Panchen Lama to Lhasa to assess and to quell the situation.

DUNHAM: And you went with him.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: [nodding] The mood was very ugly. The Panchen Lama headed up three teams flown out to Lhasa in a private jet. There were about one hundred of us: the religious team, which was the Panchen Lama’s handpicked group; the political team, which was comprised of communist cadres; and the police. You can imagine the tension on the airplane. There was the unspoken understanding that, if the Panchen Lama couldn’t clean up the mess, more drastic measures would be taken by the Central Government.

The TAR [Tibet Autonomous Region] cadres arranged for a viewing at the Panchen Lama’s residence of videotapes taken during the demonstrations that would prove the Chinese were blameless. There was lots of footage of the monks shouting and demonstrating in the streets, but no coverage at all of how, exactly, the police were handling the Tibetans.

When it was over, the lights came on and the Panchen Lama looked around the room. He said, “That’s it? That’s all? Where are the police in all this?”

And then he got really mad. You should understand that the Panchen Lama could be very imposing when it suited him. He cast a big shadow. So he walked over to the guy who was operating the video and grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up to his feet and yelled at him.It must have been about midnight. The Panchen Lama said, “OK, let’s go!” and herded us out to the cars waiting outside. “Get into the cars!” he ordered. “All of you!” Off we went to TAR Headquarters—just five or ten minutes away—which was also the private residence of TAR Party Chief, Hu Jintao [currently General Secretary of the Communist Party of China.]

The Panchen Lama knocked on Hu Jintao’s front door. All of us Tibetans were a little proud at that moment. It was such an unusual feeling to watch a high-ranking member of the Party being bullied by a Tibetan!

Hu actually came to the door in his pajamas. Personally, the Panchen Lama and Hu were friends at that time, so when Hu saw him, he called him “Great Master” or something like that and was very shocked and asked what in the world had happened.

The Panchen Lama said, “Do you trust me or not? If you don’t trust me, I can go back to Beijing. I can leave tonight! If you don’t want me to investigate, then you report back to the Central Government!”

The Panchen Lama—I’ve never seen someone so brave. The next thing I knew, everybody was making phone calls. The Panchen Lama was calling Beijing. Hu Jintao was calling his police. A little later, a Chinese guy came to Hu’s residence and produced a tape and gave it to the Panchen Lama. This version of the demonstrations was entirely different. This time, we could see Chinese police all along the rooftop of the Jokhang. Then the monks came crowding down the street. The police started yelling very bad things down at the monks, and then we saw the police open fire on the monks.

[After seeing this version] the Panchen Lama confronted the police, “Why would you start shooting the people? You are supposed to represent and protect the people.” The Panchen Lama could be fearless.

DUNHAM: And many contend that he paid for his fearlessness with his death. You were with him in 1989 in Tashilunpo, the day before he died. Can you explain why so many lamas had come to Tashilunpo at that time, and why the rumors of murder won’t go away?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Traditionally, the final resting place of the relics of the previous Panchen Lamas was Tashilunpo. Prior to the Cultural Revolution, each Panchen Lama had his own memorial temple. During the Cultural Revolution, most of the relics disappeared and the temples were destroyed. But after 1980, people began to secretly approach the Tenth Panchen Lama with bits and pieces of the relics. Eventually, he collected the relics of five of the previous Panchen Lamas. So he built a temple with a central stupa and, within this stupa, he put five safes to house the relics. The opening ceremony for this stupa—a two-week affair—was the reason for the Panchen Lama’s last visit to Tashilunpo. This was in December 1989. Almost all the high lamas of Tibet were in attendance. Naturally, his unexpected death was a major shock to everyone.

DUNHAM: But there were also political overtones to the celebrations, right?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: That’s true. At one point, the Panchen Lama gave a long speech and much of it was critical of the Chinese Government. It was a political speech. But it was given in the context of recent history. In other words, he recounted many bad things that happened during the Cultural Revolution and then cautioned the Chinese Government to take heed of its own mistakes and to avoid them in the future. As always, he had to be careful when he did this.
   
