Battleground Tibet: History, Background, and Perspectives of an International Conflict (Albert Ettinger)
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Battleground Tibet: History, Background, and Perspectives of an International Conflict | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Albert Ettinger |
| Written in | 2015 |
| Publisher | 五洲传播出版社 (China Intercontinental Press) |
| First published | 2015 Frankfurt-am-Main Originally published in German by Zambon Verlag |
| Type | book |
| ISBN | 978-7-5085-3398-8 |
| https://annas-archive.org/md5/53deec57ed312cebc0244f314661d777 | |
Table of Contents
Preface
1 Lots of questions, and no hasty answers please!
2 Historiography and journalism between facts, myths and propaganda lies
3 More than one thousand years ago: Chinese culture for a kingdom of barbaric warriors
4 Common history: the Mongolian, Ming, and Manchu emperors
5 "Chinese cake" on the menu for greedy colonial powers
6 Tibetan "independence" as a project of the British Empire
7 The 13th Dalai Lama, tyrant of Lhasa
8 Failed modernisation, failed "state": Tibet under the 13th Dalai Lama and his successors
9 Three rusting cars, bagpipes and play money printed by hand
10 After the thirteenth: intrigues, banishments and squeezed-out eyeballs
11 Lamaist greed and immorality: His Holiness Reting Rinpoche
12 Civil war in Lhasa: political murders, belligerent monks, and a ransacked monastery
13 Reting's most important legacy: a "Chinese" Dalai Lama
14 The "Tibetan trade mission": Great Britain and the USA refuse to grant the "lama state" international recognition
15 A new type of army, Red Scare and 17 points as the basis for peaceful liberation
16 "Winds of Change" – approaches to reform, a political honeymoon, and a forgotten love poem
17 Hunger, economic boycott, and a Tibetan Ku Klux Clan – reactionary circles thwart the 17 Point Agreement
18 The early exile, the "holy family" and the rich uncle from America
19 Khampa uprising: robbers and "holy warriors" become CIA "freedom fighters"
20 Lhasa 1959: Khampas and the CIA stage a "people's uprising" and bring the Dalai Lama out of the country
21 "Tibet" in exile: mismanagement, prosperity at the expense of others and democracy as a facade
22 "International Commission of Jurists": CIA jurists enter the Cold War
23 Stories from wonderland: how a "genocide" resulted in unprecedented population growth...
24 ...and how a "cultural genocide" triggered a cultural blossoming
25 "Give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor!" – Religious freedom and its limits
26 The human rights to education and development
27 "Tibetans aren't Chinese": the racial argument
28 The Dalai Lama's "Greater Tibet" – a call for racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, war, and genocide
29 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the "Austrian mountaineer" Heinrich Harrer
30 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the "race researcher" and war criminal Bruno Beger
31 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the right-wing scene
32 ICT, NED, RwB: continuation of the CIA war with other means
33 Burning for the Dalai Lama?
References
About the author: ALBERT ETTINGER
... was born in 1952 in Differdange, a small industrial town of the Luxembourg steel area, as the first son of a miner. Initially, he studied History, then pursued German and Romance Languages Studies in Trier (Germany), which he completed by a Ph. D. with the rating summa cum laude.
For more than thirty years, he worked as a high school and college teacher in Luxembourg and Trier.
He is married and father of two children.
In recent years, Albert Ettinger wrote two books and many articles about Tibet.
While they marched through the Tibetan regions and towns, no shots were fired at them and they were often welcomed warmly. The foreigners lamenting the fate of a nation that had fallen victim to shameful aggression had been extremely ill informed.
Although we have cloaked our activity on the border of India in the deepest secrecy, who in India and who in Russia would believe that such activity was being supported and directed by anyone else than the covert peacetime operational forces of the United States? ... If the Dalai Lama is spirited out of Tibet in the face of an overwhelming Chinese army of conquerors, are the Chinese going to think he found his support in heaven?
It must also be emphasised that, in Tibet, there is a more active artistic and intellectual life and creativity (literature, music, painting, sculpture and recently film production) than in exile.
Let's achieve autonomy first. And then we'll throw out the Chinese!
Preface
After several years of intensively examining Tibet and the Tibet issue, it was important to me to make my findings and conclusions available to a wider public. Zambon Verlag kindly offered me the opportunity to do this in the form of two books. This book is one of those, and I hope it can go some way towards overcoming the widespread ignorance about the background and causes of the Tibet conflict. This ignorance forms the soil on which prejudices, clichés and propaganda lies can proliferate and take root.
The main concern of this book is to provide information about indisputable yet little or unknown facts and, in doing so, stimulate the reader to look more closely and reflect on the issues – and not just on a superficial level. However, I do not deny that it was occasionally written cum ira et studio and that I do observe, judge and evaluate my subject from a personal viewpoint. The readers must decide for themselves how far they wish to share this viewpoint. In any case, I agree with Karlheinz Deschner who, in a response to critics of his "Christianity's Criminal History," counters the allegation of "one-sidedness" by writing: "Everyone is one-sided! Every historian has their own biographical and psychological determinants, their preconceived opinions. Everyone is established in society, contingent upon his or her class and social group. Everyone is subject to preferences, aversions, knows their favourite hypotheses, their values systems." This particularly applies to those who "most strongly deny it." It is therefore important not to simulate "false objectivity;" what is more critical "is how many reasons underpin our 'one-sidedness' and how good these reasons are," the nature of the "sources" and which "level of reasoning" we are pursuing.1 I think that this book can meet the challenges in this area.
Despite the overriding efforts to communicate facts and information, it also therefore has features of a polemic. The book owes its creation to a situation I experienced a few years ago. While teaching German at a high school, I noticed that our school textbook had treated the issue of "Tibet and Tibetan exile" in a completely one-sided and manipulative manner.2 I was then shocked by events from 2008 when the calls to boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing caused great waves and "activists" for a "free Tibet" physically attacked the people carrying the Olympic flame in France, the USA and other countries. Alongside the standard allegation that China is not a democracy and breaches human rights, the "occupation of Tibet" (almost sixty years ago) provided the foundation for an unprecedented media campaign. Tibet and the Dalai Lama were more than ever the focus of media interest. And the exiled leader of the Tibetan Gelugpa sect or his advocates were given every opportunity to present the viewpoints and assertions of his "exiled government" and its international supporters, particularly as, at the same time (and in no way coincidentally), violent riots in Lhasa were generating headlines. In the media, the central values that Olympic sport should represent and convey were left by the wayside: the requirement for fairness and the goal of international understanding.
Here I would only like to say so much on the issue of fairness: as far as I know, there had previously only been one partial boycott of the Olympic Games or any other large international sporting event, namely in 1980 when the USA and other western countries refused to take part in the Olympic Games held in Moscow. The reason or pretext for this refusal at the time was the military intervention of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. However, neither the recent western military action there and the associated civilian victims, nor the earlier wars and interventions by the USA in Indochina, Latin America, or Iraq3 resulted in our media or leading circles demanding a boycott of any international sporting event in the USA. Breaches of international law and human rights by Israel were equally never a sufficient reason to introduce any form of boycott measure. Yet there was no question that there had been significant and repeated breaches of international law and human rights by the USA and Israel.4 This does not apply to the Chinese Tibet policy, as we shall show.
As this book does not otherwise rest on personal experiences, I naturally had to rely on credible sources, relevant historical research, and written reports from contemporary witnesses. Yet, which sources and authors can be considered credible and, above all, for whom? I personally, for example, tend to consider critics of the Dalai Lama to be credible; yet many readers will probably trust the former god-king and his companions. This particular dilemma can be solved, as I also consider the latter credible, at least occasionally. When they report on events or make admissions diverging from the position they generally tend to adopt, they are actually very credible.
This explains why I rarely call upon opponents of the Dalai Lama5 and his "exile government". The Tibet lobby counters any justified criticism with the cheap killer argument that somebody has embraced the propaganda of the Chinese Communists.6 I therefore primarily rely on authors and sources who are above such suspicion: American military historians and CIA insiders or written documents from Tibetan "Buddha warriors," renowned western academics such as Melvyn Goldstein, Tom Grunfeld, Barry Sautman, Andreas Gruschke or Thomas Hoppe, stated Dalai Lama supporters such as Laurent Deshayes, professed Buddhists and leading "Free Tibet" activists. Contemporary witnesses such as Alexandra David-Néel,7 the French Asia researcher honoured by the 14th Dalai Lama as a friend of Tibet, and Heinrich Harrer, "teacher" and lifelong friend of the earlier god-king and occasionally the 14th Dalai Lama himself, have also been important sources. It should therefore be difficult for the opposing side to react to the information and arguments provided other than with attempted silence or hysterical screams.
One further comment at the outset: as the reader will easily recognise, the uncommented citations at the start of the chapters do not necessarily reflect my own opinion. Instead, they highlight or supplement my own explanations from different, often opposing, perspectives. Occasionally, they are even not directly related to the actual issue, but rather direct attention to more general questions and connections. The thinking reader that I expect will undoubtedly know what to make of them.
The 14th Dalai Lama on his throne in Lhasa in 1956 or 1957 (photo: unknown source)
Notes
1 Karlheinz Deschner, Kriminalgeschichte des Christentums, Erster Band: Die Frühzeit, Reinbek bei Hamburg, Rowohlt Verlag, 1986, p. 39 2 The reading book deutsch.punkt 3 for twelve or thirteen years old from the Klett Schulbuchverlag openly promotes or promoted Tibetan Buddhism. The headings speak for themselves: "Tibet and the resistance of spirit" or "His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama" (p. 189). As if the authors wanted to convert the pupils to Lamaism, it states: "The path of Buddha is suitable for everyone, not only monks and nuns." Allegedly, the pupils should learn in the relevant sequence about handling factual texts and extracting information from the texts presented. That was done using extracts from a novel for young adults glorifying Lamaism. The only factual text cited cannot be found in the quoted source, a work from Uli Franz intended as a travel guide. It was clearly pieced together for scholastic indoctrination. 3 "Whereas China's apparent human rights breaches in relation to Tibet are highlighted," the summary of the global war on terrorism is "barely acknowledged" in western media, writes Michel Chossudovsky, Professor for Economic Sciences at Ottawa University, Canada, and Head of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG): "More than 1.2 million Iraqi civilians have been killed and 3 million wounded. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates the number of Iraqi refugees who have left their country at 2.2 million and the number of those 'driven out internally' at 2.4 million. 'The population of Iraq at the time of the American invasion in March 2003 was approximately 27 million and is now around 23 million. It can therefore be assumed that currently more than half of the Iraqi population are either refugees, require medical assistance, injured or dead.'" (http://www.hintergrund.de/20080627214/politik/welt/operation-tibet-html, accessed on 12/02/2013). Quote: Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007 4 See also the drone attacks with civilian "collateral damage" and the targeted killing, even of US citizens, under Obama. See also Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder; Vanguard Press, 2008; William Blum, Killing Hope, Zed Books, 2014; Oliver Stone/Peter Kuznick, The Untold History of the United States, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi, Gallery Books, 2012, or Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, Tucson/Arizona, Odonian Press, 2005 5 These include Colin Goldner. See also Goldner, Dalai Lama: Fall eines Gottkönigs, Aschaffenburg, Alibri Verlag, 2008 6 As if we in the West would be particularly influenced by Chinese propaganda. How would that work? Rather, we are exposed to the propaganda of western governments, interest groups and their media... 7 The Dalai Lama visited her house in Digne in the Alps of Haute Provence twice, in October 1982 and in May 1986. (See also Maxime Vivas, Pas si ZEN: La face cachée du Dalai Lama, Paris, Max Milo Éditions, 2011, p. 34). He was acknowledging a woman who made a significant contribution to the creation of the western myth of Tibet.
Tibet became to me, at that time, a land of certainties: an independent country had been invaded by Chinese Communists, who destroyed six thousand monasteries and killed 1.2 million people, an exact figure, one-fifth of the population.
On the one hand, the violent annexation of Tibet by China, which was contrary to international law, is internationally known and undisputed; on the other hand, the 14th Dalai Lama has a very good international reputation, not least after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. As the Dalai Lama advocates non-violence and democratic reforms, China has no argument for the occupation (Tibet is neither a threat, nor must it be protected against "feudal oppressors").
Many writings stress the predatory nature of the Chinese annexation of Tibet, sometimes arguing that the Chinese actions were motivated by a desire to acquire Tibet's natural resources and by a policy of lebensraum. I think this is a misinterpretation of the Sino-Tibetan conflict.
We can make it easy for ourselves when we write about Tibet, the Tibetan conflict, and the Chinese Tibet policy. Just as Franz Alt did. In a quickly pieced together but magnificently designed book4 from 1998, he initially gives the Dalai Lama a chance to speak and then, in his own contribution covering forty pages – including nine photos – addresses the past, present and future of Tibet and the Chinese mainland. For "two thousand years of Tibetan history", his colleague, Klemens Ludwig, needed even less space within the same anthology: twenty-five pages, which are also broken up with photos.
We want to address the issue with somewhat more care and seriousness here by touching on a whole range of political and historical questions and, above all, delving deeper into them. We initially trace the centuries' old cultural, religious, and political relationships between the Tibetans and the mainland, and try to explain, on the one hand, the basis for China's demands on the region and, on the other hand, the independence claimed from exile. In doing so, we must clarify the term "Tibet" that is, for transparent political reasons, consistently used in an unclear manner. We shall address in detail the political impact and character of the 13th Dalai Lama and the regents that followed him. We shall examine whether the Chinese assertion that, in 1951, China finally freed Tibet from foreign "imperialistic" influence has any form of justification, or whether this was a pure fabrication, as is often claimed in the West. We shall try to elucidate whether, at any point in its modern history, Tibet can be considered an independent state. We shall address the conditions of the return of Tibet to the rule of the central Chinese government, referred to by China as a "peaceful liberation," and the so critical first decade within the young People's Republic of China. Incidentally, we shall present the non-academic public with the results of the historical research performed by Melvyn Goldstein for the first time. His monumental history of Tibet from 1913 to 19575 is now justifiably perceived internationally to be the standard work on this issue. We shall then discuss in detail the armed uprising of the late 1950s and 1960s and its protagonists and supporters. We shall investigate whether Tibet now enjoys real or only apparent autonomy within China. We shall pursue questions such as: is there any truth in the allegation of "foreign infiltration" through the Han Chinese? Does the often invoked "cultural" or even physical "genocide," of which China is accused by the "Tibetan exile government" and so-called NGOs, actually exist? Are the "Chinese" really doing everything to destroy the Tibetan language and culture as we are always reading?
We also want to address the methods, goals, and possible perspectives of the "exile government" and their supporters. As the leader of the exile government, does the 14th Dalai Lama really represent a politics of peace, reason, balance, moderation, and non-violence?
You can see that the list of questions is varied and very long. However, it is not complete and we cannot address all aspects of the "Tibet" issue in this book. For example, the question of ownership, power and living conditions in old Tibet – whether it really was a feudal society, paralysed for centuries through extreme social inequality, serfdom, slavery, beggars' misery and brigandage, and a strict clerical dictatorship – is excluded. The same applies to the equally important and necessary discussion of the teaching and practices of Tibetan Buddhism (Lamaism). As these aspects demand and deserve their own detailed treatment, we have addressed them in a separate book. I warmly recommend it to interested readers as a supplement and complement to this one.
Thangka image of the mythical King Gesar of Ling
Notes
1 Patrick French, Tibet Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land, New York, Vintage Books, 2003, p. 22 2 deutsch.punkt 3, Sprach-, Lese und Selbstlernbuch für Gymnasien, Lehrerband, Stuttgart and Leipzig, Ernst Klett Schulbuchverlag, 2006, p. 90 3 Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947, London 1999, p. 92 4 See also Franz Alt/Klemens Ludwig/Helfried Weyer, Tibet. Schönheit – Zerstörung – Zukunft, Frankfurt am Main, Umschau Buchverlag, 1998 5 See also Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 1: The Demise of the Lamaist State, 1913-1951, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, University of California Press, 1989; Volume 2: The Calm before the Storm, 1951-1955, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, University of California Press, 2007; Volume 3: The Storm Clouds Descend, 1955-1957, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, University of California Press, 2014
2 Historiography and journalism between facts, myths and propaganda lies
Furthermore, we must consider that the spiritual domain differs significantly from the scientific domain, and that scientific evidence is no more truthful than mythologies.
Prof. A. Tom Grunfeld, the Tibet historian from State University in New York notes that, in the case of Tibet, academic historiography that endeavours to remain objective encounters some problems. Firstly, before the seventh century A.D. there was no consistent and structured writing in the Tibetan language area (at a time when the Chinese kingdom was already at least 2,300 years old). The first Tibetan chronicles were written in the eighth and ninth century, when it seemed important to the ruling powers at the time to see their legitimacy as the descendants of an entire succession of rulers confirmed.2 The rise of Buddhism to a main religion also brought about a rewriting and reinterpretation of history.
The early history of the region ("Tibet" did not yet exist, just as in antiquity there was no Germany, France, or England) could have left us cold, were it not for the attempts made by the Tibetan "exile government" to anchor the existence of an "independent Tibetan nation" in the distant past and present it as a historical fact since the darkest period of prehistory. Actually, these concerns in no way deterred the 14th Dalai Lama, during his appearance before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, from dating the "founding" of his "nation" together with Tibetan "independence" to "the year 127 B.C."3 An amateur historian such as Klemens Ludwig, the German journalist and Dalai Lama admirer, also follows his idol here without the slightest hesitation. He too asserts that "western time counting" dates "the actual start of Tibetan history to the year 127 B.C." "At that time, King Nyatri Tsenpo laid the foundation of a significant dynasty in the Yarlung valley."4 There is no "historical trace" of the "first eight kings of the Yarlung dynasty", but this does not bother an ideologically hazy observer of history, not even when "legend says that they (...) descended directly from the heavens" and "returned there after death."5 Is that why there are no gravestones? Dating the first Tibetan kingdom to an exact year, around eight hundred years before the first written and historically still unreliable chronicles, is considered by Klemens Ludwig to be unproblematic, even though he himself ultimately admits: "However, the Yarlung kings do not become historically tangible (!) until the early 7th century. Under King Namri Songtsen the influence of the dynasty extended beyond the Yarlung valley."6 Eight whole centuries after the mythical first king and forefather of Tibetan "independence," the Tibetan rulers had "influence" over an entire "valley"?!
Furthermore: didn't David-Néel, who knew a fair amount about the early history of Tibet, write that the "Tibetans never formed a completely homogenous nation" and that, at the time of Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century, there were "more than one hundred different Tibetan tribes" who often fought with one another?7
Deshayes, the Dalai Lama-friendly but comparatively more serious Tibet historian than Klemens Ludwig, also guards against such uncritical (and naive) treatment of historical facts when he emphasises: "In response to the question about the origin of their people and their kingdom the Tibetans, who live so close to the heavens, always answered with myths and legends." He mentions several contradicting stories that come from different religious traditions. In the Bön tradition, for example, the first king's name was Öde Gungyel or Öde Purgyel. According to another legend, the first king – as per Ludwig – was called Nyatri Tsenpo. "Buddhist historians" (and not "western time counting!") fixed his "arrival in the earthly world to the year 127 before our time" and "based on academic calculations." As per the same tradition, this king had magical powers: armour that put itself on, a sword and a lance that fought by themselves. He could return at any time back to the heavens from where he descended thanks to a cord made of light, a so-called silver string, which connected him to the sky. When he died, he transformed into a rainbow before making his final ascension.8
As we can see, the Dalai Lama's appearance before the European Parliament had more of a story time session than a history lesson. What can we otherwise expect from a church dignitary and his court? It is to be feared that most of the EU delegates failed to notice the difference.
As it primarily applies to early history, the meagreness and unreliability of the written sources that were emphasised by Grunfeld is of less concern to us. The same cannot be said of the following: in the 19th and, above all, in the 20th century the political-ideological polarisation that resulted from rival powers battling for influence in the region hindered, according to Grunfeld, a view of things that was not influenced by interests. And indeed: Great Britain and the United States were (or are?!) a faction in the Tibetan conflicts. They were, at different times, directly involved on the ground, also from a military perspective. With the USA, in the context of the Cold War, indirectly also their allies in the East (Taiwan) and West. Impartiality from political observers and even historians, if they have internalised the Cold War front lines or are even continuing this war against China, is hardly to be expected.
A few further problems are also to be added:
– The fact that all written Tibetan sources come from a society where only very few people could read, even fewer could write and all those who were literate belonged to the high clergy and aristocracy implies a very specific view of things: all reported events are automatically perceived from the perspective of these social groups. That of most Tibetans, who were farmers and shepherds performing compulsory labour, is not reflected. The same applies to contemporary witnesses from the rows of Tibetan exiles who, in their majority, belong to the earlier elite. Grunfeld also refers to this.
– Most western Tibetologists were, and are, religious scholars, orientalists, or cultural anthropologists; their interest (and their support) was, and is, generally in Tibetan Buddhism, whether because they themselves are committed to this religion, or because they generally have a positive attitude towards religions, religious practices, and institutions. Even Patrick French, the leading "Tibet" activist, noted during a conference of the International Association for Tibetan Studies how much the (mainly western) Tibetologists, both the academics and their students, "focus on the apolitical and ethereal": "I had noticed that out of nearly 230 papers submitted, more than a hundred dealt with religion, a hundred with matters such as linguistics, education, art, literature, medicine, law, social sciences and botany, and only twenty-four with diplomatic history, political history or political science; there was no hint of economics."9
The fact that the perspective of most people in the western world is unilaterally determined by propaganda claims from Tibetan exiles has, according to Grunfeld, another cause: "Those who do not read the Chinese press (the vast majority of the populations of the world) have no access to Chinese positions, however poorly presented they may be." In this regard, he criticises the western media who used the material with which the Tibet Information Network in London bombarded them "unquestioningly,"10 and cites an American study from 1992, which concluded that almost all journalists are woefully ignorant of Tibet11 and report overwhelmingly in the Dalai Lama's favour.12 The historian summarised: "In the public relations war, China is monumentally outclassed." 13
The situation in Europe is by no means better when it comes to knowledge about Tibet, and the most absurd claims and "reports" from the Tibet scene are willingly disseminated in the media. For example, Goldner cites14 a dpa report also published by the taz (on 7th May 2002), where it was stated that the "senior-ranking Tibetan religious leader Rinpoche" had been arrested in Sichuan due to contact with the Dalai Lama. Rinpoche is a common title, comparable with the Christian "reverend," and by no means a name. False journalistic assertions cited by Goldner such as: the Dalai Lama had to flee from Tibet at the age of seventeen (taz, 7/10/1987) – he was actually twenty-four – or: the Potala is a "1,300-year-old cultural monument" (taz, 20/12/1994) – it comes from the 17th century – show, even when they only apply to details, the incredibly frivolous manner in which even "serious" and "left-wing" media handle the data and facts.15
The truth and justness of something certainly do not depend on who can afford the cleverest image consultants, the most expensive lawyers, and the most unreliable journalists! Reporting in western media, not just about Tibet but also China in general, is a "serious" or "dark chapter" as Heinrich Harrer would probably express it. A scientific study commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation on the image of China conveyed by German media came to a clear conclusion that was shameful for the German media landscape. Throughout the year 2008, 8,766 reports "with a connection to China" in "six print media (the daily newspapers FAZ, SZ and taz and the weekly publications SPIEGEL, Focus and ZEIT)" plus "information programmes shown on public service television" were evaluated. The scientists' findings: In a "multitude of media reports" the "issue is not examined closely"; rather "socially inherent ideas and clichés about the country" are adopted "without reflection." More than half of the reports were shaped by "normative derogatory images of China," for example as a "'supporter of rogue states,' a 'climate sinner,' a 'cheap producer', a country with an ungovernable 'hunger for raw materials.'" The study also identified an ongoing dissemination of mainly "extremely" simplistic and "narrow clichés" by the German media. Seemingly positive images (China as an "attractive growth market" and "interesting production location") are only found in the "business sector." There are also "clear blind spots" in the selection of issues addressed and "central areas such as social issues or education, science & technology" are "almost completely excluded." The "massive focus" on "minority and territorial questions such as Tibet (11,2%)" or "the human rights situation (3,9%)" appear to be oversized "in light of the neglect" of other issues such as "urgent social questions (1,8%)" in China. Equally problematic is "economic reporting," which is "excessively" concentrated "on German companies and their interests, statements and actions." Overall, the selection of themes is "often determined by news factors such as conflict potential, negativity and focus on the elite," whereas in general "well-founded analyses of internally important developments are left out."16
Notes
1 Fabrice Midal, Tibetische Mythen und Gottheiten: Einblick in eine spirituelle Welt, From the French by Rolf Remers, Berlin, Theseus Verlag, 2002, p. 117 2 See also Laurent Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1997, p. 48 3 Cited from Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 131 4 Klemens Ludwig, Zweitausend Jahre tibetische Geschichte, In Franz Alt et al., Tibet, p. 56 5 Ibid. p. 57 6 Ibid. p. 57-58 7 David-Néel, A l'ouest barbare de la vaste Chine, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, Récits et aventures, Librairie Plon, 1994, p. 768 8 See also Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 41-48. See also F. Midal, Tibetische Mythen und Gottheiten, p. 12, who talks about the "mythological origin of the ruling dynasties" and "events that have a religious tinge but cannot be historically documented" and R. A. Stein: Die Kultur Tibets, Berlin 1993, p. 44, which states: "These figures are purely conventional" and: "These early chronicles have in no way been strictly historically recorded (...) The rulers and their fortresses certainly date back to the 6th century, thus the tradition has relegated them to the mythical time of the first celestial king." 9 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 277-278 10 A. Tom Grunfeld: The Making of Modern Tibet, Revised edition. Armonk/New York and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1996, p. 239 11 Ibid. 12 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 239; he refers to Jude Carlson: Tibet in the News, in BCAS 24:2 13 Grunfeld, p. 240 14 Goldner, Dalai Lama... p. 415 – dpa is the Deutsche Presse-Agentur (German News Agency); taz (Tageszeitung) a major German newspaper. 15 See also Goldner, Dalai Lama... p. 409 16 http://www.boell.de/downloads/bildungkultue/Zusammenfassung_Thesen_China_Studie.pdf (accessed on 21/09/2011)
3 More than one thousand years ago: Chinese culture for a kingdom of barbaric warriors
Silk originally comes from India.