People have accused the Chinese of killing the Panchen Lama because of that particular speech, but I don’t think that’s logical. They kill him because of one speech? I don’t think so. For one thing, anytime the Panchen Lama was scheduled to give a public message, first he had to submit a draft of his speech to be approved by the Chinese censors so, really, that one speech could not have come as a big surprise.

Anyway, the celebration lasted for two weeks. The night before everyone returned to their own monasteries, we had a big party. Everyone was so happy! The next day my group left. My group was returning overland to Kumbum. We had just arrived at a place north of Lhasa when we heard a radio broadcast that announced the unexpected passing of the Panchen Lama. We were stunned. Speechless. Every Tibetan felt torn apart. And suspicious.

DUNHAM: What was the official reason for the Panchen Lama’s death?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: High blood pressure. It’s a plausible explanation. He was considerably overweight. I would be surprised if he didn’t have high blood pressure.
   
DUNHAM: But your uncle, Gyayak Rinpoche, remained in Tashilunpo with the Panchen Lama after you had left. What did he say about the passing?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: I was told that after the big party, the Panchen Lama complained that he was feeling uncomfortable. A doctor came in and gave him a pill and that was it. The next morning, early in the morning, they discovered him in his room and he had passed away, apparently in his sleep.

But there is something very interesting beyond that. Gyayak Rinpoche’s assistant told me that when they visited his body that morning, the Panchen Lama’s face was very calm and beautiful. They began doing prayers for him. But when the Chinese found out, they brought in guys who tried to resuscitate the dead body nearly all day! Until four o’clock in the afternoon! They just would not leave his body alone. Why would they do that? Is that not a little strange? From 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.—nine hours of resuscitation?

DUNHAM: And was Hu Jintao still the Party Chief of the TAR at the time of the Panchen Lama’s death?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes.
   
DUNHAM: And rumors arose connecting him.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes, but people soon turned their attentions to choosing the next Panchen Lama, the Eleventh. That became the most important thing.

DUNHAM: The selection didn’t occur until 1995—almost six years after the Tenth Panchen Lama’s passing. Why the long gap? That’s a very long time according to the Tibetan tradition.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: From the very beginning of the process, there were so many obstacles created by the Chinese government in choosing the future Panchen Lama. Number one: They made it quite clear that they intended to be part of the election process. In the first stages, they seemed open to speaking to the Dalai Lama. They formed two teams: the political and the religious team. I was appointed Secretary of the Religious Selection Committee. But there was also the problem with the Tibetan community as well.

Before I go on, I think I should mention something about the character of the Tibetan people in general. They have a kind of weakness when it comes to harmony with one another. Our mind process is like this: I’m from Amdo, you’re from U-Tsang, he’s from Khampa; we are all different—separate. Tibetans don’t really think of themselves as one big family. So right from the beginning, there were regional rivalries that played into the selection of candidates for the Eleventh Panchen Lama.

First of all, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and the Tenth Panchen Lama were both from Amdo. So some of the people said, “This time, the Panchen Lama should come from Lhasa, not Amdo.” The general feeling among the Tibetan team was not one of compromise. To make matters worse, Gyayak Rinpoche, who was initially head of the religious team and a very powerful influence, became ill, was hospitalized, out of the picture, and things went downhill from there.

DUNHAM: What was your role as Secretary of the selection committee?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: In the early stages I did not play a significant role. I was busy with other duties. But then the events of Tiananmen Square took place and everything was turned upside-down. As you recall, the students came out in massive demonstrations. As fate would have it, the number one supporter of the Tiananmen students, within the Chinese hierarchy, was Yan Min Fu, who also supported the idea of including the Dalai Lama in the Panchen Lama selection process.

Tiananmen Square marked the end of his career and, once the smoke cleared, the tentative consultation relationship with the Dalai Lama also collapsed. The Central Government’s principle concern, after Tiananmen Square, was one of stability. Given the mood of the leaders, there was no way that anyone could pursue contact with His Holiness. It’s a great tragedy really. If there had been secret contact with His Holiness, the Chinese would have been able to publicly announce the candidates and make it look like it was their idea, and then there probably would have been no problem. Saving face is extremely important in Chinese politics.