The fact that she was the fourth wife of King Songtsen Gampo is just as much ignored as the Buddhist missionary work of the Nepalese Princess Bhrikuti Devi.
The Potala had been burned and looted by the Dzungar Mongols in the accompanying civil war. (...) there is no escaping the fact that the principal patron of restauration of the modern Potala, the symbol of Tibetan nationalism that falls from a million campaign leaflets, was the man known as Superior Manjushri, who loved and guided sentient beings to good deeds: the Emperor of China.
If the Dalai Lama claims that a Tibetan nation existed in a grey past, he naturally does so to give his goal of detaching Tibet from China a historical foundation. Equally, anyone campaigning for a Tibet that is independent from China will unilaterally emphasise the autonomy of Tibetan culture and belittle, or even completely deny, all influences coming from China. Then, in the heat of the moment, India inadvertently becomes the country which discovered or invented silk and, who knows, also porcelain, paper, tea culture and chopsticks.
The culture of the Tibetans of course differs, in some areas even considerably, from that of the Han Chinese. It is the well-known story of the glass that, depending on the interest and viewpoint of the observer, is either half-empty or half full. The fact that there were strong influences and impulses from the more civilised kingdom of the Hans from a very early stage cannot seriously be denied. From Tibet's earliest history close political and, primarily, cultural contacts developed. Despite its particular geographic location, Tibet was by no means shielded against external influences. The initial contacts between the Tibetans and Han Chinese were rather unpleasant, as they were in the form of Tibetan raids, attacks, and lootings. In Jacques Gernet's The Chinese World, the first western academic history of China, he wrote about the "mountain people of the Himalaya massif and its peripheral regions": "The warlike nature" of the "Tibetans, Qiang people or Tanguts, Jyarung, Nashi or Mo-so etc." was expressed "in attacks on caravans and raids of arable land belonging to the residents." "Throughout the course of history, they spread themselves out towards the east, into the modern provinces of Kangsu, Sichuan and Shaanxi (...)."4 Ever since, the Tibetans have been perceived by the Han Chinese as particularly brave and warlike; the similarities with other nomadic peoples such as the Huns and Mongolians are clear.
The rooftops of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa (Photo: Antoine Taveneaux, 2009)
The Chinese mainland and Tibet have had close political and cultural relationships since the early 7th century. At that time (in 641) Songtsen Gampo, the first king of a uniform Tibetan state, married the Chinese princess Wencheng (also: Wen Tcheng). At the time of the Tang dynasty, Buddhism was the state religion in China and China was the richest and most developed country in the world. The bride brought a magnificent statue of Buddha Shakyamuni with her to Lhasa, which to this day is kept "in the most holy of all temples, the Jokhang." "The religious gift shows that the first Buddhist influences came to Tibet not from India, but rather from China."5 Incidentally, the renowned western Tibetologist Tucci6 did not believe in Songtsen Gampo's marriage to a Nepalese princess, as is assumed by many historians.7 Be that as it may, the Chinese princess has enjoyed ever since a disparately higher degree of popularity in Tibet. The fact that Songtsen Gampo may also have had other wives makes little difference.
For what was even more important than the Buddhism that the princess had in her luggage at the time were the many Chinese craftsmen and artists, architects, teachers, cooks, carpenters, and painters who came with her to Tibet. According to a few reports, the princess also brought the knowledge and use of butter, tea, barley, and beer, as well as medical and astrological knowledge into her new homeland.8 When another Chinese princess, Tsing-tcheng, married a Tibetan king (Khride Tsang, 704-755) in 710, she also brought musicians and dancers, balls of silk and brocade as well as the spinning wheel with her.
Up until then, Tibetans probably only wore animal furs, skins and felt. Now natives were sent to China to learn the art of manufacturing paper and ceramics and other handicrafts.9 Songtsen Gampo encouraged sending the sons of chieftains to Changan (Xi'an), the capital of China at the time,10 for their education and upbringing. During the Tang era, there were no fewer than one hundred and fifty official visits between the two capitals and eight contracts were concluded, while "Tibet was absorbing Chinese culture."11 Even Deshayes admits: "The relationships with China bring with them a refining of the customs for the king's surroundings, which until then were unknown to the Tibetans with their coarse manners. Porcelain replaces pottery, ink and paper are used for the new writing, silk dresses emerge, whereas Bön medicine and astrology are enriched through Chinese knowledge and new irrigation techniques are introduced."12 Uli Franz also writes: "Through princess Wencheng, Chinese customs came into fashion in Lhasa. The Tibetan aristocracy found pleasure in silk and jade and learned how to use chopsticks."13 1,300 years later Père Huc, a French missionary, reported on the Tibetans' admiration for the Chinese princess that was expressed, for example, in a "festival of flowers" in Kumbum Monastery.14 For her part, David-Néel refers to a popular Tibetan epic about the princess that, in terms of its profile and popularity, is only slightly inferior to the "national epic" about King Gesar. It deals with the tests that Lhunpo Gara, the Tibetan emissary, had to pass in order for the Chinese Emperor to hand over his daughter Wencheng, who bears the Tibetan name Pumo Gyatsa (essentially "young Chinese princess"), as a wife for Songtsen Gampo.15 As a consequence: if the Tibet activist Ludwig plays down the role of the Chinese princess, his motives for doing so are clear; the facts, however, speak for themselves.
The strong cultural influences coming from China are also shown in the reports from Europeans, even those who visited the "independent" Tibet, after the 13th Dalai Lama had temporarily driven out representatives of the central state and murdered, detained or drove into exile their Tibetan followers. At the end of the 19th century in Tibet, A. H. Savage Landor describes such a Tibetan lord as "a singular looking person, dressed in a long dress made of green silk, with a Chinese pattern" and with a head covering "as worn by Chinese officials,"16 and Tibetan officers who "wore Chinese hats."17
David-Néel reports that she was invited to a Tibetan New Year festival in 1916 by a high-ranking lama: "We ate in a Chinese style, which is a very high accolade in Tibet."18 Ernst Schäfer writes, "Despite their purely Tibetan character the big feasts that filled the best part of the day", and to which ministers, "notables", and anyone of "rank and name" invited the members of the SS expedition, "were undoubtedly of Chinese origin." "This was not only expressed in the choice of meals, but primarily also in the fact that the best cooks in Lhasa who could mutually be borrowed are sons of the middle kingdom."19 Heinrich Harrer correspondingly reports of a first invitation from "Bönpos," high-ranking Tibetans: "We had a wonderful meal of Chinese noodles."20 He and Aufschnaiter marvelled at "the skill" with which the Tibetan hosts "handled their chopsticks."21 He later reported again from Lhasa that the Tibetans brought them a "splendid Chinese supper"22 or that he often saw there "wonderful Chinese" tea services that were "several hundred years old."23 During festivities he describes tents "draped with silks and brocades"24 and elegant Tibetans wearing "glossy yellow silk robes."25 Many Han Chinese were at that time back in Lhasa and Harrer even finds a good word for them when he notes that they liked to "marry Tibetan woman to whom they make model husbands," unlike the Nepalese.26
Alexandra David-Néel even discovered (Han) Chinese marks in the most holy centre of Lhasa, in the heart of Tibetan architecture, culture and religion, when she states, "For the main it was Chinese painters and art lovers to whom we owe the decorating of the Potala and the Jokhang, the holiest temple."27 In addition, "the upper terrace with its Chinese pavilions and their elegant, sparkling roofs," which are the first thing people notice upon their arrival in Lhasa, dominates the vast Potala palace, the symbol of Lhasa and the whole of Tibet.28
Notes
1 Alt, Tibet wird bald frei sein, In Alt/Ludwig/Meyer, Tibet. Schönheit, Zerstörung, Zukunft, p. 51 2 Klemens Ludwig, Zweitausend Jahre tibetische Geschichte, In: Franz Alt et al.: Tibet, p. 59 3 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 104. See also the comment (1) in Luciano Petech, China and Tibet in the XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishment of the Chinese Protectorate in Tibet, Second, revised edition, Leiden, E.J.Brill, 1972, p. 77 4 Jacques Gernet, Die chinesische Welt: Die Geschichte Chinas von den Anfängen bis zur Jetztzeit, With 40 black and white panels, 16 images in the text and 31 maps and plans, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, First Edition 1998, p. 25 5 Uli Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung für Tibet, Munich, Piper Verlag, 2007 (revised new edition), p. 49 6 Also per Deshayes, p. 49 7 See also Grunfeld, The Making... comment p. 271 8 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 35. See also the "legend of the origin of Lhasa," which states: "No less than the Chinese princess Wen Cheng suggested, which seemed strange at the time, to build the Jokhang in the middle of the lake, which covered the plain of Lhasa." (Helmut Uhlig, Tibet: Ein verbotenes Land öffnet seine Tore, Bergisch Gladbach, 1988, p. 61) 9 Information from Han Suyin, Lhasa, the Open City: A Journey to Tibet, Frogmore, St Albans, Herts, Triad Paperbacks, 1979, p. 24 ff. 10 See also Grunfeld, p. 35 11 Grunfeld, p. 37 12 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 55-56 13 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung, p. 49 14 See also Han Suyin, Lhasa,Open City, p. 25, who refers to M. Huc, Travels in Tartary, Tibet and China, London, 1856 15 David-Néel, A l'ouest barbare de la vaste Chine. In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 762 ff. 16 Arnold Henry Savage Landor, La route de Lhassa: À travers le Tibet interdit (1897), Paris, Libella (Phébus libretto), 2010, p. 51 17 Ibid. p. 91 18 A. David-Néel, Wanderer mit dem Wind: Reisetagebücher in Briefen 1911-1917, Published by Detlef Brennecke, Wiesbaden, Heinrich Albert Verlag in the Erdmann edition, p. 309 19 Ernst Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier: Begegnungen mit Menschen, Mönchen und Magiern in Tibet, Durach, Windpferd Verlagsgesellschaft, 1988, p. 52 20 Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet, p. 49 21 Ibid. p. 49 22 Ibid. p. 115 23 Heinrich Harrer, Sieben Jahre in Tibet... p. 169. These sentences are missing in the English edition. 24 Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet... p. 153 25 Ibid. p. 154 26 Ibid. p. 156. Nothing can be seen here of the Chinese conceit or even master race attitude towards the Tibetans of which the "Free Tibet" scene accuses the Chinese. 27 David-Néel, Mein Weg durch Himmel und Höllen: Das Abenteuer meines Lebens, From the French by Ada Ditzen, With an introduction by Thomas Wartmann, Frankfurt am Main, Fischer Verlag, 8th edition 2012, p. 274 28 Ibid. p. 278. – L. Petech finds that there are few mutual cultural influences in the areas of religion and literature. Yet in the "small things" of life, there was a considerable, almost always unilateral influence on Tibetan culture by the Han Chinese. He states the language (borrowed words), painting, attire of the nobility and the eating culture of the upper class. See also Petech, China and Tibet in the XVIIIth Century, p. 260-263
4 Common history: the Mongolian, Ming, and Manchu emperors
Two Chinese viceroys with a guard of 1,000 soldiers are based in Lhasa and are replaced by other ones every three years. The Emperor of China is acknowledged as the overlord of the country; appointments to the highest offices in the state are made on his order, and all important matters are first reported to the court in Peking. But the country's internal government lies completely in the hands of the natives. In general, the Chinese are limited to the capital and the people of Tibet, excluding those in Lhasa, hardly feel the pressure of a foreign power.
For the federal government and the entire community of states it has been clarified that, under international law, Tibet is part of China.
The close cultural and dynastic relationship in the early days of Tibetan history did not prevent there being constant military disputes between the powerful Tibetan kingdom, founded by Songtsen Gampo, and the China of the Tang. The Tibetans even once succeeded in conquering the former capital of the Tang, Chang'an (modern day Xi'an).
With the Tang dynasty, a first formal contract was concluded as early as the 9th century and called the contract "of uncle and nephew."2 Buddhist monks on both sides negotiated it to end military conflicts. In 832, the text was sculpted into a column and can still be seen in front of the Jokhang in Lhasa.3
The following era is described in Chinese historiography as the time of the "five dynasties and ten states" from which the Song dynasty (960-1279) emerged. Their rulers were so focused on military threats in the south, west, and southwest that they had little concern for Tibet. The relationships were limited to occasional payments of taxes from individual Tibetan tribes to the Chinese capital and defeating uprisings in Tibet and the surroundings.4
When Muslim conquerors invaded India at the start of the 13th century they encountered, particularly in Bengal, supporters of Buddhism whom they forced to convert. The frightened Tibetan elite, who had since turned back to Buddhism, were looking around for powerful allies. At around the same time the Mongolian warriors of Dschingis Khan (1162-1227) were conquering the parts of China that correspond to the modern provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. To avert a Mongolian invasion of their territories and win an ally against Muslim expansion the lamas, looking for protection and an alliance, sent representatives to the Khan.
It eventually came to this when the abbot of the most significant monastery in Tibet at the time visited, together with two of his nephews, the grandson of Dschingis Khan, Godan, in Liangzhou. That abbot from Sakya Monastery, Sakya Pandita alias Kunga Gyaltsen (1182-1251), bowed to the Mongolian Khan by acknowledging his rule over Tibet and agreeing to make regular tribute payments. When powerful aristocrats in Lhasa rejected this deal, Godan sent troops to Tibet in 1251 and then appointed clerics to the most important secular offices. His successors, who were in the meantime sitting on the Chinese dragon throne (Kubilai Khan and his Mongolian successors, are described in China as the Yuan dynasty), and the Tibetan lamas continued the "priest and patron" relationship that connected them. Kubilai Khan gave the Sakya monk Phagpa (Lodo Gyaltsen, 1235 or 1239-1280), a nephew of the aforementioned Sakya Pandita who "arrived in Peking in 1253," the title of "imperial tutor" (dishi) and not only appointed him as ruler of the Tibetan provinces of Ü-Tsang, Kham and Amdo,5 but also gave him "general leadership of all religious communities within the kingdom." A lama called Senge rose to become the "all-powerful favourite of Kubilai Khan." He "got carried away with financial speculations and excessively collecting money and became guilty of lootings and countless murders."6
After the conquest of southern China, in 1277 another Tibetan monk called Yanglianzhenjia, "who, like Senge, achieved fame through his crimes,"7 became the leader of the newly created religion authority in Hangzhou in southern China. Grunfeld writes: "For the Sakya monks the enormous wealth and power showered upon them by the Mongols led to internal dissention, resulting in the murder of a chief lama by his own minister."8
Meanwhile, the Yuan Emperor was organising things in the west of the kingdom from Peking by "uniting the mosaic of religious and secular principalities and introducing a central power" as well as "appointing governors." From 1288, a political council (xuanzheng), appointed by Kubilai, administered religious and secular matters in Tibet.9
For Chinese historians, it is therefore beyond doubt that Tibet belonged to China during the time of the Yuan dynasty. How else would the emperors in Peking have been able to organise the administration there, name governors and collect tributes? How would Tibetan Buddhist lamas otherwise have been able to occupy the highest positions of power throughout China? Anyhow, the secular power of the highest lamas at the time came from the Emperor, i.e. the central government of China.10
Yet some people in the western world have a clever objection to this: the sixteen emperors of the Yuan dynasty were not Han people, not "ethnic Chinese," but rather Mongolians! As such, their kingdom was not China and modern day China cannot refer to it. Through this cheap argumentative conjuror's trick, it is possible simply to erase several centuries of Chinese history.11 What is to stop us from being similarly creative with European history? For example, with English history: after the Battle of Hastings England (i. e. the country of the Angles and Saxons) and the English kingdom no longer existed but instead it was a French-Norman country, a kind of Great Normandy. Consequently, the Hundred Years War was a French civil war and Joan of Orleans, so beloved by Le Pen, was a naive virgin from northern France who went to war not against English invaders but rather against her own people. Or with Spanish history: it wasn't the Spanish who once built and ruled over a world empire but possibly Austria or Switzerland because Philip I of Spain, known as "The Handsome," and the subsequent monarchs from the House of Habsburg were in no way ethnic Castilians. Moreover, what about the German Empire? Were there not at one time members of the House of Luxembourg sitting on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation? Finally: wasn't Catherine the Great German, Hitler Austrian, and Stalin Georgian?
The argument that the Yuan Emperors were no ethnic Chinese but rather Mongolians turns a blind eye, due to ignorance or Eurocentric arrogance, to the significant fact that the Chinese were, and are, one of the oldest and most important cultural nations in the world. In the case of China, in no way did the foreign conquerors' language, writing, technology, and culture prevail, unlike, for example, in the regions conquered by the Romans (Gaul, Iberian Peninsula) or the Spanish colonies in Central America and South America. Rather, the nomads from the steppe, whether the Mongolians or later the Manchu, largely took over the language and writing, science and technology, traditions, and customs i.e. the entire highly developed culture and civilisation of those who had initially been defeated. Thus, an independent author such as Helmut Uhlig, for example, emphasises the "fact" that "for the sake of their imperial office" the "rulers from foreign peoples – primarily Mongolia and Manchu" "not only relinquished their ancestral names, but also their nationality, to meet the requirements for accession to the throne." The holder of the imperial seal "became spiritually Chinese. The land assimilated the powerful ones from its surroundings."12 Moreover, China has defined itself from its early history as a multi-ethnic state and, from a historical perspective, the Han people themselves are a mixed race (just like the Germans or French etc.).
At the time of the Ming dynasty, which replaced the Yuan, the Emperor's relationships with the Tibetan elite and its supremacy remained unchallenged, even though the Chinese reign was more "symbolic,"13 as western historians are happy to emphasise. (Also in the European Middle Ages, the reign of the kings or emperors over the duchies and counties in their countries was generally more "symbolic" and based on the feudal oaths and oaths of allegiance of the powerful local rulers, rather than on direct administrative and military control of the territory by the monarchs).
In 1408, the Ming Emperor Chengzu extended an invitation to Tsongkhapa, the founder of the new Gelugpa sect. The disciple who represented him, Djamyang Tchödje Shakya Yeshe became a favourite of the Emperor.14
"In 1409, Emperor Chengzu included the Tibetan prefects among the public officials in his domain and gave them a seal that confirmed their position."15 The "Sera Monastery was founded as a monastic university in 1419 and maintained close relationships with the Chinese Ming dynasty until the 17th century. Yet the contact between the abbot of Sera and the Emperor of China created tensions within the order and stirred up competition between the monastic universities of Sera and Drepung."16
Regardless of whether the Chinese reign over Tibet under the Ming Emperors was merely "symbolic": for the time of the Chinese Qing dynasty (from the early 18th century), which "brought the country (Tibet) a sense of internal political stability that was rare in its history,"17 the direct and effective rule of China is undisputed. This had been preceded by a time of renewed power struggles and civil wars within Tibet, during which the different sects and noble cliques united with Mongolian tribes to fight for power and privileges.18
In 1720, a Chinese army drove the Dzungar warriors out of Tibet. The Emperor's troops were warmly welcomed by the Tibetans and treated the local populace "with great moderation," as a western missionary reported.19 "On 24th of April 1721, a delegation sent by the Emperor delivered the official recognition to the Dalai Lama and on that occasion handed over the major state seal," which was inscribed "in the three languages of Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan." The office of regent (Desi) was abolished and a council of ministers (Tibetan: bka' shag, Kashag) was created. "The chairman and his deputy were appointed by the Emperor. Tibet was now under the direct sovereignty of the empire."20 The eastern Tibetan province of Kham was integrated into Chinese Sichuan, with the Yangtze River as the new border. An imperial garrison of 3,000 men remained in Lhasa.
When the chairman of the Council of Ministers was murdered by the ministers (Tibetan: bka' blon, Kalön) in 1727 (his deputy escaped) and new unrest broke out, the Emperor again sent an army to restore law and order.21 The powers of the Dalai Lama, who belonged to the conspirators and was therefore initially banned, were limited to the spiritual realm. "To prevent new unrest, the Emperor strengthened the position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister), and the former deputy was appointed to the office. However, he was assigned two ambans, Chinese residents, who reported directly to the Emperor."22
From this point, and for almost two centuries the ambans, a kind of Chinese high commissioner, were "authorised to conduct government business alongside the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama." All Tibetan officials had to present their concerns to them for a ruling. They alone were responsible for "border defence, taxes, state finances" and they alone were entitled to report to the Emperor in Peking. They controlled the local Tibetan administration and had control over the troops stationed in Lhasa.23 The Emperor also ordered the creation of boundary demarcations along the borders with India and Nepal. The amban was tasked with performing an inspection of these borders and the border troops every year.
The amateur historian, Dalai Lama propagandist and professed astrologer Klemens Ludwig deliberately ignores a large part of the powers of these representatives of the Chinese central authority in Tibet and distorts their true role when he calls them "envoys" (the choice of words is anything but coincidental!) and merely concedes: "The ambans soon became a powerful force in Tibet. They controlled the entry of foreigners and influenced the Dalai Lama's discovery. In this way, they ensured that the tenth, eleventh and twelfth Dalai Lamas were chosen by lots."24 That was it. We can compare this account with what a credible historian writes. Grunfeld confirms in full the power of the ambans, also described by Kollmar-Paulenz, who were by no means mere envoys: They "were considered on a par with the Dalai and Panchen Lamas" but actually had more power than they had: they alone were "in absolute charge of financial, diplomatic, and trade matters." The two highest lamas no longer had any direct contact to the imperial court, but rather "all correspondence had to go through the ambans."25
Between 1727, when the office of High Commissioner for Tibet was created, and the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, there were more than 100 ambans in succession, who (co-) ruled on behalf of the Chinese Emperor.
The golden urn lottery to determine the high "incarnations" was neither an initiative of the lamas nor the ambans; the Emperor himself decreed it for the Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhists in 1792. "To avoid Mongolian and Tibetan aristocrats manipulating the reincarnation of major living Buddhas" two golden urns were erected at the time, one in the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa and the other in the "Peking Lama Temple (Yonghe gong)." When determining the reincarnation of a living Buddha (such as the Dalai and Panchen Lamas), the lot with the name of the selected candidate (in each case, there were three candidates who had been suggested beforehand by authorised high lamas) was drawn from the urn. The ambans monitored the process in Tibet. "Furthermore, those who had the right to disclose the location of a reincarnation were forbidden from referring to children who were close family relatives of the deceased, a Mongolian Khan, high-ranking princes, nobles or military supreme commanders. Subsequently, there were repeated attempts to circumvent these unpopular imperial rules, particularly the lottery, but the imperial court did not deviate from them and rebuked all breaches." From the Qing dynasty to the time of the Republic of China, from thirty-nine reincarnation lines from the three schools, Gelugpa, Kagyupa and Nyingmapa, more than seventy living Buddhas were determined by drawing lots from the Golden Urn.26
Subsequently, both the Dalai Lamas and the regents drew their own powers from the Chinese Emperor who, alongside spiritual rule, had transferred political rule over Tibet back to the Dalai Lama on 7th February 1751; the strength of the ambans' position remained the same. David-Néel confirmed what had been the case for more than two centuries: "Where the clergy is concerned, the Dalai Lama had to be acknowledged by the Chinese government to be appointed to his office. On the day of his inauguration he had to bow before a portrait of the Emperor as a symbol of his vassalage. The same was true for the Panchen Lama in Shigatse."27
When the Kashag (a kind of council of ministers in the local Tibetan government) decided, after "the death of the 7th Dalai Lama on 22nd March 1757," to appoint a regent who was to exercise secular rule until the 8th Dalai Lama had been found and reached legal age, he was confirmed by the Emperor and, when he abdicated, he handed over to the young Dalai Lama "secular power with the imperial seal on 21st July 1781." After the successful invasion of the Nepalese Gurkhas in 1788, the Emperor again "divested" the rather incompetent church dignitaries of their "governing powers" and reappointed a regent.28
Around the same time, the imperial officials also brought "some experts" to Lhasa "to build Tibet's first mint."29 The silver coins minted there bore the inscription "Qianlong exchequer" on both sides and in Tibetan and Chinese.
Very little changed in Tibet during the 19th century; its affiliation to China was not questioned or disputed by either side before the last quarter of the century. However, the international environment in southern and eastern Asia was changing: European colonialism and imperialism enjoyed its heyday, if this poetic term can be applied to a somewhat repulsive growth, and expressions such as "gunboat diplomacy" and "opium wars" were added to the historian's vocabulary.
Before turning to this historical issue, allow me to draw a conclusion and some related comments: in view of Tibet's affiliation to China – if not without interruption since the 13th century (Yuan dynasty), as presented in Chinese historiography, at least historically undeniable, factually, and legally, since the early 18th century – we can only wonder at the perspective and historical understanding of some western politicians and authors. Even more so because their countries often played an active and inglorious role in weakening, dividing and exploiting China in the 19th and 20th century. Moreover: anyone in Germany, for example, who questions the historical justification of the Chinese claims to Tibet should perhaps remember that a federal state such as Schleswig-Holstein has only belonged to Germany since 1864 at the earliest, the year of the Prussian-Austrian victory over the Danes; it was not recognised under international law until 1920. Saarland did not become part of the Federal Republic of Germany until 1st January 1957. In France, Jean-Luc Mélanchon, presidential candidate for the Left Front, rightly reminds the "Free Tibet" followers in his country that Tibet has indisputably belonged to China for much longer than Nice, for example, has been part of France.30
The US American senate leaned particularly far out of the window: on 23rd May 1991, it adopted for the first time a declaration in which they called Tibet "an occupied country." If we remember that the imperial Chinese ambans (co-) ruled in Lhasa for more than half a century before the USA even came into existence, and that a large part of the current territory of this USA31 was not annexed until much later, during a long process, and through conquests, war, deception, breach of contract and the genocide of native Americans, the presumptuousness and brazenness (or even ridiculousness) of such a declaration is all too apparent.32
When, in 1950, the People's Republic of China restored also de facto the control over Tibet, which the preceding weak governments had lost for a while, the march of the Chinese troops was not even discussed in the UN. After the Lhasa uprising and flight of the Dalai Lama, the UNO discussed the situation in Tibet in October 1959 but failed to reach any decision even though, at the time, the western powers still refused to give the People's Republic of China its legitimate seat in the United Nations and clung to the fiction of a "national China" on the island of Taiwan.
Ever since, most countries in the world have entered diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and thus acknowledged Chinese sovereignty and China's existing borders.
We really must remember: neither the League of Nations, nor the UN, nor individual countries such as the USA, Great Britain or India ever officially acknowledged Tibet as an independent state. Not even at a time when China was not yet (again) an important subject but rather a largely powerless object in world history.
However, the following realisation, which we shall substantiate in detail further on with statements from contemporary witnesses and historians, is more important than legal considerations: the few decades of a Tibetan de facto "independence" were in no way a golden age of freedom. They were rather an era of imperialist interference, political and social standstill, maladministration, aristocratic and clerical oppression, heightened exploitation and taxation, economic decline, continued obscurantism, blatant injustice, political intrigues, attacks, murders, war and civil war.
"En Chine: Le gâteau des Rois et... des Empereurs" – French political caricature from the late 1890s. The traditional French Epiphany cake stands for China, which is being divided between Queen Victoria (Great Britain), the German Emperor Wilhelm II., Nikolaus II. from Russia, the French Marianne, and Emperor Meiji from Japan. A stereotypically presented official of the Qing dynasty tries to stop them but is powerless. The caricature depicts the imperialist efforts against China at the time. From a supplement in Le Petit Journal from 16th January 1898. (Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Notes
1 From a report from the first British traveller in Tibet to the British Governor General of Bengal, Warren Hastings: George Bogle, Im Land der lebenden Buddhas: Entdeckungsreise in das verschlossene Tibet 1774-1775, With a contribution from Sven Hedin, Published by Wolf-Dieter Grün, Stuttgart, Thienemann, Edition Erdmann, 1984, p. 274-275. No English original available. 2 The "uncle-nephew" principle (khü-bdon) determined for a long time the succession of offices in the Tibetan Gelugpa monasteries. The abbot or high-ranking dignitaries handed down their office to a nephew shortly before their death. See also Deshayes, p. 97 3 See also Grunfeld, p. 36-37 4 See also ibid. p. 37 5 Also Deshayes, p. 105 6 Jacques Gernet, Die chinesische Welt, p. 327; see also Deshayes, p. 105 and Grunfeld, p. 39 7 Gernet, Die chinesische Welt, ibid. 8 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 39, see also our chapter on the "criminal history" of Tibetan Buddhism in Free Tibet? 9 Deshayes, p. 107 10 See also the admission in the book from Blondeau/Buffetrille, which they conceived as a riposte from western pro-Dalai Lama Tibetologists to a Chinese white paper on the issue of Tibet: "Tibet's relationships with the Mongolian rulers of the Yuan dynasty are not limited to the connections between religious masters and secular patrons (chöyön), as the Tibetans sometimes claim." Blondeau/Buffetrille, Le Tibet est-il chinois?, Paris, Albin Michel, 2002, p. 35. – However, this is repeatedly claimed in western pro-Dalai Lama publications, as in Claude Arpi, The Fate of Tibet: When Big Insects Eat Small Insects, New Delhi, Har-Anand Publications, 1999, p. 65: "The Priest-Patron relationship continued to be the main feature of Tibet's external relations with the Manchu and Mongolia during the following centuries, until the fall of the Manchu in 1911." 11 Like in Françoise Robin, Clichés tibétains: Idées reçues sur le Toit du monde, Le Cavalier Bleu, p. 50. She confirms that Tibet was under the "military and political authority" of the Yuan Emperor, but disputes – note the wording – that "the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) saw itself as Chinese." Ms. Robin possibly doesn't know that even (Outer) Mongolia was seen by its larger northern neighbour as "Chinese" until deep into the 20th century. In May 1924, the young Soviet Union acknowledged Outer Mongolia as part of China in a "general convention." 12 Uhlig, Tibet: Ein verbotenes Land... p. 9 13 Per Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet... p. 121 14 See also ibid., with the names I have kept the spellings used by Deshayes. 15 Ibid. 16 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung für Tibet, p. 113 17 Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte Tibets, Munich, Verlag C.H. Beck, 2006, p. 130 18 See also our chronology in A. Ettinger: Free Tibet? 19 Grunfeld: The Making... p. 45 20 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama; accessed on 13.02.2013. – See also the corresponding chapter in Grunfeld: "Tibet as part of China," p. 44. See also the admission from Blondeau/Buffetrille, p. 56: "In 1721, Tibet's fate had been sealed for a long time, as Desideri correctly identifies. From a tributary state outside of the actual Chinese territory it was now defined as an integral part of China." 21 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 45: "to restore peace." – Petech calls the Chinese Tibet military campaign in 1728 "a simple military promenade" (no fighting occurred). (Luciano Petech, China and Tibet in the XVIIIth Century: History of the Establishment of the Chinese Protectorate in Tibet. Second, revised edition. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1972, p. 145) 22 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama; accessed on 13/02/2013 23 Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte... p. 130 and p. 126 24 Klemens Ludwig, In Franz Alt et al., Tibet, p. 66 25 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 46. – Oskar Weggel, who claims to present and discuss "Beijing's arguments" objectively, intentionally chooses the equally imprecise and unclear formulation that the "Manchurian" (!) ambans were "granted rights to vote on countless matters." It is thus easier for him to maintain the claim asserted in the corresponding sub-heading that China has "no 'historically grounded claim'" on Tibet." Academically objective? Rather blatant and crude... (See also: "The political Right and Left in the controversy about the Tibet problem", In Mythos Tibet: Wahrnehmungen, Projektionen, Phantasien, Published by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany Ltd., Bonn, in collaboration with Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther, Cologne, Du Mont, 1997, p. 150 ff.) 26 Information and quotes from: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldene_Urne and http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama, both accessed on 13/02/2013 27 David-Néel, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle, In: Grand Tibet et vaste Chine: Récits et aventures, Librairie Plon, 1994, p. 965 28 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama; accessed on 13/02/2013 29 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 47 – Bogle reported (around 1775): "There are no mints in Tibet. Payments are made in Chinese and Tatar silver, in small bags with gold dust or in the coins of earlier Rajahs from Kathmandu and Patan..." (Bogle, Im Land der lebenden Buddhas, p. 207) 30 Nice and its region did not finally become part of France until 1860 (contract of Turin between Napoleon III. and the King of Sardinia-Piemont, Victor Emanuel II.), as did Savoy (Savoie and Haute Savoie). 31 The regions to the west of Mississippi, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Alaska, not to even mention Hawaii. 32 Under "Tibet," US-American elected representatives understand the "Greater Tibet" claimed by the Dalai Lama that, in part, never belonged to the political Tibet co-(governed) by the Dalai Lamas. See our later comments on this!
The Middle Kingdom lapsed from one weak position into the next, after the first opium war against the British (1839–1842) came the Taiping rebellion and a British-French military expedition (1851–1864) and then the Japanese-Chinese war (1894–1895). Particularly the British Empire from the Indian subcontinent and the former Russian tsardom from the north were interested in Central Asia.
Namely, China was threatened from all sides.
(...)
The region (around the port of Tsingtao) seemed, as Ferdinand von Richthofen recommended to Bismarck in 1882, not just capable of becoming a 'German Hong Kong,' but rather a 'gateway' to China as a whole. The Germans had acquired mining and railway rights in Shantung for this. Such concessions were comparably easy to wrest from the Chinese, weakened by the opium wars and the dispute with Japan and threatened from all sides. England, France and Russia managed at the same time, and in a similar way, to establish 'bridgeheads' in the 'Middle Kingdom,' which was also compelled by the USA to offer an 'open door' for all kinds of industrial and capital investments.
For a correct and, primarily, deeper understanding of Chinese positions, Chinese politics, and Chinese relationships a minimum of historical recollection is indispensable. Here also our media barely meet their actual mandate of informing and educating. Anyhow, there is hardly any demand for historical knowledge in our fast-moving society, even in relation to European history and, in European schools, history has long been one of the most unpopular and "uncool" subjects. In contrast to many modern Europeans, let alone Americans, the Chinese are a nation who are very aware of their history. Yet China's attitude (in no way only that of its Communist leadership) on the Tibet issue has a great deal to do with the more recent (and older) history of the country. We therefore cannot avoid expanding our perspectives and, for a short period, turning our attention away from regional, Tibetan events and towards the larger Chinese and global political connections.
In her introduction to the "historical photo reportage" of China 1890-1938, Han Suyin describes the time around the transition from the 19th to the 20th century with such impressive and suitable words that I would like to quote her here: "1900. Europe is at the height of its imperial power and rules, as an absolute monarch, over the coloured world of Africa and Asia. European natural scientists write books in which they assert that the skull capacity in white people is larger than in Asians or black people. The superiority at all levels is God's will. (...) Vast riches from lootings in the subservient countries fill the banks in England and France. The 50-year Crown Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated with great pomp. Maharajahs adorned with jewellery and oriental kings marched in the solemn procession like poor slaves. But in 1900 it comes to the 'Boxer Rebellion' in China, something happens with the rule of the white man. However, nobody understands it. The word 'rebellion' alone discloses the conquerors' attitude: it is lese majesty – a crime – if the lower races rebel against the better races, chosen by God. In this year, China fell into deep despair, decay, and bankruptcy. It was in a sorry state, a dying giant, decomposition had begun... since 1840, when Great Britain started a war against China to enforce opium as payment for silk and tea. China was plundered, robbed and at war with all of the European powers, who prised out of it concessions, privileges, compensation...Foreign garrisons in its towns, enclaves on Chinese soil that was no longer Chinese, gunboats on its rivers... and Europa's greed at the end of the 19th century knew no limits."3
Does Han Suyin's depiction unilaterally reflect the Chinese view of things? Western historians, even those with particularly conservative opinions, do not view recent European-Chinese history any differently: "During the entire 19th century, China was economically exploited by the European powers – primarily by Russia, Great Britain and France. Wilhelm II wanted the German Empire also to have its share and arranged for Kiautschou to be occupied as a naval base in 1898. Great Britain and Russia used this opportunity also to take some of China's ports. Chinese secret societies formed a riposte. In 1900, there was bloody unrest in Peking and a few northern Chinese provinces, which could only be put down through the brutal deployment of European and American troops." The emphasis lies in "brutal", as the "colonial war" against the "boxers" was excessively cruel, and the author speaks expressly about the "atrocities committed by German troops."4
The Bertelsmann chronicle of the 20th century5 recorded that, before the Boxer Rebellion "China" was "for many years a type of clearance region for the colonial powers" and lists the following Chinese "cessions of territory": "In 1884, Annam becomes a French protectorate. In 1887, China recognises the independence of the Portuguese port of Macau. In 1895, Formosa becomes Japanese. In 1895, Korea becomes 'independent' under Japanese influence. In 1898, Kiautschou is leased to the German Empire. In 1898, Port Arthur is leased to Russia. In 1898, the New Territories (Hong Kong) are leased to Great Britain. In 1898, Kwangschouwan becomes French. In 1899, the USA proclaims the 'open door policy,' a form of economic imperialism."6 The British invasion of Tibet in 1903 and the "independence" organised and controlled from British India around one decade later are seen by the Chinese as a continuation of this sequence, as part of an aggressive policy of carving up China by foreign colonial powers. A contemporary witness such as Alexandra David-Néel saw it in the same way. But let's stay for a while with the "Boxer Campaign" to create a clearer image of this policy.
On 15th August 1900, Peking was occupied by international "armies from colonial powers" (troops from Japan, Russia, Great Britain, USA, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy). The German Emperor Wilhelm II called them the "united troops of the civilised world." Some people still use such formulations today, whereby the very flexible term "free" is sometimes used instead of "civilised." The troops did in fact behave in an exceptionally "civilised" manner. For example, they "occupied" the imperial palace, "the Forbidden City, whereby irrecoverable works of art were destroyed. In the following weeks, the country shuddered under the atrocities committed by foreign soldiers."7 As the Germans stood out among everyone as being particularly "civilised" and "Christian," the Prussian field marshal Alfred Graf von Waldersee, who arrived in Tientsin in September, was awarded supreme command during the following "punitive expeditions."
The German atrocities were committed based on directives from above. On 27th July 1900 in Bremerhaven, Wilhelm II addressed his infamous "Hun speech" to German soldiers leaving for China: "Should you encounter the enemy, he will be beaten, no quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. Anyone who falls into your hands shall be forfeited. Just as the Huns thousands of years ago under their King Etzel established their reputation, one that even today makes them seem mighty, may the name Germany become known in China in such a way that no Chinese will ever again dare even to look askew at a German."8 The same Wilhelm also coined the silly racist word of the "yellow danger"....
The appeal reflected the spirit of the time. The Frankfurter General Anzeiger was critical of the Emperor's speech, yet not because it was bloodthirsty and criminal, but rather because such things were indeed being done (the slaughter of the injured and the imprisoned), but should not be discussed in public. The Germans should follow the Russian example. They would have "shattered all injured Chinese with the piston." "Nobody had taken any prisoners" yet they did not declare it loudly. However, there was the "danger of false humanity" among the German troops (in contrast to the Russians?). The Emperor's warlike words were therefore ultimately justified: "No quarter will be given! This word is a great comfort for everyone whose relatives are going into battle." They do not have to be afraid that injured Chinese (conniving as they are?) could still "pull out a hidden dagger."9
The Berliner Lokal Anzeiger reported on a further speech from the Emperor (on 15th August) where he called upon his soldiers: "Do not rest until the opponent, trampled to the ground, falls to their knees and begs for mercy!" and demanded an "exemplary punishment of the insurgents."10
Letters from German soldiers in China, published in the social democratic Vorwärts and named the "Hun letters" by the newspaper, testify to the fact that, during the punitive expeditions against the Boxers, the "killing and torture of prisoners" was somewhat "commonplace." August Bebel commented: "Atrocities took place in this war unlike those committed by the Huns, the Vandals, Genghis Khan and Tamerlan, even by Tilly who was so slandered by the Protestants."11
In a joint note to the imperial government that had fled to central Chinese Sian (Xi'an), the victorious powers demanded in January 1901, as an "expression of the humiliation of China", "reparations" (with interest China should pay almost 3 billion Marks), the "strictest punishment" for all people named "by the foreign powers" and the "death penalty for membership in a 'xenophobic society,'" a ban on the import of weapons, the right of major powers to their own military protection of their embassy quarter and a "ban on Chinese living there," and the deployment of a Chinese "atonement mission" to Berlin. The "peace dictate" signed in September 1901 also foresaw the demolition of Chinese fortresses and the extension and fortification of the Peking embassy quarter. In doing so, the German Empire and Great Britain increased their property by tenfold and triple respectively.12
In 1903, the British brought the western style civilisation described to Tibet. "16/11/ London. The government in Great Britain confirmed that, on behalf of the British Viceroy of India, George Nathaniel Curzon, a military expedition has been sent towards Tibet. The around 10,000 men-strong unit under J. Macdonald should accompany a delegation of 200 members under Francis Younghusband on their march across the Himalayas." In Lhasa (while threatening the local government at gunpoint!) they were to negotiate a "trade agreement and border issues" (this meant cession of territory) "between Sikkim that was under British protectorate and Tibet," as up to that point the Dalai Lama had rejected "all offers of talks with the British." "With respect to the relationships with China and its suzerainty over Tibet" and possible "conflicts of interest with Russia," which desired not only in Manchuria further pieces of the Chinese cake, the "London government had drawn out the start of the action for as long as possible." The "military expedition" should, after the hibernation in the border region, "advance in 1904 to Lhasa."13
The German governor Oskar Truppel (on the right) at Qingdao (Tsingtao) railway station, 1910. On the left is his daughter Marie. With Duke and Duchess Yansheng (i.e. Kong Lingyi and his wife). (Federal archive, image 146-1980-111-72 / CC-BY-SA)
Notes
1 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama, accessed on 13/02/2013 2 Dirk van Laak, Über alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Munich, Verlag C. H. Beck, 2005, p. 52 and p. 79 3 Han Suyin: China 1890-1938. Eine historische Foto-Reportage, published by E. Baschet. Kehl am Rhein: Swan Verlag. p. 7 4 Contribution from Prof. Dr. Paul Kluke in: Unser Jahrhundert im Bild. Introduction: Prof. Dr. Golo Mann. Gütersloh, C. Bertelsmann Verlag 1964, p. 131 5 Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts. Gütersloh/Munich: Wissen Media Verlag (formerly Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag), 2002, Bd. I, p. 23 6 Ibid., p. 22 7 Ibid., tome I, January 1902, p. 13 8 Cited from: Dirk van Laak, Über alles in der Welt, p. 79; see also: Chronik des 20. Jh., tome I, July 1900, p. 124 9 Documented in: Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts, tome I, July 1900, p. 124 10 Ibid., August 1900, p. 142 11 See also: Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts, tome I, October 1900, p. 179 12 Information and quotes from: Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts, tome I, January 1901, p. 18 and September 1901, p. 150 13 Information and quotes from: Chronik des 20. Jahrhunderts, tome I, November 1903, p. 193
6 Tibetan "independence" as a project of the British Empire
The weakening of central power also had an effect on Tibet (...) and the Chinese had to watch representatives of foreign powers, primarily the British, extending their influence to Tibet.
But London will soon again loudly and clearly stress that the Himalayas belong to its zone of influence.
The patriots of the young Republic are rightly concerned about the renewal of negotiations with the British government, as it is demanding a straightening of the Tibetan borders on the sides of the west Chinese provinces of Kangsu and Sichuan (i. e. in Amdo and Kham) and also calling for the "independence" of Tibet – a diplomatic euphemism, which means that this country shall become an appendage to India, under British control.
Since the mid-18th century, Great Britain, through the East Indian Company, had risen from Bengal to become the dominator of India, which then became the core of the British world empire. In 1774, W. Hastings became the first Governor General of Bengal. At that time, the British made the first advances towards establishing trade relationships with Tibet and opening trade channels to China via the region. This was rejected by the Chinese Emperor. But Hastings refused to give up so quickly and tried to bypass the Imperial Chinese government by contacting Tibetan dignitaries directly. In 1783, two of his representatives (Captain Samuel Turner and Thomas Saunders) travelled to Shigatse to the new Panchen Lama incarnation, but without success: Turner reported on the power of the high-ranking Chinese officials, who cause a sense of submissive timidity and caution in the behaviour of the Tibetans.4
Nepal had already become an "informal British protectorate"5 in 1815-16. Particularly in the late 1830s and 1840s, the British continued to expand in all directions: Darjeeling was annexed in 1835, Kaschmir and Ladakh in 1846. This was followed by wars in Afghanistan and in Punjab (1849 annexation of the Sikh kingdom) and the annexation of southern Burma. In 1858, the East Indian Company was liquidated and the Indian territories were placed under the direct control of the British crown; the Governor General became a viceroy. Sikkim became a British protectorate in 1861 and Bhutan, whose population is mainly composed of ethnic Tibetans, in 1865.