But that’s not what happened. From what I understand, there was a little bit of a mistake. His Holiness made a public announcement first, I guess because Dharamsala wanted to demonstrate their authority over the choice of the next Panchen Lama. The Chinese were furious and everything got very difficult after that. An emergency meeting was convened in Beijing. All the lama members of the religious team came. Right before this meeting, a high-ranking party official and some of his associates interviewed me and asked me, “What is your opinion? Are you supporting the Central Government, or not?” I told them the truth, that I thought that they should include the Dalai Lama in the selection process.

DUNHAM: How did the official respond?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: “This is not negotiable. Luckily you are from Kumbum in Amdo. If you were from Central Tibet, from Tashilunpo Monastery, you would be in big trouble right now! Never say these things again.”

I learned something very important that day. While the Panchen Lama was alive, I felt like a child protected by a father. But during that interview, I realized I was an orphan who had lost all “parental” protection.

DUNHAM: What about the emergency meeting held the next day?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: All of us who were members of the religious team were forced to agree to all the Central Government’s proposals, which included removing the Dalai Lama from the process and agreeing to the communists’ implementation of the Golden Urn lottery, which would take place at the Jokhang in Lhasa.

I think I should add that, during the meeting, all of the lamas were silent. But the meeting was filmed and, that night on the TV, they panned over the lamas with subtitles that said, “So-and-so-lama said this; so-and-so-lama said that!” It was all lies.

DUNHAM: In your autobiography you describe the Golden Urn Lottery trip to Lhasa as intense and surreal.

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes, even when we landed at Gonggar Airport, we realized that the Central Government was proceeding with a great show of urgency. The terminal was swarming with armed PLA [People’s Liberation Army]. As you know, Gonggar Airport is sixty miles south of Lhasa. Along the way, from the terminal to the Lhasa hotel—on both sides of the road, about fifteen feet apart—there was an armed soldier! All the way to Lhasa!

And that kind of intensity never let up. After we checked into the hotel, we were called together and told: “You will not leave the premises of the hotel. You will not ask friends or associates to come into the hotel to visit. You will be prepared to leave for the ceremony without prior warning. During the ceremony, if any of you act up or do bad things, there will be no excuses and the punishment will be severe.”

About midnight, or maybe one in the morning, we were once again called together. “Time to leave!” they said, and by two in the morning, we left the Lhasa hotel. We boarded a bus. The distance couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes.

This time the PLA were on both sides of the road the entire way, shoulder-to-shoulder—faceless men with helmets, face masks and big guns and shields. The Chinese were doing everything they could to make it feel like a major historical moment.

We entered the Jokhang. The main temple room was already full of witnesses saying prayers: high lamas, local representatives, important monks—I don’t know how long they had been there. The ceilings are very high inside the Jokhang and it’s very dark, even with thousands of butter lamps flickering. But as my eyes became used to the darkness, I realized that around the perimeter of the main temple there were plain-clothed police—every corner—shoulder to shoulder.

My group was escorted up to the main altar. Directly in front of the main altar, in the position of honor, sat the highest-ranking communists from Beijing. There was a big table between them and the altar. On that table sat the Golden Urn. Perpendicular to the right end of the table was another group of lesser officials. We religious leaders were ushered to the left end of the table and seated, facing the lesser officials across the way. I was on the second row. The Karmapa sat directly in front of me and partially blocked my view. Visibility wasn’t great for most of us. Incense was billowing up everywhere. The room was dark and it was very, very crowded.

DUNHAM: Had you ever seen the Golden Urn before?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: I don’t think any of us had ever seen the Golden Urn before. This was a Chinese thing—something mentioned in old Chinese history books—but I don’t think it was ever used, at least in Tibetan ceremonies. If you go to Chinese temples, you can see these kinds of urns with sticks inside that they once used to divine the future.

The urn they had flown to Lhasa was impressive. Bigger than a basketball, with a stem, like on a goblet. Inside, there was a vase within the larger urn. And in this smaller vessel, there were three ivory sticks about a foot long and one inch wide. The nominees names had been typed on paper—except for the Dalai Lama’s choice of course. The altar attendants (they weren’t the regular altar monks) glued the papers to the ivory sticks, pulled tight-fitting gold silk covers down over the sticks, and replaced them into the urn.