Tibet, the most western part of the Chinese empire at the time, moved increasingly towards the centre of the "Great Game." This was the name for the rivalry at that time between the British Empire, which was constantly moving its borders from the Indian subcontinent further towards the north and east, and the tsardom that was expanding towards central Asia. The British tried to establish themselves in Tibet and to open trading routes and thus better access to China's markets from there. The weakened empire saw itself as being "attacked from two sides."6
In 1886, the British Macaulay mission marched from Sikkim towards Tibet. When the Chinese Emperor (as the ruler of Tibet), in order to appease the British, recognised the neighbouring Sikkim as a British protectorate (up until then it had been a vassal state of China), this awakened, as U. Franz writes, "the (British) Empire's hunger for power."7 Franz refers to the negotiations between Great Britain and China about the border to Sikkim, which started in 1888 in Gnatong. The negotiations were led by Amban Sheng Dei, who signed the final contract for the Tibetan-Chinese side. In the contract, Great Britain expressly recognised a Chinese "suzerainty" over Tibet; yet in the supplementary agreement from Darjeeling (5th December 1893) the British side asserted its right to an outpost in Yatung.8
In 1902 there were then (unfounded) rumours in London about a secret alliance between the local Tibetan government and Russia, which was "diametrically opposed to British interests in central Asia." Now the British government gave the green light for the military invasion of Tibet that Viceroy Lord Curzon had long demanded. Thereupon, from 1903-1904 one thousand or as per another source 3,000, British soldiers armed with machine guns and four howitzers invaded Tibet, accompanied by 10,000 carriers, 7,000 mules and 4,000 yaks. During the campaign, they killed around 2,700 Tibetans before withdrawing from Lhasa.9 Yet beforehand, on 7th September 1904, Colonel Francis Younghusband exacted from Tibetan representatives – the Dalai Lama had fled – the signature of an agreement that confirmed British control over Sikkim and obligated Tibet itself to enter trade relationships with the British. Henceforth, it would only be possible to enter relationships with foreign powers with British approval. Furthermore, Tibet undertook to make reparation payments to Great Britain: the victim should pay, as per genuine gangster logic, the costs that the perpetrator incurred while committing its crime. Ultimately it was the imperial government who paid the "indemnity" that Tibet was to pay under the "Lhasa Convention;" it was not until then that the British troops left Chumbi-Tal (i.e. the Yatung region), which they had occupied as a dead pledge.10
The agreement exacted at gunpoint was to turn Tibet into a British protectorate at China's expense. China and Russia both reacted with such outrage that London tried to "retrospectively limit the damages"11 and back-pedalled somewhat by at least conceding that, in relation to Tibet, China did not fall under the term of a "foreign power." However, Tibet belonged henceforth to the "sphere of influence of Great Britain."12 The Younghusband campaign "established a constant British presence in Tibet: British civil servants were stationed in so-called 'trade agencies' in the central Tibetan city of Gyantse, in Yatung in southern Tibet, and in Lhasa itself from 1936"; furthermore, also in Gartok in western Tibet. "Although they were described as 'trade agents,' the role of these imperial civil servants was more like the role of the residents in the Indian princedoms": they were to gather information (i.e. act as spies) and incite the "local authorities to pursue a policy" that "served British interests." They were all "under the direct authority of the political officer in Sikkim."13 This position was held from 1908 to 1921 by a certain Sir Charles Bell.
In 1906, the British then signed a further agreement with China because they "understood (...) that they had to consider Imperial China in their courting of Tibet."14 In this agreement, the British and Russian government acknowledged the "suzerainty" of China over Tibet. Of course, they did not just abandon the goals pursued up to that point; they now just followed them with greater wiliness and perfidiousness: "In the next seven years the British repeatedly tried to incite the Tibetan nobility against the Chinese suzerainty."15 Sir Henry McMahon, the British mediator in the negotiations with the Republic of China in 1914 that took place in Indian Simla, "worked (...) diligently behind the back of the Chinese on the British-Tibetan rapprochement," as Uli Franz carefully and not quite accurately put it.16 He compares the Empire with a snubbed "debauchee" who prowled around the cool beauty of Tibet (who was already married!) with an increasing sense of "intrusiveness and obsession."17
The British thus managed to conclude two separate agreements with Tibetan representatives "in which the British were granted extensive commercial authority and the Indian-Tibetan border to the east of Bhutan was redefined. Arunachal Pradesh, which today belongs to India, fell to the British colonial empire. The new border, named the "McMahon line" after the British representative and taken over by post-colonial India without any major reservations, is still disputed by China today."18
While the British Empire thus constantly made new approaches into Tibet, China sunk increasingly further into the chaos of civil war, revolution, and foreign invasion. In this extremely weak situation China was facing (disenfranchised by foreign powers, degraded to a half-colony, broken into territories controlled by warlords and plunged into war by the Japanese aggression), the separatist court party of the 13th Dalai Lama (or as per the Chinese interpretation, the British colonialists acting in the background) removed Tibet (the areas controlled by the Lhasa government) from Chinese sovereignty for a few decades. Using force, and therefore only de facto, never de jure. The Panchen Lama, along with the Dalai Lama the highest religious authority of Tibetan Buddhism, maintained a "pro-Chinese stance;"19 his followers did not take part in the putsch that the Dalai Lama organised from British India, and later (1923) he even escaped via Mongolia to China.20 He subsequently died in Chinese exile in 1937.
The Governor General and Viceroy of India, George Curzon, with his wife Mary Curzon in Delhi on 29th December 1902
As we can see, the Chinese viewpoint stayed the same for centuries and amidst all the political turmoil and regime change. Not only the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party, but already the Republic of China and the emperors saw Tibet as part of the Chinese multi-ethnic state. In 1911, the Chinese government at the time declared the Tibetans citizens of the new Chinese Republic. The president asserted in a proclamation in 1912: "As the five nations are now united in a democratic union, the regions inside the borders of Mongolia, Tibet and Turkestan shall all become part of the Republic of China, and the people living in these regions shall all be equal citizens of the Republic of China."21
Admittedly: during the Guomintang era, the "democratic union" primarily existed on paper and the ideas of Sun Yat-sen were not implemented. The initially proclaimed equality as citizens of the Chinese republic did not prevent the fact that, in addition to the general oppression in "semi-feudal" and "semi-colonial"22 China, the "national minorities" were also affected by "Great Han chauvinism." Yet precisely the Communist Party of China, that is often pilloried in the west, particularly due to its policy in Tibet, always countered such tendencies.
Notes
1 Franz Alt et al., p. 67 2 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 230 3 Alexandra David-Néel, Annexes, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine. Récits et aventures, Librairie Plon, 1994, p. 1116 4 See also Grunfeld, p. 49 5 Grunfeld, p. 50 6 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung für Tibet, p. 94 7 Ibid. 8 Information from Deshayes, p. 223 9 See also Franz, p. 94-95, Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte Tibets, p. 139 10 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 47 and comment 11 Kollmar-Paulenz, p. 140 12 Alex McKay, „Wahrheit“, Wahrnehmung und Politik: Die britische Konstruktion eines Bildes von Tibet, In: Mythos Tibet, p. 68-69 13 All previous quotes from Alex C. McKay, p. 69 14 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 96 15 Ibid., p. 96 16 Ibid., p. 98 – Franz' wording evokes the false impression that two partners had got "closer together" on an equal par. 17 Ibid., p. 94 18 Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte Tibets, p. 147-148 19 Ibid. p. 148 20 See below for details of the conflict between the Panchen Lama and the Lhasa government. 21 Cited from Kollmar-Paulenz, p. 147 22 This is the terminology of the Chinese Communists.
7 The 13th Dalai Lama, tyrant of Lhasa
Through his devotion, the people of Tibet had begun to enjoy a long era of peace and prosperity.
Often, when I look at our differences in nature, I think that it is not possible that I am his reincarnation.
The twelfth Dalai Lama, Trinle Gyatso, died in 1875, at the age of 19 and just two years after his appointment,2 "under mysterious circumstances."3 During the next twenty years it was again a regent who stood at the head of Tibetan administration. When the young Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, decided in 1895 to seize the reins of power in Lhasa, he immediately displayed an irrepressible personal hunger for power (Deshayes euphemistically calls this a "character strength") by sending the lamas in the great monasteries a rather brutal message: "If you act negligently in future, your names will be destroyed."4
A conspiracy that was probably only possible in Tibet soon gave him the opportunity to get his most powerful rival, the regent who had exercised power up until then, out of his way once and for all. To understand the connections properly we must know that, over its history, Tibet was ruled by a Dalai Lama only as an exception. Apart from the third one, who was actually the first, the "great fifth one" and the thirteenth one, most of the Dalai Lamas died while still children or, as in the case of the sixth one, turned out to be unworthy and completely disinterested in political matters. Power was therefore mostly in the hands of a regent.5 They were themselves high-ranking lamas and "incarnations," which in no way means that they voluntarily handed over power, not even to a Dalai Lama, if he turned out to be weak due to his tender age or personality.
The regent at the time was, if we are to believe the Wikipedia article on the keyword "Dalai Lama," "because of his loyalty to the Emperor eventually the most important support for imperial power in Tibet."6 The palace intrigue, which enabled the 13th Dalai Lama to dispense (physically!) with the regent, is known as the "ensorceled boots" affair. The regent's brother had given Sogya Lama, a teacher of the Dalai Lama, a pair of boots as a gift. He apparently got a nosebleed each time he wore them.7 The Dalai Lama, who himself did not feel completely well, asked the Oracle of Netchung about this, who told him that people wanted to use evil magic to get rid of him.8 A thorough investigation of the incriminated boots brought to light, so it is claimed, a "black mantra" or Bön pentacle,9 which was deemed to confirm the theory of an attack in the form of black magic. The Dalai Lama immediately ordered that the regent be imprisoned, along with his family (!) and a few other lamas, and the comedy ended as expected: tragically and brutally. Short work was made of the ex-regent Demo, who was drowned in prison by immersing his head in a large copper bath filled with water. His brother, Norbu Tsering, and Nyagtrü Lama, who was held responsible for the "black mantra," also died in prison or were killed there. However, Sogya Lama, who had played a special role in "discovering" the "murder plot" and eliminating the ex-regent, was richly rewarded: he rose to become the "favourite" of the 13th Dalai Lama and was "given" many Demo's valuables.10
Yet there was still one Tibetan characteristic: it was forbidden to acknowledge a tulku of the deceased and a rebirth was thus prevented. However, the tulku ban, as Deshayes notes, was lifted a few years later when the "reincarnation" of the regent (ironically!) was "discovered" in the Dalai Lama's family.11
Deshayes draws the following conclusion: "By definitively eliminating the regent Demo and his family and silencing the groups supporting him, the thirteenth Dalai Lama nipped every such weak movement to seize power in the bud."12 This refers to movements from others. He himself continued to extend his power, by dismissing the former treasurer Rampa, who had been appointed by the amban, from the Kashag (the Council of Ministers of the local government).
However, the power of the shortly tyrannical "thirteenth" ruler was threatened from another side: the British Empire had since expanded to the Tibetan border and used all means, also military ones, to spread itself onto the "roof of the world." Faced with the troops of the Younghusband campaign, the 13th Dalai Lama ultimately fled to China. He did not return to Lhasa until five years later, at the end of 1909.
During his absence, some reforms had been initiated in Tibet. The local government was to be secularised and modernised upon the amban's initiative. There were also plans to train soldiers for a larger army and to build roads and telegraph lines. Consideration was also given to exploiting raw material sources. In 1907, a Chinese school opened its doors in Lhasa, and in 1908 a military academy.13 For his part, the Emperor sent troops who marched from Sichuan to Tibet and were to be positioned at the borders there to prevent the British from making further advances.
The Dalai Lama clearly viewed all this as a threat to his power and thus performed a 180-degree turnaround. He, who had fled to China to escape from the British troops, sent a message to the British on his return. In this letter, he accused the responsible individuals in the imperial government in Lhasa, particularly the amban Lien Yu, of scheming against him and openly asked "the powers," namely Great Britain and the other colonial powers, to "intervene" and prevent China from sending troops to Lhasa.14 Goldstein, the Tibet historian, sees this as the start of the 13th Dalai Lama's "strategy" to use Great Britain and British India as supporters against the imperial government.15
Shortly after returning to Lhasa, he had a final argument with the amban Lien Yu. The background: in Peking, he was suspected (clearly not without good reason) of establishing treasonous contact with the Russian Tsarist empire and the British. The conflict between the amban and the Dalai Lama intensified and resulted in an uprising in the monasteries in Ganden, Sera and Drepung and, consequently, the arrival in Lhasa of imperial troops. On 12th February 1910, the Dalai Lama fled again, this time to British India. The Panchen Lama, earthly ruler in Shigatse and on a par with the Dalai Lama from a religious perspective, if not superior, declined to follow him despite being asked in writing to do so. Instead, he accepted an invitation from the amban to go to Lhasa, where he often participated in religious ceremonies and receptions together with him and the commander of the Chinese garrison.16
An imperial decree from 25th February 1910 accused the absconded Dalai Lama of "falsehood and volatile obedience" and deposed him as the ruler of Tibet. However, the British welcomed him warmly and he became an important pawn for them in the battle for influence in Tibet. During his three-year stay in Darjeeling/India, he came to value the "efficiency of the British colonial administration."17 Above all, he built "a close friendship"18 with Sir Charles Bell, the political representative of the British-Indian government in Sikkim who was responsible for the "relationships" with the British protectorates of Sikkim and Bhutan and also Tibet.19 Alex C. McKay said about this: "Although the general British opinion in both Whitehall and India at the time was that the Dalai Lama was a personality without any significant secular importance, Charles Bell realised the opportunity. He intentionally befriended the Dalai Lama and clearly succeeded in winning his trust."20
As we know, Great Britain had, for a long time and for reasons of power and colonial policy, been interested "in an as far-reaching as possible Tibetan independence" from China.21 An exceptional opportunity for implementing the British objectives presented itself: after the Manchu dynasty in Peking was overthrown in October 1911, the revolution also spread to the garrison in Lhasa at the start of 1912. Insurgent soldiers stormed and ransacked the amban's residence; the amban himself was captured. On 7th March, the Chinese Republic was also proclaimed in Lhasa.22
Meanwhile, in British India the Dalai Lama had designated a secret "war ministry" and initiated an armed rebellion against the Chinese,23 who primarily depended on the armed monks of Sera and Ganden for support. In April 1912, the Dalai Lama's troops were victorious. Jordan, the British ambassador in Peking, had ensured that no Chinese reinforcement was sent to Lhasa with the threat of London otherwise not recognising the new Chinese Republic.24 Around three thousand Chinese soldiers surrendered. They were permitted to leave Tibet and head towards India. In January 1913, the Dalai Lama came back to the city of Lhasa that, for the first time since the early 18th century, had no representatives of the Chinese central government and no Chinese garrison.25 Three weeks after his return he issued a proclamation, which today is seen by the Tibetan exiles and supporters of the 14th Dalai Lama as the "Tibetan declaration of independence."26 Yet its significance and validity in terms of international law is very questionable. As the Emperor had stripped the 13th Dalai Lama of all his offices and titles, he was viewed by the Chinese side as more of a private person, the leader of a putsch against the legal rule. Furthermore, he could not speak for all of Tibet. Apart from the fact that the 90% serfs were never asked and had no voice in old Tibet: in Shigatse the followers and subjects of the Panchen Lama27 were not involved in driving out the Han Chinese. A number of noble Tibetan dignitaries in Lhasa itself remained loyal to China and either disappeared behind bars28 or were immediately killed. Such as Tsarong Shape, who was murdered along with his son at the request of the Dalai Lama, while his female relatives were forced to marry a minion of the 13th called Namgang who, at the same time, assumed the noble name Tsarong and the estate of the murdered.29 Many monks from the Drepung monastery, particularly those from Loseling, refused to participate in the battle against the Chinese. The monks from Tengyeling had even given permission for Chinese troops to retreat into their monastery in Lhasa. This resulted in a long siege by followers of the Dalai Lama30 and later, as a punishment and out of revenge, in the destruction of the monastery and the exile of some of its lamas. The SS man Ernst Schäfer visited the "ruins of the formerly so well-known Tengyeling monastery" in 1938/1939. They were located in the "western periphery" of Lhasa, "on a part of wasteland covered with sputum and stinking horse carcasses, where beggars and mangy dogs encamped." He recalled that "the abbot of the monastery made a deal with the Chinese during the Tibetan war of liberation, whereby the historic building was razed to the ground in 1912 upon the order of the Dalai Lama."31
Relations between the "court party" and Chökyi Nyima, the ninth Panchen Lama, remained tense in the following years and deteriorated further because the Dalai Lama repeatedly demanded new taxes, duties, and compulsory labour to build up his army that was equipped by the British. In 1912, he initially demanded from the Panchen Lama reimbursement of one quarter of the costs from both the war with the British from 1888 and 1904 and his war against the Chinese. In 1917, he also demanded new duties and compulsory labour from the serfs of the Tashilhunpo monastery in the Gyantse district and, in doing so, violated secularised rights. In 1923, he then extended this unlawful demand to all monastery serfs throughout Tang. The Dalai Lama's newly created Revenue Investigation Office had already demanded from the Panchen Lama in 1922 an additional annual tax of 10,000 silver coins and 30,000 ke grain. At the same time, the "court party" put a certain amount of pressure on the ruler of Shigatse, aimed at forcing him to comply with their demands. The British trade representative in Gyantse, D. MacDonald, reported the threat from Lhasa that "the officials of the Tashilhunpo government who are undergoing imprisonment at the Potala Palace will not be released and others will also be imprisoned" if the Panchen Lama did not meet the demands.
After many futile protests and an initial unsuccessful escape attempt, the Panchen Lama finally fled secretly via Mongolia to the Chinese mainland on 26th December 1923. He managed to elude the troops who were pursuing him under the command of Lungshar and Tshögaw. On the streets of Lhasa, the people sang two satirical songs in celebration of the Panchen Lama's successful escape: "The Panchen, saying he is a vulture / has gone in great leaps and bounds. / Tshögaw, saying he is a hunting hound, / has returned sniffling on the ground." And: "Our Lama is a God / (our) Lama's horse is a bird / Having put a golden saddle on the bird / he has flown off into the sky."32
There is a valuable, because unpolitical and Tibet-friendly, contemporary witness of events at that time: the French writer and Asia explorer Alexandra David-Néel, who lived for many decades in Asia and was the first "white" woman in the 1920s to reach Lhasa, which at the time was forbidden to foreigners (apart from the British).33
In a letter from 15th April 1912, she reported on a meeting with the thirteenth Dalai Lama whom she called, with more satirical irony than respect, the "Pope of Lhasa," "His yellow Holiness,"34 "Pontifex" and "Big Manitou."35 She addressed him out of respect as the "head of 'northern Buddhism,'" in response to which he (obliged to be modest?!) raised no objections, even though he was "naturally only the ruler of the Lamaist church"36 (the Gelugpa sect), as she emphasises. He even took it one step further by generally referring to himself as "head of the Buddhists."37 David-Néel commented: "I gather from his statements that he hardly knows southern school Buddhism."38
She compares him to one of the courtiers in his audience and finds that he is "naturally no idiot but, based on our standards, he is no intellectual; the beanpole chamberlain or minister, who constantly chats away, seems to be more mentally alert."39
She describes the "living Buddha" as being neither very well-educated nor having a particularly lively mind. Above all, he was not a gentle and modest monk and certainly not a saint. The church dignitary she describes seems to be more of an unscrupulous and brutal power seeker, lacking any form of compassion, which was evident from his first political steps in Lhasa. In one of her letters dated 25th June, she characterises him as follows: "His portraits convey a completely inaccurate impression of his hard, rigid, authoritarian facial expressions. He is described as cruel and he really looks like that. (...) To judge by the way in which he handles his mount in this mountain region, he seems often to ruin horses by bad riding."40
Thubten Gyatso, according to the French Buddhist's account, even willingly granted her a second audience and promised her to answer in writing any further questions about the Lamaist doctrine: "Please ask for any explanations you would like; Mr. Bell will forward your queries to me in Tibet and I will give him an answer for everything." According to David-Néel, the representative of the British Empire clearly held the monopoly of a direct connection to the Dalai Lama. She comments on the offer that she talks about with a very restrained "nice of him" and then continues: "Despite this, I do not like this man, he is at most only a brother in the most general sense of humanity. I do not value the popes and disapprove of the type of Buddhist Catholicism of which he is the leader. Everything about him is contrived; he knows neither cordiality nor friendliness."41
On 21st July 1912, she wrote in one of her letters from Gangtok (Sikkim): "The most important topic of conversation here is still the happenings in Tibet. It seems as though the lama government wanted to cut off the nose of all the women who had married Chinese men in the last two years."42 The Chinese would therefore certainly want revenge. On 27th July 1912, she returned to the issue, this time by addressing the political background to the dramatic events: we can be "certain that in all these disputes" in China "the so-called 'powers' have a finger in the pie. England is currently cashing in all of Tibet, secretly and quietly. It set up a telegraphic connection with Gyangtse and kept soldiers, military telegraph clerks and so-called trade representatives, who were actually authorised political representatives. The defeat of the Chinese in Tibet served the English plan."43
A few years later, she wrote about the Panchen Lama and his political attitude, stating that he was "an educated, enlightened and liberally minded man." However, it was "possible that he could not bear a certain nation and that he found the dependence under which the British government kept his country to be humiliating. But nobody would want to reproach him for his patriotism and even less for the fact that (...) he cannot approve of even the poorest village residents in his kingdom having to pay higher taxes each year, in order to maintain a ridiculous army that ultimately only serves the interests of the people who are taking the country away from the nation."44 Her own stay in Shigatse clearly showed her Tibet's dependence on the British, wrote Thomas Wartmann in the preface to one of her works: in August 1916 she was "expelled from Sikkim." Sir Charles Bell, the British government representative, discovered that, despite a strict ban, she had secretly walked four days from her hermitage to the west Tibetan monastic university near Shigatse.45 Due to her visit there "the residents of a village that was twenty kilometres below" the "hermitage where she lived had to pay a fine of two hundred rupees because they had neglected to notify the British authorities" about her stay.46
Alexandra David-Néel addresses in particular detail the flight of the Panchen Lama to the Chinese mainland, the man "whom the Tibetans revere as the highest incarnation of a highly spiritual power."47 The "very unsettling message" that the Panchen Lama had fled from his residence, the Tashilhunpo monastery, to avoid being captured by soldiers of the Dalai Lama reached her just before her arrival in Lhasa. "How could it have gone so far," she asked herself, "that the powerful spiritual master of Shigatse had to flee? Of course, I knew that he was not well- regarded in the court in Lhasa. His declared sympathy for China and his disapproval of the expenditure on the army had severely annoyed the King of Tibet."48 She described the background to this political drama in the following manner: "Over the years, and because the Dalai Lama and the court party were now completely under English influence, the hatred against the famous Panchen Lama had increasingly grown. He should subject his province to increasingly higher taxes and hand over the money collected to the Lhasa government." Ultimately, the Panchen Lama was "ordered to go to Lhasa," where he had to fear for his life and freedom. Therefore, he "had to save himself by fleeing with a few followers towards the northern wasteland".49 When the message about the Panchen Lama's flight had been confirmed, "three hundred soldiers" under the command of a Tibetan chief or general from Lhasa received the order to bring back using force the illustrious refugee in front of whom "all Tibetans, Mongolians, Manchurians and Lamaist Siberians (...) prostrated themselves out of veneration."50
The contemporary witness considers it quite probable that the capture of the "great lama of Tashi-Lhünpo" had been planned from the outset: "In several cases, the court party seems to have exacted terrible revenge on the people who were still loyal to the Chinese after they had been driven out. I heard about a great lama whom one did not dare to execute publicly due to his rank as a tulku, but who was instead thrown in prison and left to die there from hunger. The high-ranking religious dignitaries and members of his household were tortured by iron nails being driven into their bodies day after day until they were saved by death."51 Alexandra David-Néel continues: "At around the same time a member of high Tibetan nobility, who had supported the Chinese as minister of state, was killed in Potala palace." His son was also murdered, the "widow of the unlucky minister and his daughter and daughter-in-law were all three given in marriage to a favourite of the ruler," who also received the assets of the murdered minister. This was of course Namgang/Tsarong.52
David-Néel writes further, "I know that even now, twelve years after the victorious uprising against China, three high-ranking spiritual dignitaries are being kept imprisoned in Lhasa as state prisoners." They had been "in kangs since their conviction and will have to wear these heavy wooden neck collars until their death if a new revolution does not free them from it." Under these circumstances, we cannot "hold it against the Panchen Lama of the Tashi monastery if he feared the hospitality of his high-ranking Lamaist colleague." Even less so as it was the "talk of the town" in Lhasa that several "noblemen from Tsang province (...) due to this tax collection story lie in prison in the part of the Potala palace, which is actually reserved for 'distinguished guests.'"53
She further reports that the lama Lobdsang, a friend of the Panchen Lama, also had to flee. He succeeded in escaping to India and from there "boarded a ship to China."54
Even the historian Deshayes, an apologist of the lamas and advocate of an "independent" Tibet must admit that the "respect" that the 13th Dalai Lama "commanded at the beginning" from those around him yielded "gradually to fear and intrigue,"55 and he cites the statement from Sir Charles Bell that the autocratic 13th Dalai Lama had become an "absolute dictator."56 Yet we must add, a dictator under British wings, just as later Diem, Thieu, Lon Nol, Somoza, Battista, Duvalier etc. were under US American...
Notes
1 Dalai Lama, My Land and My People, Warner Books, 1997, p. 7; Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness, London, Abacus, 1998, p. 204 2 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 47 3 Throughout the 19th century, the "karma" of the Dalai Lamas was extremely bad: the 9th Dalai Lama Lungtok Gyatso (1805-1815) died aged 10 from smallpox, the 10th, Tsulrim Gyatso (1816-1837), was murdered aged 21 and the 11th, Kedup Gyatso (1838-1855), aged 17. It is also assumed that the 12th was murdered. See also Elisabeth Martens, Histoire du Bouddhisme tibétain: La Compassion des Puissants, Paris, L´Harmattan, 2007 (Recherches Asiatiques), p. 143 4 See Deshayes, p. 224, who refers to Bell 5 See Deshayes, p. 225: "Since the death of the eighth Dalai Lama, at the start of the XIX century, the Dalai Lamas personally only ruled for around three years. The power of the regents was undisputed. " 6 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama, accessed on 13/02/2013 7 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 43 8 See also Deshayes, p. 224 9 Latter from Deshayes; Goldstein talks of a "black mantra." (p. 42) 10 Information and quotes from Goldstein: The Demise... p. 43 11 See also Deshayes, p. 225 and comment 12 Deshayes, p. 225 13 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 47 14 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 51 15 See also ibid., p. 54 16 See also ibid., p. 62-63 17 Kollmar-Paulenz, p. 143 18 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 53 19 Ibid., p. 53 and comment p. 54 20 Alex C. McKay, „Wahrheit“, Wahrnehmung und Politik: Die britische Konstruktion eines Bildes von Tibet, In Mythos Tibet. Wahrnehmungen, Projektionen, Phantasien, Published by the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland GmbH, Bonn in collaboration with Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther, Cologne, Du Mont, 1997, p. 70 21 Kollmar-Paulenz, p. 150 22 See also Deshayes, p. 264 23 Kollmar-Paulenz, p. 144; see also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 59 24 See also Deshayes, p. 265 25 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 59 26 See also ibid., p. 62 27 "As per the Tibetan notion," the Panchen Lama is "an incarnation of the Buddha Amitâbha and is thus essentially higher in the hierarchy of the Buddhist pantheon than the Dalai Lama." According to Th. Hoppe, Tibet heute: Aspekte einer komplexen Situation, Hamburg, Institut für Asienkunde, 1997, p. 114 28 See also Deshayes, p. 266, which refers to the kalön Rampa, Langthong and Tendzin Tschödrak. 29 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 66; see also Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 42: "At one time (1912) Tsarong, who at the time was still called Namgang Dasan Djamdu, inherited the name, property and entire living and dead inventory of the Minister Tsarong, who was executed due to high treason, including his wives and daughters." 30 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 63-64 31 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 103 32 All information from Goldstein: The Demise... p. 110-120 33 A former library assistant of David-Néel, after she got into an argument with the already aged woman, disputed that she really made it to Lhasa dressed as a beggar. See also Jeanne Denys, A. David Néel au Tibet (Une supercherie dévoilée), Paris, La Pensée Universelle, 1972. We cannot investigate or clarify this controversy here. However, it is undisputed that David-Néel spent a long time living in the Himalayas region and in western China and was considered an expert on the region, Tibetan culture, and Buddhism. She also retains her values as a contemporary witness. 34 David-Néel, Wanderer mit dem Wind, p. 86; p. 82 35 Ibid., p. 84 36 Ibid., p. 85 37 Ibid. – The 14th "incarnation" is as presumptuous as his predecessor and is supported by an ignorant western public in their hybris. 38 Ibid., p. 84-85 39 Ibid., p. 85 40 David-Néel: Wanderer... p. 126 – Her description of the Dalai Lama at the time agrees with that from the Commander d'Ollone (after being welcomed by the 13th in Chinese Wu T'aichan in 1908): he was nothing like a monk but was rather an imperious "powerful man with a martial face and the same appearance." Cited from Jeanne Denys, A. David Néel au Tibet (Une supercherie dévoilée), Paris, La Pensée Universelle, 1972, p. 37 41 David-Néel, Wanderer... p. 128 42 Ibid., p. 135 – Deshayes confirms this by talking of stonings and mutilations. See also.: Histoire du Tibet, p. 267 43 David-Néel, Wanderer... p. 137 44 David-Néel, Mein Weg durch Himmel und Höllen, p. 39 45 Thomas Wartmann, Vom 'Star von Hanoi' zur 'Lampe der Weisheit'. In Alexandra David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 32 46 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 39 47 Ibid., p. 258 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., p. 259 50 Ibid., p. 261 51 Ibid. – The often repeated assertion that the 13th Dalai Lama eliminated the previously gruesome punishments is obviously a propaganda lie! 52 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 260. – The current reincarnation of the tyrant unashamedly accused the Chinese of organising forced marriages between Tibetans and Han Chinese. 53 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 260 54 Ibid., p. 261 55 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 294 56 Deshayes, p. 296
8 Failed modernisation, failed "state": Tibet under the 13th Dalai Lama and his successors
Neither they (the major European powers in the first half of the 20th century) nor seemingly Tibet itself could or wanted to proclaim Tibet's independence. Unwaveringly rooted in its mediaeval structures in the midst of a modern world, the Tibetan government made no efforts to adapt.
Apart from the fact that he destroyed his personal rivals or drove them into exile, and separated Tibet for a few decades from an extremely weakened and ailing China, the dictator in Lhasa achieved virtually nothing. His politics were a singular fiasco: in large areas of the "state" that he apparently ruled there prevailed chaos, anarchy, and crime. His Lhasa government was never in the position of, or even interested in, ensuring public safety and order. The Dalai Lama's "state" had no fixed and recognised borders, particularly not towards the east. Apart from the dependency on Great Britain and a few weak contacts with China, he had virtually no external relations. No other state in the world entered diplomatic relations with him. Tibet did not even belong to the international postal union. The currency was little more than play money; it was hardly even used as a means of payment in the territory controlled by Lhasa. The economy remained blighted; directly after the Second World War Tibet exported only yak's tails, which were used in India as fly swatters, animal skins, felt and low quality wool. The newly established expensive army, which was maintained by squeezing money from the Tibetans, was by no means a modern, disciplined fighting troop, although it was trained and equipped by the British.
These soldiers were mainly used against internal political opponents within Tibet because, under the 13th Dalai Lama, the state was almost constantly on the brink of civil war. In 1913, his troops destroyed Tengyeling monastery, right down its foundations; later, in the summer of 1921, they were deployed for the siege of Loseling, part of the enormous Drepung monastery and its 4-5,000 monks.
When they did actually go into battle, Lhasa's soldiers behaved like a band of rough and ravening mercenaries. Even Deshayes reported that "in the shadows of modernity was hidden the barbarism of the past": after a victory over Chinese troops in the Chamdo region, the Tibetans drowned most of the prisoners in groups of ten; they forced the last survivors to march through Lhasa behind the mutilated corpses of their comrades.2 Harrer wrote the following about the Dalai Lama's troops, significantly without any word of criticism: "Instead of mentions and distinctions the Tibetan soldier receives more tangible rewards. After a victory, he has a right to the booty and so looting is the general rule. He is, however, obliged to deliver the weapons he has captured." And further: if local Bönpos "can no longer cope with the robbers," Lhasa would send "smaller military detachments." These deployments were in great demand, "despite the bandits' reckless fighting methods," "because the soldiers have their eye on the plunder and ignore the danger."3 Harrer applauds the willingness of the Tibetan soldiers to obey orders because "nowhere" could you find "more unconditional obedience. That is no surprise because a large part of the army consists of serfs who are used to blind obedience."4 Blind obedience as a virtue of both the ideal soldier and the Tibetan serf? Harrer the Nazi remained true to himself...
The Trongda regiment represented an exception in terms of modern weaponry and the social origin of the soldiers. It received particular attention and support from the 13th Dalai Lama. It was built and commanded by Kumbela, his favourite minion at the time, and consisted entirely of sons from noble families who were forbidden from imposing the unpopular compulsory military service on an arbitrarily determined serf instead of their own offspring. Although the unit was somewhat akin to the god-king's favourite toy and was indulged accordingly, the military virtues of obedience and discipline so valued by Harrer were neglected. This became apparent after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama as we shall soon see.
Nevertheless, the lama government achieved something that many people nowadays consider desirable: the "lean state." There was no need for a transport ministry with efficient road construction management as there were no roads to be constructed or maintained, nor was there public transport. There was no need for a ministry of education because there were no public kindergartens, schools, or universities. There was no need for a ministry of health because there were no hospitals, no vaccinations, no disease awareness campaigns, no battles against epidemics, no approval or control of pharmaceutical products and no training of modern doctors. There was no need for a ministry of justice and independent court system because the feudal lords and lamas from the individual monasteries administered justice on their estates at whim; nobles could only be punished by the Kashag and civil servants at all levels were venal.5 The list could be continued.
The New Year parade of the modern military in front of the Potala (original image caption). (Federal Archive, image 135-S-11-07-36 / Schäfer, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
Let us return to David-Néel, the contemporary witness, who knew particularly well Amdo and Kham, the eastern regions of which the Dalai Lama and his western supporters call the "historical" or "cultural (Greater) Tibet". She spent more than three years living in the region of Kumbum, a "vast monastery town on the edge of the Mongolian desert." In Thomas Wartmann's introduction to her autobiographical book on Tibet he describes the situation there at the start of the 1920s: "For months the Spanish flu has been rife, looting soldiers have been invading the monastery town, the monks are armed." David-Néel is "surrounded by chaos and death" because "since the collapse of the Manchu dynasty there has been civil war in China's Wild West. Looting bands of thieves are terrorising the province of Amdo; cholera and pneumonic plague are decimating the population. Further south, in Chengdu, typhoid is killing more than two hundred people every day, and at the border close to Tibet the Chinese-Tibetan war is rumbling on endlessly."6
Yet on a low flame. The Tibetan farmers found for "military service," who were to defend the new "border," had hardly any or no weapons – for good reason, as the European reports (note the quotation marks and irony): "The new authority did not seem to have much confidence in the new subjects who had finally been 'freed' from Chinese rule. Therefore, the government only equipped the reservists, if at all, with old-fashioned Tibetan or Chinese weapons. People smiled when I asked them why: 'In Lhasa they do not want us to be able to confront their people,' they told me, 'they know very well what many of us would like to do!'"7
According to Grunfeld, in Sikang (Xikang)-Sichuan, the region known as Kham by the Tibetans, there were actually four to five hundred large fights between 1911 and 1935, whereby locals equally fought against the rule of Lhasa and Peking, and often even against each other.8 The British clearly played a big part in Lhasa's efforts to conquer the Chinese-controlled territory with the help of better troops armed by the Europeans. David-Néel reports: "The British consul in Tatsienlu supported the Tibetans. He inspected their troops. Yet they did so during the First World War when the Chinese were on the Allies' side and provided them with manpower. The support granted to their opponents was likely to surprise them greatly. (...) The intervention of Consul Teichman resulted in a change to the Tibetan border, which was moved a long way towards China."9 That was in 1918. In the early 1930s, the Lhasa government then succeeded in moving the border further towards the east after the abbot of the Kong Kar Lama monastery had called on their troops for help. The abbot was in dispute with Kesang Tsering, a Tibetan who was to restore order in the region on behalf of the Chinese government at the time.10
David-Néel's verdict on the so-called Tibetan independence in the mid-1920s is as clear as it is crushing: "The Tibetans lost a great deal after the separation from China. Only the clique of court officials benefits from their so-called independence. Most people who had previously rebelled against the loose, far-flung Chinese government are now regretting it as the taxes, forced labour and outrageous plundering system of the native troops go far beyond the demands of the earlier rulers."11
The French Asian researcher explains that she saw the consequences of British-controlled "independence" with her own eyes.12 On her adventure-filled trip to Lhasa, which was shaped by exertions and dangers, she reached a large village called Tashitse. The name of the village means "summit of happiness." She describes the happiness as follows: "The misery of the poor peasantry broke my heart."13 They seemed "really not to have reached the 'summit of happiness.' Taxes, compulsory labour, exploitation at most fill the pockets of the Pönpo on the throne at the summit."14 The people could not even escape their plight by escaping or emigrating, as serfs were not permitted to leave there, and anyone attempting to escape could expect a monetary fine and corporal punishment. A lot of these completely poor and resigned people "pinned their hopes on China," explained Alexandra David-Néel further. "'It wasn't actually so bad under Chinese rule,' they said. 'In the end they'll come back again... Yes, but when? By then we'll probably all be dead! ...' That's how the women talk when they crouch before a small fire in their miserable huts in the evening. Their eyes are red from crying and stare longingly into the night. One mountain range looms behind another and separates the country into which the Lhasa troops drove back their former Chinese protectors."15
Paper manufacture: a large sieve, consisting of a wooden frame with fabric attached to it, is held in a stream. Gyantse, approx. 1910-1920 (Photo: unknown author)
Elsewhere she explains her impressions of the "Giamda valley". She was struck by "how abandoned and squalid the whole country was. Deserted villages were now only piles of debris over which the forest had triumphed and claimed back the previously cleared and cultivated land. There had once been Chinese guards on the former main road on the left riverbank. Here and there you could still see high, now decaying watchtowers. There had been a Chinese population in the nearby surroundings who had cultivated the land. But now the entire route was beset with daring robbers..."16
The government of the 13th Dalai Lama in Lhasa was clearly much less interested in the safety of its subjects and controlling the bandits and highwaymen than on collecting taxes. David-Néel explains, at any rate, that she was on the main road "only 160 kilometres away from Lhasa," when she met a group of pilgrims, mainly women, who had been "completely robbed," which "is not uncommon in Tibet,"17 and they had endured a few deaths and injuries. The travel author noted: "Mounted soldiers could easily have caught up with the murderers but, in this lawless country, no civil servant would have let themselves be disturbed by such an everyday occurrence."18 Even in Lhasa itself, which was swarming with people in the daytime, residents preferred to stay at home as soon as evening approached: "As people say, since the foundation of a national police force and an army uncertainty has risen significantly, as the official protectors of the public good often turn into robbers in the dark of the night."19
Her impression of (further) deterioration in the living conditions of the Tibetans since the eviction of the central Chinese administration was repeatedly confirmed, according to David-Néel. "The closer we came to the capital, the closer together the villages were, yet to my astonishment we met very few people on the streets. As it was explained to me, traffic at the time of the Chinese suzerainty had been much brisker and that reminded me of my own observations in the province of Kongbu," she wrote. In the Lhasa valley, there was also "an endless amount of uncultivated land on which barley could have been grown for the nearby town, where the cost of living is much too expensive."20
Namgal/Tsarong 1938. Original title: Tsarong, the uncrowned king of Tibet. (Federal Archive, Image 135-KB-05-100 / CC-BY-SA)
The range of goods on offer had deteriorated significantly since "independence." The French lady who, in 1924, stayed for two months in "the Lamaist Rome," as she called it,21 wrote: "In Lhasa there are no such colourful shops and bazaars that delight the heart of the collector in China. The main items found in the market in Lhasa are aluminium goods. For the rest, you see there almost only rubbish items imported from India, England, Japan, and a few other European countries. I have never found anywhere else in the world more hideous cotton cloths, more hideous pottery than that sold on the stalls. There had earlier been active trade between Tibet and China but this has almost come to a complete stop since many goods have been imported from India. Now only tea and silks come from China; the greatest efforts are being made to drive all Chinese products out of the market."22
David-Néel explains the protection of her anonymity during her Lhasa trip with the Tibetan ban on entry for non-British people and states, as a second reason, why a meeting with the Dalai Lama was not conceivable: "... if he were free perhaps he would have wanted to see me again, but his current British protector doesn't give him as much freedom as his earlier Chinese ruler. He is no longer his own master and has just as little right to receive strangers who are not sent to him as he has to send away people who are recommended or sent to him."23
Notes
1 Rolf A. Stein, La Civilisation tibétaine, Paris, Dunod, 1962, p. 66 2 Deshayes, p. 278; see also Waddell's report (p. 160) on the captured Tibetans who assumed they would be executed. 3 Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet... p. 236 4 Heinrich Harrer, Sieben Jahre in Tibet... p. 342. This sentence is missing in the English edition (p. 236). 5 See also Alan Winnington, Tibet: Die wahre Geschichte, Berlin, Verlag Das Neue Berlin, 2008, p. 142: "In Tibet there was never much for a central government to do. No single metre of road needed to be maintained..." 6 Thomas Wartmann, Vom 'Star von Hanoi' zur 'Lampe der Weisheit', in Alexandra David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 8 and 9 7 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 115 8 See also Grunfeld, p. 72 9 David-Néel, A l'ouest barbare de la vaste Chine, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 777 10 See David-Néel, ibid. 11 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 270 12 In an article from 1st June 1920, before her long journey to Lhasa and across Tibet, she considered English rule over the region to be the lesser evil: "... it is not difficult to believe that England's supremacy will be less hard for the Tibetans than China's," and: "... the best men for Tibet are certainly the English among the current competitors." In David-Néel, Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 1117 and p. 1121. Yet inspection and experience soon taught her better. 13 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 153 14 Ibid., p. 152; – Pönpo, written as "Bönpo" by H. Harrer, describes the noble and clerical lords in Tibet. 15 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 152-153 16 Ibid., p. 265 17 Ibid., p. 267 18 Ibid., p. 268 19 Ibid., p. 286 20 Ibid., p. 269-270 21 Ibid., p. 271 22 Ibid., p. 281 23 Ibid., p. 306
9 Three rusting cars, bagpipes and play money printed by hand
... three unused cars, an embryonic electricity network and a mint are, in 1933, all that remain of this willingness to open up. Old Tibet, deeply anchored in its beliefs, resisted. There is no industry in this country, even though it has a wealth of natural resources (...) Tibet imports the copper required for its mintage from British-India (...) The agricultural techniques are archaic: farmers still plough with a wooden pole and irrigation is underdeveloped (...) The wheel is not used, even though it is known, so goods are transported no less often on the backs of people than on animals.
The 13th Dalai Lama is presented (not only) by Heinrich Harrer as a "great reformer." The reason for this is neither the attempt to implement social reforms (such as distributing land to the farmers and freeing the serfs), nor even the introduction of freedom of opinion and religion (such as school lessons free from clerical rule), but rather something "unheard of for the time": "He actually imported for his own use three automobiles."2 As there were no roads outside of Lhasa on which the cars could have travelled, they soon shared their sad fate with the other reforms of the anglophile thirteenth Dalai Lama. The former "chauffeur to his Majesty" explained to Harrer, "often sadly," of the cars that now stood "idle, but not unguarded in a shed", mourning "their dead lord" and "rusted in honourable decay,"3 a metal symbol of a failed approach to modernisation. It was destined to fail as it was much too tentative, limited to small alibi measures ordered from above (and from outside!) and, if possible, tried to avoid any form of social change.
The tentative modernisation based on the British example ground to a halt in its early phase: a small hydropower plant was built from imported British components. "Four young Tibetans were sent to England" and educated there, one of them as a military officer.4 He was then to establish a Tibetan army based on the British example. The Dalai Lama also brought a Japanese (!) military expert to Tibet. In 1922/23 a police troop was created under the leadership of a police officer called Ladenla from Sikkim, a British protectorate. In 1924, a school inspector from British India, a certain F. Ludlow, built a school in Gyantse based on the British model; it was attended by a few dozen noble offspring. Another Briton conducted an inventory of the Tibetan natural resources. The commander of the army, Surkhang, organised polo matches in the early 1920s and arranged for the construction of a tennis court. Yet even these small changes were immediately met with "bitter resistance," primarily among the conservative clergy, who feared the monastic monopoly on education and wanted to prevent the "infiltration of new, non-Buddhist values." The otherwise so "strong" 13th Dalai Lama willingly bowed to the pressure. He banned European clothing and arranged for the school in Gyantse to be closed after just four years.5
The most important "modernisation" introduced by the 13th Dalai Lama related to the Tibetan military, which David-Néel described as "ridiculous" in the 1920s, not least because of its "outdated English guns." She depicts how, in Lhasa and on the occasion of a major appearance from the 13th god-king, she encountered the army for which the Tibetans were forced to pay such taxes: "I was amused by the troops and how they walked with funny steps behind the musicians, who were playing quite well English operetta melodies."6 Heinrich Harrer had many opportunities to observe the "bodyguard, five hundred strong",7 who at his time were there to protect the young 14th Dalai Lama, as their main function was to turn out to march during "ceremonial processions." Twenty years after David-Néel, and during such a festivity with an appearance from the Dalai Lama, he noted that the soldiers wore "uniforms of European cut" and their hair was "cut in Western fashion," and explained that the thirteenth Dalai Lama, as is generally known, "had been favourably impressed by the appearance of British troops during his stay in India and had modelled his bodyguard on them."8 Both the "bandmaster" and some officers "had been trained in India."9 Just like the British role models in India the bandmaster wore "a pith helmet."10 Yet the military band had since added something more unequivocal to its repertoire of English operetta melodies than what David-Néel reported. During the festive procession to Norbulingka "the sound of familiar music" reached Harrer's ear: "Yes – no mistake about it, the British National Anthem."11 Then "bagpipers" played "a selection of Scottish airs. Yet this time it was not the bodyguard but rather the "police band."12 Grunfeld adds, not without irony: "So pervasive was British influence in this sector that, as late as 1950, the officers issued all their commands in English, while the army band was only capable of playing such traditional 'Tibetan' tunes as 'Auld Lang Syne,' 'God Save the King' and 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary'."13
At Harrer's time, the British appearance of army and police was, however, only tradition and outwardness, as conservative powers had long since put an end to the goings-on of the British-oriented "modernisers" in most areas. In another respect, appearances were deceptive, as the army and police did not always get on as well as while playing music during celebrations, and the rivalry and ultimately hostility between these two spearheads of modernisation à l'anglaise accelerated the abrupt end of the "reforms" still during the reign of the 13th Dalai Lama.
It happened as follows: at the end of May 1924, a knife fight between soldiers and policemen ended with the death of a member of the police force. Army commander-in-chief Tsarong, pressed by police chief Ladenla (the aforementioned Sikkimese), made an example of it. He quickly arranged for one of the soldiers involved to have an ear cut off, and the main suspect had a leg cut off. He died. His detached head and the leg were then put on public display at the entrance to the Lhasa market street, right next to the Jokhang Temple. When the religious-conservative opponents of Tsarong denounced him to the Dalai Lama due to that incident, and he was himself facing a penalty because of his arbitrary approach against the soldiers, officers gathered in secret to support him and protect him against imprisonment. A few hotheads among them favoured a putsch, the seizure of power by Tsarong and the displacement of the Dalai Lama in his function as a secular ruler. Rumours to this effect started circulating in Lhasa and Tsarong's and his officers' opponents feared for their positions and lives. In fact, the most influential spokesperson of the conservative monk party was the target of an assassination attempt, which was unsuccessful.
The Dalai Lama, informed about the machinations of the military, did not dare to crack down on the officers. Even when the conflict could ultimately be defused – the 13th penalised some counterparties on both sides with mild penalties – it resulted in the tyrant increasingly perceiving the armed forces not as his own power base, but rather as a further potential threat to his personal power. He also suspected British involvement in the putsch plans of his officers.14 So he was again more inclined to meet the demands of the conservative clergy. However, the clergy viewed every form of modernisation and the infiltration of western customs and ideas as a threat to Buddhism and its own power.15
Yet he could not completely dispense with the armed forces under his favourite Tsarong. As already mentioned, he deployed them against the monks of Loseling who, at the end of May 1921, rebelled against the arbitrary disposition and exile of their three abbots. The thirteenth Dalai Lama had never forgiven the monks for their pro-Chinese stance in the conflict of 1912 and took late revenge in this way. After a long siege by 3,000 soldiers from throughout Tibet, sixty of their insurgents were captured in September 1921, brutally whipped, and taken through Lhasa in kangs and iron shackles; all other abbots from Drepung were also deposed.16
Many high-ranking army and police officers were made to feel the heat, because the Dalai Lama wanted to weaken these two centres of power so that they no longer presented any potential danger for him. For example, Kisur, a noble police officer, who resisted two policemen being whipped after they had clashed with stubborn monks, was dismissed under this pretext and, barefoot and with other symbols of his shame, led through Lhasa before serving a lifelong prison sentence in remote Kongpo. One high-ranking army officer after another was degraded and possibly killed based on spurious reasons and bagatelles. Surkhang was disposed due to an extramarital relationship; the commanders Dingja, Sambo and Tsögaw were accused of having a European haircut. Pedma Chandra, who took flight after his dismissal as an officer, was killed by his pursuers and his head was publicly displayed in Lhasa under national customs, together with the written charge that he had embezzled money and spoken badly about the Dalai Lama. Tsarong, until then the powerful favourite, was spared by the Dalai Lama, even though the monks' party was demanding his head. However, he lost his political power and, in 1930, was officially dismissed as a Shape.17
These conflicts and power struggles, the ongoing resistance in the province of Tsang, particularly from the Panchen Lama government and the Tashilhunpo monastery – all this shows how weak the position of "independent Tibet" was under the 13th Dalai Lama. It was even truer for his successors, whose bitter power struggle again brought political murders and civil war to Lhasa.