Bumi Rinpoche, who was the president of the Buddhist Association of TAR, was asked to come forward and select a stick. He did as he was told, then handed it to the head official who, after inspecting it, handed it over to the official next to him, and so on, over to the next representative from Beijing.

The event was televised. Later, when we saw the video on TV, we could easily see that the stick that was chosen was a little longer the others. Obviously, this raised everyone’s suspicions. Not that we weren’t already suspicious . . .

DUNHAM: So you returned to Beijing demoralized?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: It was not a happy time. And sometime later, after we returned from Lhasa, officials came to me and offered me the position of being the tutor of the new Panchen Lama. They said I was going to gain a lot of prestige and power, if I would accept. Of course it was not really an invitation. It was an order. They said, “Anyway, you have to be his tutor because your uncle, Gyayak Rinpoche, was the previous Panchen Lama’s tutor. He did a wonderful job. Now you have to do a wonderful job.”

I realized that I had reached the end of the road. The only thing left for me to do was to defect. Four of the people closest to me, escaped with me. It was a complicated escape route. First we went south and eventually ended up in Guatemala. We were hoping to get visas to the United States but it took a long time. In the meantime, we had to be on our guard. I could be kidnapped and forced back to China or who knows?

Finally, we were cleared to go to America. That was 1998. I arrived in New York City about the same time as the Dalai Lama did; he was scheduled to give a teaching in Manhattan. It was the first time I had seen the Dalai Lama since 1954, when he briefly passed through Kumbum on his way to Beijing.

DUNHAM: You had a private meeting with him in New York?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes, and I was shocked by what he told me. You see, up until that moment, I had only been thinking about getting away from the Chinese safely, and hoping that the people I had left behind were going to be okay. I really hadn’t thought about what my escape might mean to other people outside of the People’s Republic of China.

When I had my meeting with His Holiness, he told me, “In the eyes of the Chinese, except for my escape, your defection is the most politically sensitive escape they have ever had to deal with. You shouldn’t criticize them or denounce them. Don’t do that. You should try to keep a good relationship with them. Write to Beijing and try to re-establish your relationship with them. Make this connection.”

I had just escaped! The last thing I wanted to do was to have contact with them! I hadn’t thought about all the political ramifications. But the Dalai Lama was right: Good relations might be beneficial for the Tibetan people, no matter what I personally believed. And the future of our Tibetan society was more important. So I wrote to Beijing.
   
DUNHAM: Did you get a reply?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Eventually. It was strange. I received a poem from the President of China at that time, Jiang Zemin.

DUNHAM: President Jiang Zemin wrote you a poem?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes, a poem about how wonderful Kumbum Monastery was. “A hundred thousand Buddhas have gathered here. So why have you left?” it said, or something like that. “The town is beautiful and the Lotus Mountain is in the background. What kind of nice place are you searching for? You had such a high position in China. Do you have an equally high position in America? Do you think that the Government-in Exile will really believe that you are now on their side?”

DUNHAM: This was Jiang Zemin’s way of inviting you back to China?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Well, yes, the implication was that I would be better off if I returned. And in fact, the Chinese left my position open for a couple of years after that, so I guess they hoped that I would eventually come back, even though I had sought and received political asylum here in the United States.

DUNHAM: Have you avoided politics since then?

ARJIA RINPOCHE: Yes. His Holiness asked me to come here to Bloomington two years ago and the TCC is strictly non-political. TCC is not an anti-Chinese organization. The question and real challenge for the TCC is: how do we maintain the Tibetan traditions and culture in twenty-first century America? I don’t know. It’s not going to be easy. But at least we have to try. TCC is a place for healing and hope.

I

.........................................................

Samye Monastery as DisneyWorld

REMEMBRANCE OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION in 2007

Colossal Guru Rinpoche statue demolished at Samye by China's new Religious Affairs Department

click on photo:
Torso
is about to be placed
on the bottom section
of the statue of Guru Rinpoche

click on photo:
Head of Guru Rinpoche
secured and statue near completion.
This picture was taken shortly before
the Chinese army came in and destroyed the massive
monument in the middle of May 2007.

Tibetan History

Recommended Books on Tibetan History, Culture, Politics and Religion

"Tibet Past and Present", by Sir Charles Bell. Motilai Banbarsidass Publishers, Delhi, reprinted 1992.