But let's now go back to another important area of "independent Tibet." The "Lhasa government" had its own currency and issued its own stamps, all upon the advice of Charles Bell, who knew how important such symbols of statehood are. Did this not prove that Tibet was an independent state? That argument seems to be stronger than the reference to the existence of its own fighting force, which every Chinese warlord had and every decent head of a Latin American drugs mafia possesses. Yet it omits the fact that, in a completely backward feudal economy like the one in Tibet, monetary and goods transactions only played a very small role. Rather, the foundation of economic life was formed by the unpaid compulsory labour and the duties and taxes mainly paid for in the form of natural produce.
Moreover, the Dalai Lama government had financially over-extended itself when building up its army and buying its equipment. Therefore, there was a shortage of silver (and of gold, which was hoarded in large amounts in the monasteries and temples, but was not available for minting coins). David-Néel explains that, on her journey to Lhasa, she was surprised to find that "in middle Tibet there is no longer any silver." In the absence of the more luxurious silver, the authorities had switched to using copper imported from Britain: "The Lhasa government has minted a horrible copper coin that is now used in Lhasa and its surroundings, but already ceases to be valid less than 160 kilometres from Potala. It therefore has no value when doing business with people who don't have any businesses in Lhasa." David Néel adds that gold coins did not come into circulation, and candid Tibetans generally explained the disappearance of silver as follows: "Our government gives it to the Philing men from India (the English) as payment for their old weapons, which are no longer good enough for their own soldiers but which they sell to us for a high price."18 Incidentally, in the "part of Kham conquered by Lhasa troops" the civil servants would explain the "severe rise in taxes" by the fact that the Dalai Lama had to raise money for the British who "demanded it from him." The author comments: "Why he obeys those to whom he is apparently superior, what he receives for his silver and many other things are naturally not explained to the simple people, and their brains are not able to think logically."19
So they did also have their own paper money? David-Néel confirms: "The Lhasa government also issued its own bank notes, but these are only a curiosity and are rejected by the traders."20 Yet the notes could have had a certain collector's value later, outside of Tibet, as a rarity and due to the special way in which they were manufactured. Tenzin Choedrak, the 14th Dalai Lama's personal doctor, explained this: the notes were printed in an antiquated manner, "individually" and "by hand," with the help of carved wooden blocks.21 The paper was certainly also manufactured by hand (from pulp prepared by hand...), as there was naturally no modern paper factory in old Tibet.
However, at the end of the 1930s Ernst Schäfer did not even mention the existence of a "Tibetan currency," because he writes that the "all-powerful Indian Rupee" had "also long since conquered the ground in Lhasa" and this was, like the "state telegraph," a "further symbol for the influence of Britain in Tibet."22
The stamps issued by Lhasa also had much more of a symbolic value than a practical use because, as Heinrich Harrer mentions, Tibet did not even belong to the "World Postal Union."23 Schäfer confirms this and is even more explicit when he writes: "Although the Tibetan state is not part of the World Postal Union and letters destined for overseas must later have British-Indian or Chinese labels applied to them, this has not stopped the Tibetans from printing their own very beautiful, albeit invalid, stamps that are marked with an equally invalid seal in Lhasa. However, to arrange for something to be delivered quickly by post it is generally much better to give a good tip than to use the Lhasa stamps with the two fighting lions."24
Considering all this, the reader will not be surprised that, in his "History of Tibet," the most prominent French pro-Dalai Lama historian, does not avoid drawing a devastating conclusion in terms of the life's work of the 13th Dalai Lama: his attempts at modernisation were unsuccessful,25 he was not able to "recreate the Great Imperial Tibet" for which he strived,26 and he failed to achieve recognition for his state from the international community of states. His successors also failed to achieve this. Rather, they led the lama state further in the direction of torpor, chaos, and decay and through to its deserved inglorious end.
Prime Minister Yabshi Langdün, nephew of the 13th Dalai Lama, briefly shared power with Lama Reting. (Federal Archive, Image 135-S-13-13-14 / Schäfer, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
Notes
1 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 296 2 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 164 3 Ibid. 4 We may question whether sending the four noble offspring to Great Britain was a very effective modernisation measure. For one of them at least the occidental education did not seem to bring much benefit. His British tutor, Mr. Odgers, reported that the boy "has no manners unfortunately" and is "a perfect idiot at a simple game of cards." Quoted by French: Tibet Tibet, p. 163 5 Kollmar-Paulenz Kleine Geschichte... p. 145-146 6 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 289 7 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 245 8 Ibid., p. 246 9 Ibid., p. 167 10 Harrer, Sieben Jahre, p. 239. - This detail is missing in the English edition. 11 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 167 12 Ibid., p. 167 13 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 80 – Incredibly, nobody in the West understands this as an expression of a "cultural genocide." 14 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 133-134 15 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 89 ff. 16 See also The Demise... p. 107-109 17 Shape was the term for the four most important ministers in the Kashag, the Lhasa government. 18 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 281 19 Ibid., p. 282 20 Ibid., p. 281 21 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig, 1999, comment p. 79 22 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 103 23 Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years... p. 127-128: "Tibet does not belong to the World Postal Union and its postal arrangements are somewhat complicated." What he meant was that post within Tibet was "carried by runners," who "carry a spear with bells attached." Overseas letters were taken in this way to the Indian border, Indian stamps were put on them and then they were sent on. It was simpler and quicker for Harrer via the British Mission, as he reports (p. 129). Interesting that, so soon after the end of the war, the British officials saw nothing wrong in pleasing German SS men. 24 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 103 25 See also Deshayes, p. 294 26 Ibid. – The fact that the largest part of the regions called Amdo and Kham by the Tibetans has been directly administered by China for many centuries, and at the time of the separatist Lhasa government in no way belonged to the territory of Lhasa, does not bother the crude falsifier of history Klemens Ludwig. He claims uninhibitedly that the Communists "halved the Tibetan territory" in 1965, because the newly created Autonomous Region "only covers central and western Tibet," thus the earlier political Tibet. "East Tibet, the old provinces of Amdo and parts of Kham, was annexed to the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan." See also: Ludwig, "Zweitausend Jahre"..., In Alt et al., p. 76 – The same intentional misinformation is also found, for example, in Donnet's concoction Tibet mort ou vif, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, 1992, p. 26
10 After the thirteenth: intrigues, banishments and squeezed-out eyeballs
Politics in Lhasa involve as much intrigue and subterfuge as elsewhere, for contrary to general belief our government is not made up entirely of monks, but is half monk and half layman. For the layman to hold government office is to be noble, and among the sons of such nobles there is constant rivalry for the limited number of junior offices. For these people, it is harder to fulfil their obligations than for the simple monk.
According to his official biography, the 13th Dalai Lama decided, out of his displeasure towards the resistance he encountered from conservative powers, to leave his earthly body prematurely. Esoteric Buddhism taught that the incarnate lamas can, due to their exceptional control over their physical and spiritual powers, postpone or speed up their death as planned.
So far the Holy Legend. Historical events have, as always, very little to do with that. The death of the 58-year-old God-King on the evening of 17th December 1933 was a surprise for his subjects. It had not been preceded by a lengthy period of infirmity, but rather the Dalai Lama died after five days, having felt unwell due to an illness that was initially considered to be trivial. However, a "medicine" administered to him on the morning of the fifth day by the Nechung oracle considerably sped up his death. After the "Seventeen Heroes for Overcoming Colds" remedy was added to his water against his will, his condition deteriorated dramatically; he lost consciousness around noon and died at dusk. The autocrat had not himself identified a successor. His death was therefore followed by a five-month long battle for power between several adversaries.
His nephew Langdün seemed to have the best chance of taking on the deceased's inheritance in the form of the regency. Since 1926, he had held the very high public office of lönchen2 and was therefore the most highly ranked candidate among the adversaries. However, the 26-year old was considered to be immature, foolish, and weak, which led to him being given the disrespectful nickname of "the castrated donkey."
Much more powerful than him, albeit without a comparably high official position, was the 28-year old Kumbela,3 a favourite who came from a humble background and was a personal confidante of the deceased. His more important trump card was his command over the Trongdra regiment, which he had built and whose soldiers were personally loyal to him. As already mentioned, the Trongdra regiment was an elite unit of the Lhasa army and the only one that was composed of the sons of noble families. It had received particular attention and benevolence from the deceased Dalai Lama and the troop was well equipped, trained and supplied with rations. Moreover, it had the first Tibetan machine guns and would have been readily able to bring Lhasa under his control at Kumbela's command.4 Yet, as an upstart and favourite of the Dalai Lama, Kumbela had many enviers and thus several enemies.
A third rival in the battle for power came from a family of aristocrats. The 52-year-old tsipön5 Lungshar was considered to have many skills; he was a Tibetan doctor and expert in, among other things, "Black Magic." (dey). He was also one of the very few Tibetans to know about the world outside of their homeplace. When the Dalai Lama decided in1912, upon the advice of Charles Bell, to send four young aristocrats to be educated in Great Britain it was Lungshar who accompanied them. His job was not only to keep an eye on the four students but also to make diplomatic contacts. In 1914, he hastily departed and returned to his homeplace with his wife, who had gone with him to Europe. The reason for his departure is telling, yet shows the boundaries of a comparatively educated representative of old Tibet who was also familiar with western culture: Lungshar and his pregnant wife fled from England because someone had told him that a child born in Great Britain would automatically be British. The couple understood the comment literally and were horrified by the prospect of having a baby with blond hair and blue eyes.6
Lungshar had already reached the height of his power in the years 1925-1931, when he replaced the disgraced Tsarong as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and rose to become the closest advisor of the Dalai Lama. His arrogance and tendency to make arbitrary decisions soon resulted in his star fading again. Since November 1926, the import and consumption of tobacco had been banned by the Lama government. In 1928, a rich merchant named Gyebo Sherpa was accused of selling cigarettes on the black market and thrown into prison. As a Nepali man, the prisoner actually enjoyed the exterritoriality guaranteed to Nepalese citizens in Tibet. Yet the protests of the Nepalese representative in Lhasa were futile; the Lama government refused to release him. In September 1929, Gyebo Sherpa broke out of prison and sought refuge in the Nepalese representation. Lungshar gave the order to extract him from there with force, whip him and throw him back in Potala prison. After two days, the prisoner succumbed to his injuries. The incident in 1930 resulted almost in a war with Nepal. Lungshar was later deposed as commander-in-chief of the armed forces but retained his position as tsipön.
He was (and is) considered by western historians as a reformer. In the battle for power he launched against his most dangerous rival Kumbela, he nevertheless sought the support of conservative monks' circles. His supporters spread rumours in the major monasteries by asking how the Dalai Lama could have died so suddenly. Kumbela, the favourite and constant companion of the God-King, was the only person not to leave his side during his illness. This exposed him to the suspicion of not being totally innocent in the sudden death of his patron. He was invited to an interrogation by the "National Assembly," where abbots from the larger monasteries and the highest dignitaries sat among the laypersons.
In the meantime, Lungshar had found an opportunity to deprive Kumbela of his power base. The spoiled noble offspring who served in the Trongdra regiment were, despite their preferential treatments, soldiers against their will. Lungshar suggested to them that the Dalai Lama's death gave them the unique and unexpected opportunity to quit serving and return home. He let them believe that he would support their relevant application with the government and that they could count upon being met with understanding and sympathy there. The plan worked: the regiment, which could have manhandled his rival to power, became mutinous when the application for collective dismissal from service was turned down, and most soldiers deserted. The path was therefore clear for the last blow against Kumbela He was detained at the end of a further interrogation and, in anticipation of the verdict, thrown into Potala prison. On the same day, several other suspects who had been in contact with the Dalai Lama during his last days on earth were arrested. Kumbela's father was also imprisoned and his family's property seized. During the next few days the talk was of the accused being physically mutilated. Yet as there continued to be no evidence of guilt or neglect on Kumbela's part, they ultimately made do with milder penalties: Kumbela was sentenced to life in exile and his father had to spend his life working as a serf again.
Kumbela's case and the dangers faced by his followers triggered a military uprising in eastern Tibet. Pandatsang Tobgye, whose influential family was friends with Kumbela and who commanded a border troops unit, rebelled against the Lhasa government. The deeper political reason for the uprising of the Khampas there was the widespread dissatisfaction with the Dalai Lama's officials, who "treated" the population "with disdain and regarded their stay in Kham as an opportunity to get rich" by exploiting people's obligation to perform unpaid compulsory labour.7 The insurgents attacked the main quarters of a regiment of the Lhasa army, killed many soldiers, captured a high-ranking monk official and carried off 500 to 700 weapons and the private possessions of the absent commanders. Finally, they settled in a Chinese-governed region.
When it became aware of the events, the Lhasa government ordered the imprisonment of Tobgye's brother Yambe and the seizure of his house, and asked the British-Indian administration to freeze the assets of the rich Pandatsang family in India. This resulted in a shooting in Lhasa, as the Pandatsangs had armed their two dozen servants with guns and put up a fight against the imprisonment of their leader and the sealing of the house. The conflict could ultimately be resolved peacefully through the mediation of high-ranking friends of the Pandatsang family. Yet Tobgye remained in the Chinese-controlled part of Kham until the arrival of the People's Liberation Army in Lhasa.
The fall of Kumbela had not really resolved the power issue; Lungshar had not yet achieved his ambitious goal. There was now a new hurdle for him to overcome if he wanted to gain power: the powerful abbots from the larger monasteries resolutely insisted on a high incarnated lama being named as regent. The twenty-four-year-old Reting Rinpoche (Jampey Yeshe) prevailed among the candidates, after a "divine lottery" that went in his favour. Reting, who was held in high regard due to performing "miracles" while still a child, was appointed as regent on 23rd February 1934. He was now to share power with the "castrated donkey" Langdün.
Lungshar's route to power was thus blocked within the existing structures. He therefore endeavoured to change the system of government at the time in favour of his supporters. In doing so, his approach was similarly shrewd and underhand as the removal of Kumbela from power. He initially tried to gather support in two different camps, who were suspicious if not even hostile towards each other: the noble laypersons in public service and the conservative monks. Particularly crucial was the support from prominent monks so that his attempt could not be dismissed as an initiative from the ranks of the lower nobility. He was only able to attract followers from among the monks by misleading them about his true intentions. Therefore, he initially recruited in secret and in the two camps separately, and it was seemingly only about getting a signature from those contacted for a petition to be addressed to the government. Lungshar's supporters primarily and ostensibly asked about the progress of the work on the tomb (stüpa) of the 13th Dalai Lama and appealed for this work to be hurried up and for the search for the incarnation of the Dalai Lama to be started as soon as possible. For these purposes, the rights and supervisory powers of the "National Assembly," in which Lungshar had many followers, should be extended at the expense of the kashag (Council of Ministers).
The seemingly harmless and innocent text contained, between the lines, harsh criticism of the regent and the responsible officials in the Council of Ministers, whom it indirectly accused of thwarting the construction of the Dalai Lama's gravestone and procrastinating on the search for the next Dalai Lama.
Once he believed that he had gathered enough supporters in both camps, Lungshar organised joint meetings aimed at getting all the signatories of the petition to commit to a consistent line. He first let his closest co-conspirators criticise the strongest man in the government, Trimön, and accused him of nepotism and dishonesty. Lungshar had identified him as the most dangerous rival in the battle for power. One version of events assumes that Lungshar's plan foresaw using the official handover of the petition as an assassination attempt on Trimön. Goldstein, who tended to sympathise more with Lungshar, considers that to be unlikely. One way or another – it should not get that far.
On the evening before 10th May 1934 – the day planned for the handover of the petition – a young noble named Kapshöba informed Trimön about Lungshar's activities and plans, including the assassination. The next morning, Trimön immediately went to see regent Reting and the lönchen to notify them about the conspiracy. To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, Lungshar was not immediately imprisoned but rather invited to an urgent meeting in the Potala Palace. Nobody was allowed to carry weapons there, which made it easier to arrest him. On the spot, the external symbols of the conspirator's rank were taken away, initially the topknot and robe, then the boots. He managed to remove a piece of paper from the first boot and make it disappear in his mouth before anyone could stop him. The myrmidons found another piece of paper in the second boot: an evil spell devoted to Trimön.8 Lungshar was immediately thrown into the prison at the foot of the Potala, exactly four months after Kumbela had been delivered there.
When, a few days later, some high-ranking monks demanded Lungshar's release, the lönchen referred to his use of black magic and convinced them no longer to support the conspirator. A rescue attempt organised by his sons was also unsuccessful. The next day all Lungshar's important party members were imprisoned and their houses sealed. Lungshar was charged with the murder plot and attempted overthrow with the aim of replacing the government with a "Bolshevik system"(!).9
Lungshar and Kapshöba, whose betrayal had got the ball rolling that was supposed to crush Lungshar, were interrogated by an ad hoc investigative court. The court used, among other things, the torture method known as tshandri. It involved whipping alternatively two interrogatees making contradictory statements for as long as it took for one of them to change their statement. Although Lungshar did not confess, he was found guilty. However, the court stopped short of a death sentence because it feared that the execute could damage the next Dalai Lama as a powerful evil spirit. Instead, the court sentenced the man to blinding (i.e. to have his eyeballs squeezed or grouched out) and seize his assets. Lungshar's two sons were also each to have one of their hands cut off. However, at the request of the abbot of Sera and an esteemed Rinpoche they eventually refrained from this punishment and made do with the ban on all future descendants ever holding office again.
Ten days after his imprisonment, on 20th May 1934, Lungshar's judgement was enforced. A flat yak bone was placed on each temple of the condemned man and fixed with a leather strap around his head. They were gradually tightened using a stick to which they were bound. The stick was turned until the delinquent's eyeballs jumped out of their sockets. However, as the executioners10 lacked experience the procedure did not quite go as planned: one of his eyes did not want to leave its socket and had to eventually be cut out. Then boiling hot oil was poured into the empty eye sockets to close the wounds. A further detail made clear the
extent of the compassion that prevailed in the leading circles of the lama state: right up to the end they ensured that Lungshar remained in the dark about the fate of his children, whom he feared would suffer similarly gruesome punishments.11
Notes
1 Thubten Jigme Norbu and Colin M. Turnbull, Tibet: Its History... p. 305 2 The office is similar to that of a prime minister. 3 Sometimes also written as Kunphel La. Thubten Kumbe(la) was his monk's name, which the Dalai Lama had given him. His birth name was Dechen Chödrön. 4 Here and throughout the account of the power struggles after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama, we follow the explanations from Goldstein, The Demise... p. 146-212 and p. 310-366 5 The title describes one of the four heads of the tax authority. 6 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 162 7 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 178. See also p. 179, where Goldstein notes that, in 1924, the Briton F. M. Bailey had already recorded in his diary that "in some places the people preferred Chinese rule as ula [forced corvée transport and work levies] was very heavy and not paid for by [Lhasa] Tibetans." 8 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 202 9 Ibid., p. 204 10 Goldstein writes that they belonged to the ragyabpa. See also Goldstein: The Demise... p. 208. Yet a former member of this untouchable caste disputed this to French and claimed that the so-called kochakpa, a kind of city police troop, was responsible for the hangman's work. See also French, Tibet Tibet, p. 184 11 The atrociousness of the common punishments in old Tibet is disputed by some "friends of Tibet." Yet there is also evidence for them in Dalai Lama-friendly literature, for example from Harrer or Jones Tung, where an image from Tolstoy or Dolan includes the comment: "Medieval justice reigned in twentieth-century Tibet" and the text states: "For thievery, armed brigandage, or murder, the penalty is loss of one or both hands or legs, which are cut above the knee. To seal the arteries the stumps are at once plunged into boiling oil..." The procedure often resulted in the person's death, no different then from the beloved flogging, during which "muscles and tendons" in the legs were often so "damaged" that the victim was unable to "walk again." (R. Jones Tung, A Portrait of Lost Tibet, London 1980, p. 103 and plate 78)
11 Lamaist greed and immorality: His Holiness Reting Rinpoche
For the impartial observer, it is often strange how much reason and holiness seem to disappear during the different incarnations. We often see a complete idiot as the incarnation of an exceptional thinker, or a man of pleasure and bon vivant as the representation of a mystic famed for his strong morals and abstinence.1
Due to his lack of scruples, cruelty, and lack of sexual restraint, he made many enemies.
Although he was a monk, the man led a dissolute lifestyle and was much more interested in women and horse racing than prayers and rituals.
Reting, the lama who became regent and was initially considered a cheerful soul in his environment, quickly became a feared tyrant.4 He initially prevailed against Trimön, who seemed to be increasingly mentally confused5 and whom he could easily persuade to resign. In the next five years, it was also easy for Reting to spoon-feed the weak Langdün and run affairs of the state.
He then got in conflict with Langdün over the selection ("the discovery") of the new Dalai Lama. Langdün supported a candidate from among his own relatives and fought on the side of the kashag when it rejected the conditions of the Chinese warlord6 for handing over and bringing to Lhasa the candidate "discovered" on the basis of Reting's information. To displace Langdün, Reting initially threatened to step down himself in order to then – pressed on all sides to please remain in office – complain about the difficult collaboration with Langdün and the lack of effectiveness of dual leadership. As a result, Langdün was deposed. From April 1939, Reting was the sole ruler in Lhasa.
During an audience in his "delightful palace," which reminded the western visitor of "the pleasure palace of a rococo prince", Ernst Schäfer, leader of the German SS expedition, describes "His Holiness"7 with similar fascination and devotion as modern admirers of the 14th Dalai Lama portray their idol. The "ruler of Tibet and highest living Buddha of the land of snows," he writes, "the king and regent, Gyalpo Chutuktu Reting Rimpoché" was "still young, 29-30 maybe, slim, delicate, ascetic, with pale skin, short lama haircut and large dark eyes, which are very pretty and possess the mystical shine of the distinctive, deeply penetrating "lama look." There was "nothing unusual about this slender person with the thin, naked arms" but, alongside the "unique shine" of his eyes and the barely perceivable twitches that spread "across his face like inner lightning," there are apparent in the "living god" when he is thinking or meditating, "two protuberances (...) on the furrowed brow above the eyebrows", "veritable cones of skin. Those are the divine symbols of the living Buddha, the mystical antennae with which he works miracles."8
Reting even worked a type of wonder – albeit a regrettable one – in direct connection with the SS Tibet expedition. Schäfer reports that, in his "film 'Secret Tibet' he could not show any images of the regent," as they were all "blurred," "obscured" or "smudged." He immediately supplies a (scientifically founded?!) explanation of that which he calls a "genuine phenomenon" and is assisted by a "scientist" with a doctor title: Dr. Eberhard Cold, with his "psychology of religion," interpreted (in 1949!) the "strange photographic 'appearance' of the king" as follows: What Schäfer filmed there and what cannot be perceived by the eyes of most people is "some form of unknown radiance." It is "the typical phenomenon of the halo" only that it "emanated from the king's entire body." In Indian and Buddhist "religious circles" it has always been known that "the halo is not only an achievement or decoration of the head – as in Christianity – but rather relates to the whole of the holy one." The "concentrated power of the soul" of such a "being" that radiates here is "of a kind that is only occasionally visible to similarly structured souls, to completely uncomplicated and naïve people, to believers." The camera therefore managed to capture "a spiritual occurrence" of "central importance," which can also make "the healing miracles, the laying on of hands etc. comprehensible."9
However, the "holiness" and "miracles" of their God-Kings had no positive influence on society or political events in Tibet. The Tibet academic Goldstein sees in the Reting years, because of the regent's politics, "a time of increased tensions and discord."10 Reting quickly became the feared autocrat while, at the same time, it became obvious that his private life was increasingly based on the pleasure principle. He had male and female lovers,11 enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle, and spent a large part of his time indulging in pleasures that did not befit his status (of a holy lama).
On the other hand, the regent had considerable business acumen. His labrang12 "became one of the three largest trading companies in Tibet and, because of its exploitative business practices, the most notorious one."13 Ngagchen Rinpoche, the Panchen Lama's colleague in Lhasa, assessed his colleague accordingly: he was "hopelessly venal, even in small matters, and disinclined to view any matter otherwise than from the point of view of his own financial advantage." The British representative in Lhasa, H. E. Richardson, saw things similarly: the regent was "governed by self-interest."14
However, that did nothing to change the fact that most Tibetans continued to see him as a "true and great incarnation" and believed in his magical powers.15
Yet the way he had dispensed with Langdün, the nephew of the deceased Dalai Lama, meant that he had made enemies among the nobility and monks. Other measures Reting introduced were therefore met with criticism: his decision not to appoint to one of the highest public offices Khyungram, the esteemed governor of the Hor province, but instead the father of Phünkang Jetrungla, his lover,16 caused bad blood. Then he chased out the high monastic official Tregang because he had dared to criticise him. When a noble official named Kheme refused to lend Reting's labrang money from the treasury free of interest,17 he humiliated him publicly, in front of a large audience, and replaced him with Cogtray, one of his trusted allies, whose pretty wife was one of Reting's mistresses.18
Once the boy from China, who had been "discovered" as the new Dalai Lama based on Reting's information, had arrived in Lhasa, the regent arranged for his followers to demand from the "National Assembly" appropriate compensation for the successful "search" under his leadership: Reting should receive fifty or sixty of the best government assets for his invaluable service. The aforementioned Khyungram, whom Goldstein describes as incredibly proud and full of spirit, objected to this application and cited a Tibetan saying, which the Rinpoche immediately applied to himself: "Hunger is not satisfied after devouring a mountain, thirst is not quenched after drinking an ocean." It did not take long for the regent to exact revenge for this affront. His followers persuaded some residents of the Hor province to write a petition against the governor accusing him of minor breaches (too much travel, corruptibility). Khyungram was imprisoned on Reting's command on 22nd May 1940 and interrogated under torture (in the form of the ever-popular whipping). The complaint then listed the attempted overthrow of the regent due to the pleading drawn up by Khyungram, which Reting had heard about. In the pleading, the suspect defended himself against the allegations from the province of Hor and expressed the fatal suspicion that the regent was behind the claim. The accused was found guilty of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. He and his family "were completely destroyed."19
After punishing the critics from the circle of noble officials, Reting wanted the clergy to feel his power. He intended to present an abbot of his choice to the monks of the Sera Mey college.20 On the spot, he forced the previous highly este-emed and popular incumbent to resign. Once this became known the Sera Mey monks suggested to the regent – as per the traditional approach – a list of five candidates, which wisely did not include the previous abbot of Töba, whom Reting wanted to impose on them. Furthermore, they added a letter in which they expressed their anger and sadness about the dismissal of their "good abbot" and announced that they would never, under any circumstances, accept the Töba abbot. He was "good in politics but not good in religion."21 Reting was reluctant openly to take action against the rebellious monks (he feared a solidarisation effect in other monasteries) and turned for support to Phabongka, a well-known monk from Sera Mey, who taught in Tashilhunpo. Yet neither his powers of persuasion nor the attempts to intimidate the stubborn monks bore fruit. The regent had to step back and name a candidate who was acceptable to the monks. Yet he took revenge on them by pursuing their former abbot. Because he had apparently "stirred up discord," he lost all his rights and income and had to surrender his apartment in the Sera monastery.
Reting's successor, Taktra Rinpoche
In January 1941, Reting suddenly stepped down while at the height of his power and suggested an over sixty-year old lama named Taktra Rinpoche22 as his successor. He was the commander of a small and humble labrang around thirty kilometres away from Lhasa, had been Reting's teacher for a while and not only had no political experience but also, so it seemed, lacked any form of political ambition. Reting clearly suggested him as a kind of placeholder from whom he expected that he would willingly return the regency to him as soon as Reting wished to return to power. Reting later constantly claimed that such a change had been agreed between them.
There were reasons linked to religious rituals behind the regent's unusual step: as the main tutor of the young Dalai Lama, he was to sanctify him as a novice monk (getsul) and gradually take thirty-six vows from him, including the vow of celibacy. Yet if the person who passed this vow onto the young Dalai Lama had broken it himself, his vows would also be invalid and the entire consecration would become void. As a result, it was Reting's excessive sexual life that caused him to surrender his office temporarily.23 After his resignation, it was now up to the respectable, aged Taktra to end the Dalai Lama's consecration. Thus, at the end of February 1941, the monk Taktra became the new regent of Tibet. This change in personnel at the top initially also brought about a change of style. Western historians praised, for example, the fact that the new regent "did not shy away from putting even high-ranking nobles in their place. He criticised the rude and violent demeanour of the 14th Dalai Lama's father in a public decree and threatened him and his servants with punishment."24 Background: the father of the 14th Dalai Lama, who had ascended into the high nobility only through the choice of one of his sons, was no less greedy for material riches than his friend Reting. He was not satisfied with the feudal houses and estates his family had been given, and was unwilling to pay the normal taxes. Furthermore, he demanded compulsory labour from the serfs of other men and intervened without authorisation in their jurisdiction. The 14th Dalai Lama's father, described as presumptuous, vain, and quick-tempered, even demanded new special signs of respect from everyone. For example, every person on horseback who crossed his path in Lhasa, regardless of their rank, should dismount and show him respect; otherwise, they would run the risk of being attacked by his men. When a seriously ill man, who wanted to visit the doctor at the British Mission, did not immediately get down from his horse, the yabshi kung seized the unlucky man's horse on the spot. He even threatened the abbot of Loseling, who complained to him about the unjustified incarceration of one of the village elders, with a pistol...
Reting Rinpoche, the regent of Tibet (Federal Archive, Image 135-S-12-20-37 / Schäfer, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
The regent of Tibet and tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama with the SS-Hauptsturmführer Bruno Beger (Federal Archive, Image 135-S-13-11-15 / Schäfer, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
On the other hand: the new regent's high moral standards that Goldstein talks about melted, as expected, like snow in the tropical sun – if they had ever even existed. The American professor therefore writes: "Between late 1943 and 1946, the high ethics of Taktra had disintegrated. It had become common for all candidates for high positions to offer large bribes to the Regent's manager."25 Furthermore, the candidates had to be enemies of his predecessor Reting, as a deep sense of hostility and a bitter power struggle had developed between the two holy men. Earlier allies of Reting such as Kapshöba floated with the tide and changed sides.26
Notes
1 A. David-Néel, Magier und Heilige in Tibet, Translated from the French by Ada Ditzen, Munich, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, 2005, p. 147 2 Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte... p. 152 3 Frédéric Lenoir, Tibet: 20 clés pour comprendre, Plon, 2008, p. 62 4 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 310 5 See also Goldstein, ibid., p. 313 6 See the chapter on the 14th Dalai Lama. 7 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 31 8 Schäfer, ibid., p. 31-32 9 Ibid., p. 37-38 10 Yet this characterisation seems to me to fit also the previous Wars of the Diadochi or the rule of the 13th Dalai Lama. Wasn't Tibet's entire history shaped by tensions and discords and only the decades of effective Chinese control, under the Qing emperors, a period of relative calm and stability? 11 Goldstein also calls Namkye Tsedron, the wife of the official Cogtray, Tseyang, the wife of his half-brother, and one of the daughters of Phünkang. See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 357 12 Kollmar-Paulenz describes the Tibetan term as follows: "literally 'lama residence', describes 1) the residence of a lama, 2) the entire possessions of an incarnate lama." In Kleine Geschichte Tibets, p. 201 13 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 331. In the Tibetan monasteries, the monks by no means lived collectively. Rich lamas had their own houses and sources of income. 14 Quotes from Goldstein, ibid. 15 Goldstein, ibid. – The miracles accredited to the young Reting include, for example, these: as an infant, he left footprints in granite rocks, hid a wooden peg in a rock and closed a boiling over clay pot with just his hands, as through it were merely soft clay. See also Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 32; Goldstein, The Demise... p. 357 16 "Reting´s monk-official lover," per Goldstein, The Demise... p. 337 17 It was common before and after the 13th Dalai Lama for those in power to "borrow" public money for private purposes without ever paying it back. 18 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 340 19 Ibid., p. 347 20 Sera Monastery, a few kilometres north of Lhasa, is one of the "three great monasteries" of the Gelugpa sect. It consisted of three colleges or "faculties," Mé, Jé and Ngakpa. Goldstein calls the first two "Mey" and "Che"-College. Although they are a kind of monastic university, only a fraction of the monks there pursued religious studies. 21 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 352 22 The Dalai Lama calls him "Tathak Rinpoché," see also Freedom in Exile, p. 19 or p. 33; also Colin Goldner. 23 The fact that sexual excesses and political intrigues and crimes can be combined with deep religion can also be seen in the biographies of western clerics, for example that of the Borgia Pope Alexander VI. 24 Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte, p. 153 25 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 449 26 See also Goldstein, ibid., p. 448
12 Civil war in Lhasa: political murders, belligerent monks, and a ransacked monastery
The second regent after him, Taktra Rinpoche, had less lax morals but was just as corrupt and power-hungry.
Taktra, the seventy-five-year-old regent, - the 'old man', as he was derogatorily called – had become very unpopular during the previous four or five years. The Reting affair and a resurgence of corruption had eroded the esteem in which Taktra had been held.
In autumn 1944, around ten Sera Che monks and "a monk from Sera Ngagpa Dratshang"3 set off to Lhündrup Dzong, north of Lhasa, to collect interest for a loan that their monastery had granted farmers there. In Tibet, interest rates of 25% per year were common for such loans to farmers or merchants. Debtors who could not or would not pay and thus risked having their entire possessions seized turned to the local administrator for help and mediation. This job was performed by the brother of the trunyichemmo Chömpel Thubten, a powerful Lhasa official and declared follower of Taktra. He initially rejected the claims of the monks from Sera until receiving an explanation of the matter from the government. Their complaint and the information that they urgently needed the funds for an upcoming religious festival did nothing to change his position. However, the abbot of Sera Che, Ngawang Gyatso, a follower of Reting, was by no means willing to forego the interest income. Informed by one of his monks about the unexpected development in Lhündrup Dzong, he sent him back with the order to do everything necessary to collect the interest. Thus, several Sera Che monks went back to the district administrator, this time bearing traditional gifts such as dried mutton legs to win their support for their issue. When, contrary to expectation, the recipient and harassed one remained inflexible, a major dispute broke out that turned into a scuffle, during which a dried mutton leg ultimately did achieve its effect – but not as expected. A heavy blow to the head left the administrator half-dead; the monks hastily fled from his house. The administrator died four or five days later.
The deceased administrator's powerful brother demanded that the Council of Ministers immediately imprison and punish the suspects. Yet the monks from the Sera monastery persistently refused to hand over their irascible colleagues. They were actually only complying with their duties and rights. Instead, Sera declared itself willing to pay a penalty in the form of a collective fine.
Amidst this tense atmosphere Reting, who had withdrawn three years previously to the monastery bearing his name, apparently to meditate and pray, returned to Lhasa with a great deal of pomp (on 3rd December 1944). The ex-regent was equally as unwilling as his followers to believe that Taktra, his creature, had turned against him and no longer wanted to relinquish power. He was convinced that he could persuade Taktra in a personal meeting to withdraw and change.
A personal meeting did take place in Taktra's residence but this did not go at all as hoped: not even the common courtesies were exchanged. Taktra showed his former patron the cold shoulder, did not even hide his contempt. He was also unwilling to discuss the Sera Che conflict, which Reting addressed as an advocate of the monks. Humiliated and angry, according to M. Goldstein, the ex-regent left Lhasa before the Tibetan New Year and withdrew to his monastery.4
Yet the unresolved conflict between the government and the Sera monks escalated further. The Tibetan New Year festivities, during which monks from the three major monasteries in Lhasa were to be present, was approaching and, at the same time, the traditional handover of state power to the monks of Drepung. Sera Che now feared that his monks involved in the Lhündrup Dzong incident could be captured during this occasion. They therefore threatened to boycott the festivities, particularly the mönlam prayer festival, if the government did not renounce the individual punishments of the parties involved. Finally, the government consented to let the controversial matter rest until after the celebrations and not to imprison any Sera monks until there was a final decision. What the monks from Sera Che considered to be a major victory was merely a chess move by the government to win time. It enabled the government to gather a further 1,900 soldiers in Lhasa in addition to the 1,500 already in the city. The government and Taktra party considered that necessary, as the intractable Sera Che monastery and Reting together had around 3,000 weapons and sufficient feared and pugnacious "soldier monks."
Yet even for months after the New Year's festivities, the government avoided direct confrontation, as it feared a bloodbath with an uncertain outcome. Instead, it was decided to overthrow the Sera Che abbot together with his ally, the abbot of Ngagpa, at the start of June during the traditional audience for all Sera abbots at the Norbulingka palace. Ngawang Gyatso suspected something and reported that he was ill, whereby the government notified him in writing of his deposition and demanded that he bring his yellow robe (Chögo), the symbol of his honour, back to Lhasa. Outraged and offended, as not all his monks supported him and his closest consorts in organising the armed uprising, he decided with several brothers to flee to his former home, the Kanze region in Chinese Kham. The government blocked the likely escape routes and soldiers pursued the escapees. During a scuffle a brother of the abbot was killed. The bloodhounds mistook him for the abbot himself and returned to Lhasa with his head and hands as trophies, where the mistake was uncovered. The abbot managed to escape to the Chinese mainland dressed as a beggar and under the nose of the Lhasa soldiers. He was to make a triumphant return to Lhasa a few years later once Chinese control over Tibet had been restored.5
In the meantime, seventeen representatives of the Sera monks had to appear before an investigation commission. They were immediately arrested and two of them whipped before being thrown into prison. In the end, fourteen monks were punished for the Lhündrup Dzong incident. Sera Che had to return its weapons; they were taken from their boxes and placed on the faculty roof. Taktra had, in the interim, named a new abbot of his choice for Sera Che. He also continued with the efforts to cleanse the authorities of Reting supporters. They were either deposed or imprisoned. At the start of November 1946, for example, he took advantage of a dispute in the family of the kashag minister (shape) Phünkang to whip his son Geshela, remove the father from the kashag and arrange for the seizure of two of their estates. Against expectations, the shape's wife, who had started the ball rolling by gossiping about an alleged affair between Taktra and a high-class prostitute, received only a monetary penalty (the talk was initially of blinding and whipping).6
Among other things, Reting's closest advisors were planning7 an assassination attempt against Taktra. However, due to practical problems, they did not execute the plan until February 1947 – and it failed. The hand grenade hidden in a wooden box that was intended for Taktra exploded too early when a nosy subordinate wanted to look inside the mysterious package.
At this time, Gendün Chöpel, a well-known oppositional lama who had previously spent a lot of time in India, was captured, whipped, and then imprisoned. The Taktra government, which had been informed by the British-Indian authorities about his return to Lhasa and warned about revolutionary activities, took Chöpel's activities on behalf of an oppositional, democratic group very seriously. The revelation of a "revolutionary pro-Chinese party,"8 which had gone so far as to print thousands of membership cards and application forms in India, shocked the lamas and aristocrats. In correspondence with the British officer H. E. Richardson, Lhasa also demanded the extradition of Rapga, one of the leaders of this Tibet Improvement Party. However, he could only be deported from British India to China as he had Chinese citizenship.
The ex-regent Reting now also turned to the then Chinese government in Nanking (Nanjing) with an express appeal for "military and political assistance,"9 yet for purely pragmatic and opportunistic reasons. Incidentally, this shows how little even the Tibetan elite felt obligated towards the "independence" of Tibet and any nationalistic goals. What were important to them were power and riches, unfettered access to the state feeding troughs in Lhasa. They were willing to make use of all assistance and allies when pursuing these goals.
The initial contact between the monks under Reting and the Guomintang was made, according to Goldstein, in 1945. The following year, Reting was invited to Nanking for the meeting of the National Constituent Assembly. As he was unable to take part himself, for understandable reasons, he arranged for two close partners from Kham to represent him and, on his behalf, request support for his attempt to regain the regency. He arranged for his counterpart Taktra to be portrayed as pro-British.10
His intentions did not remain secret for long. In 1946, the Briton Richardson notified Taktra of Reting's contact with the national Chinese government. On 14th April 1947, according to Goldstein, a secret telegram from the Tibetan office in Nanking reached the government in Lhasa. The telegram stated that Reting had asked the Chinese government for troops, military equipment, and aeroplanes. The kashag and the regent reacted immediately and decided to arrest the ex-regent. A few high-ranking officers at the head of around two hundred soldiers received the command to search for Reting in his monastery and bring him to Lhasa. He did not put up any resistance and did not attempt to escape. His confidante, Khardo Rinpoche, was also arrested whilst a further ally, Nyungne Lama, took his own life by firing a pistol.
When the news of Reting's capture reached Lhasa, the monks of Sera Che dared to instigate an open uprising and this marked the start of what Harrer called "a minor civil war."11 They killed their new abbot Tendar, the Mongolian geshe12 appointed by Taktra, as well as his manager, who had previously shot several of the fighting monks. Tsenya Rinpoche, a young lama who was considered an incarnation of the Sera Che protective deity and to whom the monks thus ascribed strong supernatural powers, took over leadership of the insurgents. During an evening meeting, they decided to support Reting and send several dozen volunteers to Lhasa to kill one of Taktra's close advisors,13 burn down his house and then get the weapons that were stored in Reting's Labrang.
After a shootout with armed government police, one of whom they killed and one of whom fled, the fighting monks reached the house of Taktra's confidante. However, as he had been expecting an unpleasant visit, he had already escaped to the Potala and had assigned his armed servants the task of defending his residence. During the subsequent shootout, the servants managed to keep the Sera monks at bay and prevent the house being set on fire. The monks therefore headed back to Reting's labrang empty-handed but were again held up when they encountered soldiers who attacked them.
"Panic broke out" in Lhasa itself, as Harrer reports: "The dealers barricaded their shops and took away their goods for safety. (...) The nobles shut the gates of their homes and armed their servants. The whole town was in a state of alert."14 Most of the senior government officials and civil servants had already sought protection in the Potala. Here Taktra, who was now almost seventy, complained of breathing difficulties. When he heard the shots, he had fallen while jumping out of bed and had hurt himself.15 According to Harrer, there was a general sense of fear that "the monks of Sera, who numbered many thousands, would break into Lhasa and pillage the town. And there were others who had no confidence in the army, which was to some extent equipped with modern weapons. Military revolutions were not unknown in the history of Lhasa..."16
To prevent solidarisation between other monks and the monks from Sera Che, Taktra banned all abbots from the "three great monasteries" who had taken part in the "National Assembly" from returning to their monastery. A few other Sera abbots were to order the monks from Sera Che to send representatives to the "National Assembly" to explain their actions and give an account. However, the Sera Che monks were in no way willing to obey and threatened with death those who demanded that they soften their tone. Although they had not held any modern weapons since the end of the Lhündrup Dzong conflict, they were determined to free Reting while he was passing their monastery on the way to being taken to Lhasa. With a few old weapons that they had taken from the central weapons store in Sera they waited in the monastery and in a few strategic positions on surrounding hills for Reting and his guards to come by. Yet the government had also taken military measures in the event of a rescue attempt. When Reting and his guards arrived in the area, hundreds of monks stormed out to rescue him. Yet they came under immediate heavy fire from government soldiers and had to flee empty-handed to the monastery. Reting was brought to Lhasa (on 8th April 1947) and thrown into the prison at the foot of the Potala. The guards there were given orders to kill him immediately if his followers tried to free him again.17
Goldstein calls what followed the "Sera Che war." The insurgents initially attempted a further advance towards Lhasa: when darkness fell, around fifty monks crept into the town to access the weapons stored there. During the subsequent fight with police, five monks died, two were injured and captured. Three of the policemen were also killed or injured. However, the attackers managed to get their hands on a range of weapons, primarily guns.
The following day, the government gave the troops in Lhasa the command to use any means to defeat the Sera Che rebellion. They bombarded the area around Sera Che with artillery, but did not initially dare to make any direct attack with their weak forces. Therefore, a further regiment in Gyantse received the command to march to Lhasa as quickly as possible. The government also called upon the British for help: they asked H. E. Richardson to provide the Tibetan army with the signalman of the British Mission, R. Fox, for the operation, which he did.18 After several days during which the army "bombarded the town and Monastery of Sera with howitzers,"19 the order to attack was issued on 26th April. During the battles the following day, the attackers suffered "heavy casualties," even though they deployed machine weapons and artillery against the monks.20 The monks, however, were completely forced back into the monastery, where the army could easily fire on them from the surrounding hills, also with artillery. Yet they refused to capitulate and the army prepared for one last decisive attack on the morning of 29th April.
Goldstein estimates that between 200 and 300 monks from Sera Che were killed during the fighting. A further twenty-two were captured and punished along with the officials from Reting's labrang. They were all whipped one to two hundred times and put in chains and kangs. Furthermore, five "ringleaders" were to spend the rest of their miserable lives buried alive in a prison cell.
At the same time as the events described in Sera Che were taking place, the "massacre at Reting monastery" also occurred:21 the sixteen soldiers who had remained after the forced departure of the ex-regent were increasingly incurring the hatred and anger of the monks and village residents due to their arrogant and disrespectful behaviour. When they heard about the uprising of their Sera Che colleagues, some of Reting's followers among the monks decided to seize the weapons under lock and key, kill the soldiers and bring the weapons to Sera. In the evening of 23rd April, they stole the weapons while the village residents distracted the soldiers with beer and food. The next morning the soldiers got a rude awakening: when leaving their sleeping chambers, they came under fire from the monks who were waiting to ambush them. Most of them were killed immediately and the rest died during the subsequent shooting.
Yet the rebels of Reting monastery then changed their original plan of going to Sera with their weapons. They feared that their kindred spirits there would be defeated and wanted to provide a secure place of refuge for any escaping Sera Che monks. So they remained in their monastery, built a militia composed only of monks and village residents, established defence points and created barricades. When victory over the Sera monks had been achieved, the government sent troops with 400 men – including cavalry and equipped with four machine guns and a mountain gun – to Reting monastery. After violent fighting, which lasted all day on 9th May and during which soldiers crossing the river on 11th May suffered major losses, the troops ultimately entered the monastery, which they found to have been completely abandoned. The monks and the village residents supporting them had already left.22 One further reason for the frustrated soldiers to loot, destroy and desecrate: they kept their horses in the heart of the monastery, made themselves at home in one of the temples, urinated and relieved themselves everywhere and took everything that wasn't nailed down.
What remained of Reting monastery. (Photo: Antoine Taveneaux, 2009)
Harrer relates the subsequent events in Lhasa: "Many severe floggings were inflicted."23 Moreover: "While the bullets were still pinging through the town, the news of the death of the rebellious ex-regent spread like wildfire among the people."24
Reting died in prison on 8th May 1947 and there is little doubt that he was poisoned at the request of Taktra and other government officials. Shortly beforehand he had complained of a slight headache and asked to be moved to a less gloomy and narrow cell. Kesang Ngawang, Taktra's adjutant, then brought three pills for the prisoner. As Goldstein reports based on witness statements, Reting became very ill after taking the pills: he started to choke, his breathing increased and he became restless. His demand to see the British doctor was not met. He died within just a few hours. At the end, witnesses heard piercing cries of pain from the prison.25 Maybe that is why there was the persistent rumour in Lhasa that he had been killed by someone squeezing his testicles...