Sir Charles Bell, who, in the early 20th century, befriended the previous 13th Dalai Lama, addresses Tibet's history from early times. But he also draws upon his eighteen years of living along the Indo-Tibetan frontier and writes of the conditions in Tibet with rare insight. The photographs taken by Bell--and there are approximately 100 of them--by themselves, make the price of the book a bargain.

Excerpt: "The Chinese connexion with Tibet goes back into the mists of antiquity...In the old days Tibet and China waged war with each other on fairly equal terms. Once at least China seized the Tibetan capital; once at least Tibet captured the captial of China. During the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era, neither China nor India escaped invasion by the Tibetans...but when the softening influence of Buddhism extended its hold over the country, the power of the Tibetans in war gradually declined."

"Secret Tibet", by Fosco Maraini. Translated from the Italian by Eric Mosbacher and Guido Waldman. The Harvill Press, London, 1951.

Based on two trips to Tibet, one in 1937 and the other in 1984, (two years before the communist Chinese invaded Tibet), Maraini's book is a major contribution to a core understanding of Tibetan culture. He writes convincingly about the extent to which Tibetan Buddhism anchors the nation's sense of identity. Little surprise, then, that Eastern Tibet rose in arms when the communists set about destroying the monastic culture in the mid-1950s. The bibliography is especially thorough, divided into numerous sub-categories. And his final thoughts on the current state of Tibet are particularly poignant:

"A single fundamental fact needs to be faced: that people's freedom is an asset that is of transcendent value, an asset that nobody is entitled to confiscate. It is one of the great paradoxes of our time that the "capitalist, reactionary, imperialist" world has fully recognized this fact for close on fifty years and acted upon it. All its colonial empires have been dismantled, dismembered, dissolved. The only colonial empire still extant is that of the Chinese "socialist and progressive" world, which, with its fine speeches and lovely doves of peace is in practice acting like the reviled colonial powers of the nineteenth century."

"My Land and My People", by H.H. the Dalai Lama. Warner Books, New York, 1997. "Freedom in Exile", by H.H. the Dalai Lama. HarperSanFrancisco, 1900.

H.H. the Dalai Lama is the vortex of everything Tibetan. The Dalai Lama writes about the Dalia Lama. Enough said but the Chicago Tribune is worth quoting:

"Throughout his story, told with great humility, the Dalai Lama reveals his obligation both to address the time-honored spiritual needs of his people and to help them deal with the practical cosiderations of their disrupted lives. Anyone wanting to understand Tibet today will do well to read this priest-king's tale of coping with the ancient and modern worlds that have shaped him.

"Four Rivers, Six Ranges" by Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang. Information and Publicity Office of H. H. the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, 1973."Four Rivers, Six Ranges" is unavailble on Amazon. I got my copy at Alibris.com

Gompo Tashi was the famed Khampa leader of the Tibetan Resistance and creator of Chushi-Gangdruk. It doesn't get any more boots-on-the-ground than this. But one of the illuminating aspects of his autobiography is his profound and unswerving devotion to the Dalai Lama and, eventually, the Dalai Lama's recognition of Gompo Tashi's valor. Gompo Tashi's voice speaks to the heart of all Tibetans by underplaying his own suffering--a national trait if there ever was one:

"I was wounded all over the body and was in much pain, but...my life was not in immediate danger. It appeared that the Chinese had spotted me and the horse I was riding, for when we began to move away, they made me a special target of their gunfire. One of my companions noticed this and gave me his horse to ride."

"Tears of the Lotus: Accounts of Tibetan Resistance to the Chinese Invasion, 1950-1962", by Roger E. McCarthy. McFarland 1997.

Roger E. McCarthy created the CIA Tibetan Task Force and personally trained the first six Tibetans. Although others have tried to take credit (decades later) for much of his work, McCarthy was and still is The Man. He also debriefed Gompo Tashi following his escape to Darjeeling--the only non-Tibetan to have done so. For resolutely correct information about the CIA involvement, this is the primary source. Given much of the crap one finds in the bookstores on Tibet, it is a great pity this work is not more widely read and recognized--particualrly in understanding the horrible yoke of the Chinese:

"In most countries, all the jargon attendant to Communism means very little except to those whose duties require them to be communist parrots, but to Tibetans, freedom and independence and their religion are precious and not to be tampered with. Now all the tribals finally concluded after some six years of barbaric treatment by the Chinese that no more time was to be wasted waiting for things to get better and that with or without the blessing of the Dalai Lama the Chinese were to feel the sword. To the majority of Tibetans, it was basically a choice of either trying to escape to another country or fighting to defend their own."

"Captured in Tibet", by Robert Ford. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1990.

Ford was one of the eight "Imperialists" who Mao Tse-tung ranted about and used (at least partially) as an excuse to invade Tibet. Ford offers his first-hand account in a self-effacing and highly readable form. He was working as a radio officer in Eastern Tibet--Chamdo--when the communist invasion began in October, 1950. He was betrayed by Ngabo, along with everyone else in Kham, captured, tried in a kangaroo court for espionage, anti-communist propaganda and murder. He languished in a Chinese prison for the next five years. The book ends with an eloquent epilogue in which he sums up forty disastrous years of Chinese occupation, including the ecological devastation:

"Massive deforestation had reduced rich forest areas to barren wasteland...Tibet's wildlife, once protected under Buddhism, had been decimated by large-scale hunting and fishing. The vast herds of gazelle, wild ass, and wild yak, a common sight in old Tibet, have disappeared..."

"Journey with Loshay: An Adventure in Tibet", by George N. Patterson. W.W. Norton, New York, 1954.

Patterson, a fine Scottish writer of the old school, was, in 1950, a medical missionary in the heart of Kham. He was an intrepid adventurer, a linguist and superior horseman as well, putting him in good stead with the untamed Khampas with whom he traveled. With the Chinese rapidly approaching the Tibetan border, Patterson knew he had to escape to India. His resultant horse trek across the wilds of southern Kham--Lithang, Bathang, Markham and beyond--became fodder for this book. It is an eagle-eyed account and describes the countryside (prior to the Chinese rape of Tibet) in authentic strokes few authors could match. To read Patterson is, on one level, to BE a Khampa:

"As the stars began to fade in the grayness of the dawn I found myself watching, with the intensity of a starving man watching for food, for the rose color which would herald the sunrise. I knew from experience that it would be some time before there would be any actual heat, but to see the sun and know that it contained that heat which I craved, became an obsession. I watched the edge of its approach down the mountainside with hypnotized fascination, and tried to guage the time for its arrival from one boulder to another. For we were now in a huge amphitheater of savage barren mountains whose sides and feet were covered with shale, stones and boulders. The whole place in that early morning light gave the impression of being a vast iron-gray bowl filled with some strange rose-colored liquid. It did not seem credible that those mountains could ever shed their iron harness to weep, but that they did could be seen in frozen streams and frozen lakes, sparkling brilliant in the hollows."

This was the land of the Khampas over which so much of the resistance was fought. In that sense, this is history of the most profound and evocative sort. I recommend that you read this book as selfishly as possible: Wait until all other humanity has left the premises; start a fire if you have a fireplace; shove a wingback close to the flames; throw your phone out the window; grab a blanket or dog and tuck around your feet; pour yourself a mason jar of scotch; put your feet up and luxuriate in real travel--not modern day tourism that passes itself off as travel.

"Tibetan Nation: A History of Tibetan Nationalism and Sino-Tibetan Relations", by Warren W. Smith, Jr. WestviewPress, Boulder, Colorado, 1996.

Do you dig tomes? If sobriety is your game, and you want the full dose, beginning with Paleolithic Tibet to the end of the 20th century, this is probably the doorstop for you. Unlike some of the other massive histories, Smith seems agenda-free. His maps are very helpful and his photographs are great. The organization is on the lumpy side (leaving the reader to string the linear story together on his/her own--but that's a professorial thing, they all like to do that.) Still, it's far more comprehensive than Goldstein's "A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951", and more reliable than Shakya's "The Dragon in the Land of Snows", which, at times, reads like an a apology for the communist Chinese. Smith leads the competition. All in all, Smith has tackled the big picture and published a chronicle that is consistantly well-documented and solidly written.