Harrer further reports from that time: "All the property of the rebels was confiscated by the Government" and the "houses and pavilions of Reting Rinpoche were demolished and his beautiful fruit trees transplanted into other gardens. The monastery was thoroughly ransacked by the soldiers, and for many weeks afterwards gold cups, brocades and other valuable objects kept turning up in the bazaars."26 The ailing lama state also got its money's worth and looted in its own (legal?) way. Yet this caused Harrer to make not a critical observation but rather a very system-conform one: "The sale of Reting's property realised several million rupees for the Treasury. Among his effects were hundreds of bales of English woollen goods and eight hundred costumes of silk and brocade. This shows how rich one could become in Tibet."27
Notes
1 Frédéric Lenoir, Tibet: Vingt clés... p. 62 2 Goldstein, The Demise, p. 700 3 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sera, accessed on 19th April 2013 4 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 433-437 5 See also, apart from Goldstein, The Demise... p. 437 ff. and p. 441-442, also: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sera, accessed on 19th April 2013 6 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 447-448 7 Nyungne Lama, the Sera Je monk Khardo Rinpoche and Reting's nephew Reting Dzasa 8 Per Goldstein, The Demise... p. 463 – The party had already been founded in 1939 by Tibetan exiles around Pandatsang Rapga, Kumbela and Canglocen Kung, a talented Tibetan poet, in Indian Kalimpong. Its goal was a republican Tibet as a part of China. See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 449-463 9 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 471 10 Ibid. – Chinese historians often see Reting, probably unjustly, as a "patriot" because of these events. 11 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 205 12 Title of a Tibetan Buddhist scholar 13 It was Gyambumgang who, along with Shakabpa, belonged to Taktra's informal "small government." See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 489 and comment 14 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 206 15 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 490 16 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 206 17 All information per Goldstein, The Demise... p. 492-495 18 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 498 19 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 206 20 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 502 21 Goldstein, ibid., p. 516 22 See also Goldstein, ibid., p. 518-520 23 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 207 24 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 206 25 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 510-512 26 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 207-208 27 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 208
13 Reting's most important legacy: a "Chinese" Dalai Lama
The system of the search for, and confirmation of, reincarnation is often interfused with selfish, political and usefulness considerations, so that the results (...) probably rarely match our rationalist concept of truth, but also rarely a religious-spiritual concept of truth. (...) The system (...) conceals the same or even greater dangers of manipulation and abuse as a system of succession.
The life and possessions of Reting Rinpoche, the insatiable, corrupt, and debauched "living Buddha," thus went the way of all earthly beings at an early stage. But he left an important legacy to his religious Tibetans: the new 14th Dalai Lama, who in his autobiography expresses his recognition for Reting, the family friend who was also his First tutor. The regent was "quite imaginative" and a "man who took things easily," the Dalai Lama remembers. "He loved picnics and horses, as a result of which he became good friends with my father." During the consecration of the young Dalai Lama as a monk Reting acted as a kind of Lamaist godfather. On this occasion, the novice rejects his former name in favour of a monk's name that should express his new identity. The young 14th Dalai Lama thus also took, "along with several others," the name of Reting, "Jamphel Yeshe." His name was "now Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso."2 Many decades later he acknowledged that he "still retains a deep personal respect" for the corrupt regent with the lax morals. What he euphemistically describes as "a very sad incident" – namely the failed assassination attempt, the civil war with the Sera monks, the destruction of Reting monastery, "one of the oldest and most beautiful in all of Tibet," and Reting's murder in prison – is merely "a very silly affair" for him.3 Simply too bad?!
Tenzin Gyatso is, of course, permanently indebted to the former regent, as he was "found" based on apparent "visions" and information from Reting. The uplifting story of this "discovery" has probably been told a hundred times, for example by Heinrich Harrer. One of the most naïve accounts comes from Franz Alt, who turns it into a Lamaist Christmas story, not without thus abandoning the last remainder of an enlightened world view. Alt, who is constantly reminded of Jesus in the presence of the Dalai Lama,4 writes: "In contrast with the New Testament, the 'Christian west' does not like dreams anymore. Religious people in the east can only shake their head in light of so much ignorance (!?) and recklessness. In Tibet, visions and dreams are used in the search for a child that will then become secular and spiritual ruler. In Tibetan culture the 'great dream' is still seen as a divine message today – just like the wonderful Christmas story in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. Dreams and visions are the basis of all religions."5
In any case, it's not reason, truth, and verifiable facts. Franz Alt's "wonderful Christmas story in Bethlehem," which does not even appear in two of the four gospels (Mark and John) and has two contradictory versions, serves historical and critical bible research as a prime example of religious fiction without any connection to historical reality.6 As historical research shows, the census mentioned by Luke was never actually held, nor was there the requirement for people to return to the place of their birth. The "infanticide of Herod," which only Matthew talks about, never took place. Nowadays, it is not possible to explain to a bright eight-year old child that Matthew's "Wise Men" from the East – or were they "kings," magicians, astrologers? – were led by a "star" or comet to a certain house or stable without the child asking how a star can only be above one house and not the entire city. It is therefore not surprising that Franz Alt sees the parallels between the Christian Christmas story and the official legend of the discovery of the Dalai Lama. It is also understandable that he absorbs the myth of a two-year old who spoke with "the delegation of monks" who "found" him "in the foreign dialect of the capital city of Lhasa,"7 with the same (feigned?) naivety as the medieval legend of the holy Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
The Dalai Lama biographer, Sabine Wienand, calls the events recounted in the Tibetan counterpart to the Christian nativity "lost in reverie". This naturally also applies to an expanded version intended for a Tibetan public: "Many flourishes that are significant for Tibetans – rainbows, a particular pair of crows, even failed harvests and dying creatures – seem to have been created in Lhasa later. Representations generally tend to follow the picturesque descriptions of Sir Charles Bell," who can hardly be regarded as an objective contemporary witness. "In turn, Bell seems to refer in his descriptions to the 'Report on the Discovery, Recognition, and Installation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama' from Sir Basil Gould," who, for his part, follows a "certain standardised story." He does not seem to have any "own memories of the events."8
Reports of the wonderful circumstances surrounding the "discovery" of the 14th "incarnation" must, of course, be viewed with a lot of scepticism. Wienand reports the opinion of an independent contemporary witness that all the "mystifications" passed on by Gould and Bell were most probably created "subsequently in Lhasa."9 In any case, the belief in reincarnation is in no way better compatible with a sobre, rational view of the world than the belief in a heavenly kingdom, eternal suffering, angels, devils, virgin births, resurrections, and ascensions. Yet what remains of "His Holiness" and the various tulkus if we do not accept these premises of their "holiness?" We can therefore hear a lot of scepticism and doubt when Sabine Wienand writes: "Apart from the search party, nobody heard the three-hour conversation between the two-year old Lhamo Dhöndup and the lamas that has become part of the tradition. His mother remembers that 'They told me afterwards that they had spoken to him in the Lhasa dialect and he had answered them without any difficulty, even though he had never heard this dialect before.' A first wonder as in this region Tsongkha, another Tibetan dialect, or even Chinese is normally spoken. Gyayum Chenmo, 'Great Royal Mother' of Tibet, as Dekyi Tsering was soon called, found the foreign idiom more difficult: 'It took me two years to learn the Lhasa dialect.'"10
The "standardised" kitsch story of a group of monks finding and discovering the young Dalai Lama affected some receptive people in the West and then acted as a kind of gateway drug for "harder" forms of Tibet mania. One of these receptive contemporaries was, in his own words, Patrick French, the "Free Tibet" activist who has already been mentioned many times. The former Catholic boarding school student admits that he "was captivated by the romance" of this story. A search party, that sets off from the far away Lhasa, finds the house seen by Reting Rinpoche in a vision, sends its senior lama to the house dressed as a servant, and ultimately identifies the chosen child, after it recognised a walking stick and drum of the deceased Thirteenth, as his reincarnation.11 Yet, unlike the vast majority of his companions, French was intelligent and curious enough not to permanently make do with the religious legend. He writes, "It was only some years later, when I read the memoirs of a member of the Dalai Lama's family, that I saw the background was more complex. The Dalai Lama's great-uncle and his elder brother were important reincarnate lamas in Amdo, his uncle was financial controller of the nearby Kumbum monastery, and the region's notorious brutal Muslim warlord, Ma Bufang – who was personally instrumental in choosing the Dalai Lama – turned out to be a friend of his mother's family."12 Ma Bufang had a direct financial interest in discovering the new "incarnation" in his domain: he was paid 450,000 Chinese dollars "in the form of twenty tonnes of silver"13 before agreeing to transfer the selected one to Lhasa. So everyone involved got their money's worth. For Lhasa, a Dalai Lama from Amdo had a political advantage, as he could potentially legitimise later claims to Chinese territory. Reting gained respect through the selection of his candidate and influence as the First tutor of the "God-King."14 "His Holiness'" family hit the jackpot. It is not for nothing that Harrer talks, a few years later, about the "Great Parents" or the "Great Mother": "As the mother of three 'Incarnations,' she held the record for the Buddhist world."15
The later 14th Dalai Lama as a child (Photo: unknown author)
So let us focus on facts rather than dreams and fantasy stories. This also includes the following fact: the village of Taktser, where the later 14th Dalai was born on 6th July 1935, was in China, near to the large Kumbum monastery and thus "outside of political Tibet."16 The area belongs to a region known as Amdo by the Tibetans and that the exile government of the Dalai Lama still claims as part of its "Greater Tibet." At the start of the 20th century, the British included it as part of the Chinese "inner Tibet;" it was never ruled by the Lhasa government. The Dalai Lama himself confirmed that "the district where we lived was under the secular rule of China"17 The spiritual leader of the Tibetans is therefore, as Goldner correctly notes, a "Chinese national by birth."18
In Taktser there were, still according to information from the Dalai Lama, alongside fifteen "Tibetan" families also two "Chinese" families. What is true: the entire region has been ethnically mixed from time immemorial. Patrick French reports on a journey to find the birthplace of his idol: "At the crest of the hill was a Muslim village. Flayed sheep hung on poles. An old man with a white beard and lace cap, an umbrella strapped acros his back, gave us directions to Taktser. We drove down to a Chinese neighbourhood, passed children carrying baskets of melons and peppers, and women winnowing grain on the road, who stepped back to allow us to drive over their grain. The next village had tall wooden flagpoles bearing coloured prayer flags. A line of tiny pink pigs ran between two houses. A Tibetan woman in a chuba and head-scarf redirected us to Taktser, a couple of miles away."19 Speaking to the "Free Tibet" activist, the "living Buddha," the incarnate symbol of Tibetan separatism, freely admitted: "My family village I think spoke Chinese in a local dialect, although my elder brother in Kumbum, he could speak Amdo Tibetan. I think my mother understood Amdo Tibetan quite well."20 And what about himself?
"The two-year old," whom the monks from Lhasa identified as a "reincarnation," had the Tibetan nickname Lhamo Dhöndup, but "as well as the Tibetan 'Tsering,'" also bore "a Chinese surname. He used this Chinese surname when introducing himself to the first foreigner that the future Dalai Lama met in 1939 in Kumbum monastery."21 The foreigner was a German Jesuit missionary called Matthias Hermanns. He is a valuable witness of the events around the time of the "discovery" of the new Dalai Lama, as he was "probably the only neutral observer" directly on site. The Dalai Lama biographer Wienand states: "His report seems much more rational, 'more free from wonder' than the official version."22 According to the Jesuit, he asked the young boy in Kumbum monastery in Tibetan: "De mo yin? How are you?" He looked back at him with large, baffled eyes and a monk explained to him: "He doesn't understand Tibetan, his parents only speak Chinese at home." When the Jesuit greeted him in Chinese, he answered in Chinese, and when he asked what his name was, the boy said in Chinese, "My name is Chi."23
Notes
1 Thomas Hoppe, Tibet heute: Aspekte einer komplexen Situation, Hamburg, Institut für Asienkunde, 1997, p. 121 2 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 18-19 3 Ibid., p. 32-33 4 See also: "That could also be a quote from Jesus" or: "This appeal from the 'Pope of the East' reminds of the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount," in Alt et al., Tibet: Schönheit, Zerstörung, Zukunft, p. 25 and p. 26 5 Alt, ibid., p. 12-13 6 Nowadays, "most historians and theologians" believe that these Biblical stories are "literary fiction;" this is also stated under http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weihnachtsgeschichte; accessed on 23.06.2013 7 Alt, ibid., p. 13 8 Sabine Wienand, Dalai Lama XIV, Reinbek bei Hamburg, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2009, p. 20 9 Ibid., comment 35, p. 139-140 10 Wienand, Dalai Lama XIV, p. 19-20. She quotes from Diki Tsering, Mein Sohn der Dalai Lama, Munich 2001, p. 136 11 See also. French, Tibet Tibet, p. 18 12 French, ibid., p. 18-19 13 Goldner, Dalai Lama: Fall eines Gottkönigs, p. 49; Kollmar-Paulenz talks of 400,000 silver coins. (Kleine Geschichte... p. 152) 14 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 122 15 Harrer, ibid., p. 122, 123 and 124 16 Wienand, Dalai Lama XIV, p. 19 17 Dalai Lama, My Land and my people, Warner Books, p. 6, quoted from Wienand, Dalai Lama XIV, p. 19 18 Goldner, Dalai Lama: Fall eines Gottkönigs, p. 49 19 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 106 20 Ibid., p. 284 21 Wienand, Dalai Lama XIV, p. 25 22 Wienand, p. 22 23 Ibid., p. 25
14 The "Tibetan trade mission": Great Britain and the USA refuse to grant the "lama state" international recognition
... that their assistance had reflected their anti-Communist policies rather than genuine support for the restoration of Tibetan independence.
When we assessed the rule of the 13th Dalai Lama and his politics of "independence" from England's favours, we acknowledged his failure in terms of gaining international recognition for his state. This was not to change fundamentally under the regents Reting and Taktra. Shortly before and during the 2nd World War, there was a brief and inconsequential love affair with Japan and Hitler's Germany: Schäfer's SS expedition was welcomed exceptionally warmly by the regent and other dignitaries and, while the Japanese invaders in China rampaged, the Lhasa government retained a benevolent neutrality towards the aggressor. This manifested itself, for example, in the refusal to allow the transit of allied supplies and weapons to China.
After the war, there were only two states that could have helped the Lhasa government to achieve full diplomatic recognition: the old ally and supporter Great Britain, with whom relationships had since cooled down and whose colonial empire was in the process of being broken up, and the new superpower of the USA, which had since extended its feelers as far as Lhasa.
On 12th December 1942, the American agents Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan arrived in Lhasa with 100 kg of equipment. Their official assignment was to find out about possibilities for supplying the allied Chinese troops from India via land. Their stay, which came about with the help of British bodies in India and without the Chinese confederates being consulted – even London didn't know about it – lasted an unusually long time: they spent three whole months in Tibet and collected all possible information and held discussions with British civil servants and members of the Tibetan elite. They asked for three fully equipped, wide-reaching transmitters, a request that found a passionate supporter in OSS Director2 "Wild Bill" Donovan as, for the measly 4,500 US dollars that they cost, they would "open up all Tibet regions, 1,200 east and west for Allied influence and further modernization of territory which (would) be strategically valuable in the future."3 Although the State Department resisted the intention and suggested that the gift could be politically "embarrassing" and might irritate and offend the friendly Chiang Kaishek government, the transmitters reached Lhasa in November 1943.
After the end of the war, in January 1947, George R. Merrell from the US Embassy in New Delhi sent a long telegram to Washington, in which he campaigned for an American mission to Lhasa: Tibet is namely of major strategic importance both ideologically and geographically, and could serve as an excellent stronghold against the growing Soviet influence in the region.4 The end of the war (i.e. the defeat of the Axis Powers), which had seemed unthinkable in Lhasa at the start of 1945, also awakened the diplomacy of the Lhasa government from its deep sleep. A re-evaluation of the already existing relationships between the two victorious powers of Great Britain and the USA – the country that had emerged as the successor to the British Empire – could have triggered a breakthrough on an international level and diplomatic recognition from other countries.
Yet the chances of achieving this were initially somewhat poor. The American foreign ministry was still taking care not to offend China, which had been connected with the USA during the Second World War. Therefore, foreign minister Dean Acheson rejected an official American mission to Lhasa in early 1947. Yet he had no objections to trips that remained "unobtrusive and unofficial." The US ambassador in New Delhi voluntarily followed these guidelines and confirmed that Washington, "in order to avoid any future conflicts over the issue of Tibetan independence," would address "all future official correspondence to Lhasa" to the "Foreign Bureau" rather than the – as the Tibetan government calls it – "Foreign Office." That would mean, according to Grunfeld, "official U.S. acknowledgement that Lhasa's office was merely a component of the Chinese Foreign Office and did not represent an independent nation."5
In Lhasa, a decision was made to achieve, or obtain by devious means, the previously denied international recognition via the circuitous route of a "trade mission."6 The Tibetan emissaries7 travelled via India, initially to the former Chinese capital of Nanking, and then subsequently visited the USA, Great Britain, and Switzerland.
Why are we using the term "trade mission" in quotation marks? Simply because it is a misleading term and the people sent from Lhasa were never really assigned to promote Tibetan overseas trade, which barely even existed. It was limited to a few items. The most important good had only been tea imported from inside China (around ten million tonnes). Low quality Chinese tea, pressed into blocks, is the main ingredient of the Tibetan national drink of butter tea. Water, salt and (often rancid) butter are added to the tea and it is drunk in large quantities. The silk materials so beloved by the aristocracy also came from within China. Tibet primarily imported from India a few western products (soap, matches, buttons and nails), and in very small amounts. The principal exports were poor quality wool, yaks' tails, fur, musk, and deer antlers.8
Professor Grunfeld also believes that, in view of the meagre significance of overseas trade, doubts about the official goal of the "trade mission" are permitted. That is why people at the time were also puzzled about the actual goals of the Tibetans. Arthur J. Hopkinson, the last British-Indian Political Officer for Sikkim with close contacts to the Tibetan aristocracy was convinced that their actual plan was to buy gold and silver.9 Indian officials informed the US ambassador that, in their opinion, the only purpose of the mission was to enrich those who took part in it.10 In particular, they expressed the concern that gold could flow back to India and be sold there at greatly increased and highly profitable black market prices.
Whatever the case: the journey of the "Tibetan trade mission" is always cited by the Tibet lobby as evidence of the international recognition of Tibet as an independent state. The leader of the delegation, Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, later stated one of their goals as being to prove Tibet's independence and sovereign status.11 He claimed that the delegates used Tibetan passports and travel documents the whole time and that these were recognised and accepted by all the countries they visited, which signalled an (implicit) recognition of Tibetan independence by these countries. Heinrich Harrer also claims that the Tibetans had travelled officially as "a national delegation" and held "diplomatic passports."12
The comment of the Tibet historian Grunfeld is clear here: "Recently declassified U.S. government documents reveal that this, in fact, was not the case, and Shakabpa had been so informed."13 At that time, the trade mission did not require any travel entry documents for India; they travelled to Nanking with Chinese passports. The British issued individual visas after some wavering back and forth but the government informed Washington that the trade mission was viewed in England as "a private commercial affair" and the Tibetans were not travelling "in any official capacity."14 The seal initially issued on the Tibetan passports by the British embassy in Nanking was subsequently explained by the Foreign Ministry as a regrettable error and the ambassador was rebuked.15 The Tibetans also did not hold any political discussions in Great Britain. Furthermore, the British government kept the Chinese embassy continually up to date. The situation in Switzerland (Geneva) was no different; there the delegation was even always accompanied by a secretary of the Chinese embassy, probably at the request of the Swiss government. What is also noteworthy: no Swiss newspaper reported on the visit.16
As the Tibetans did not want to or could not show any Chinese passports, the American visas were issued based on Form 257. This is reserved for travellers who do not hold passports issued by a government recognised by the USA. The American embassy in Nanking expressly informed the Chinese government in July 1948 that issuing the visas in no way signified a change in American policy in terms of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. The same message was sent to the Chinese ambassador in Washington, Wellington Koo.
As the Tibetans wanted to arrange an official meeting with the President, allegedly to give him a letter and gifts from the Dalai Lama, the American side had to solve a sensitive diplomatic task. On the one hand not offending the Chinese government by enhancing the status of the Tibetan visitors and, on the other hand, not abruptly dismissing a friendly gesture from the Dalai Lama. So, they decided to make a compromise: the Tibetans could meet Truman but only along with the Chinese ambassador. However, the Tibetans rejected this so that there was ultimately no meeting. Nevertheless, effectively as a consolation, a meeting was agreed with George C. Marshall, the Secretary of State, and the sale of 1,420 kg of gold was arranged. The Department of State took the opportunity to expressly inform the Ministry of Finance that such a transaction would not affect American acknowledgement of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.17 The US Embassy in India was also asked to inform the Indian authorities that the gold transaction (that was ultimately not realised) did not "constitute recognition of the Tibetan administration as a sovereign government."18
In summary: the assertion that the journey of the Tibetan trade mission was the ultimate proof (because visas were issued) of the fact that the countries they visited acknowledged Tibet, at least indirectly, as a sovereign state has no basis in fact. The opposite is the case: the "Tibetan trade mission" shows that the countries visited at the time recognised and repeatedly affirmed Chinese de jure sovereignty over Tibet. A. Tom Grunfeld wrote about the stance of the USA: "Until 1949, American policy and attitudes towards Tibet were unequivocal. As far as Washington was concerned Tibet was, in some form or other, a part of China – albeit while enjoying an extraordinary amount of independence from the central Chinese government."19 It was only when the Chinese civil war started to develop against the Guomintang government, which was strongly supported by the USA, that a change in the American stance started to loom. This was now increasingly characterised by anti-Communism, the "Cold War" and the "roll back" strategy. Grunfeld emphasised that it was never about any morally motivated engagement for Tibetan "independence"; in documents from that time even searching for the term is futile. Rather, "the United States saw the Tibetans as just another partner in an anti-communist crusade designed, at the least, to bring pressure to bear on China and, at the best, topple the communist government."20
When Tibetan representatives, led by Shakabpa, met with Prime Minister Nehru on 8th September 1950 and asked India, at the eleventh hour, to support the Tibetan claim for independence and assume a role as a guarantor for an agreement with China, Nehru replied "that India would continue its policy of outwardly recognizing Tibet as a part of China but would also continue to consider Tibet as internally autonomous."21 India as a guarantor was a claim that came thirty years too late. He was annoyed by the assertion from the Tibetans that an international agreement, from Simla, had recognised Tibet's independence, and emphasised: "There is no separate treaty like this, and China never accepted the Simla agreement."22
Notes
1 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 282 2 After the war, the OSS secret service became the CIA. 3 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 86 4 See also Grunfeld, ibid., p. 87 5 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 87 6 See also Goldstein, The Demise, p. 572 7 There were four officials, including the wealthiest merchant in Tibet and an interpreter. 8 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 88, and Goldstein, The Demise... p. 571 – Tibetan wool was used by the US automobile industry as a filler for car seats; the yaks' tails were used in India as fly swatters. 9 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 88 10 See also ibid., p. 89 11 See also ibid., p. 88 12 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 219. The reference to the "diplomatic passports" (Sieben Jahre, p. 317) is missing in the English edition. 13 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 89 14 Office of Intelligence Research "Tibet", cited by Grunfeld, ibid, p. 89 15 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 587 16 Information per Grunfeld, The Making... p. 90 17 See also ibid., p. 91 18 Grunfeld, p. 91, he cites from Foreign Relations of the United States 1948, p. 757-758 and 1949, p. 1064-1078 19 Grunfeld, ibid. 20 Ibid., p. 95 21 Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, volume 2, 1951-1955: The Calm before the Storm, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press, 2007, p. 44 22 Ibid., p. 45
15 A new type of army, Red Scare and 17 points as the basis for peaceful liberation
They were much more powerful when they returned than they had been before. While they marched through the Tibetan regions and towns, no shots were fired at them and they were often welcomed warmly. The foreigners lamenting the fate of a nation that had fallen victim to shameful aggression had been extremely ill-informed.
The signing of the Seventeen-Point Agreement has often been contested as invalid in the West and in the Tibetan exile community because of a charge that the Tibetan delegates were forced to sign under duress and because the Chinese used forged Tibetan government seals. However, the facts do not support this assertion.
In 1949, the Chinese civil war was coming to an end. On 1st October, Mao Zedong proclaimed in Peking the People's Republic of China; the remainder of the Chiang Kai Shek army, which had been heavily supported and equipped by the USA, had taken flight. In its New Year's message on 1st January 1950, Radio Peking stated that one of the most important tasks of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for the coming year was to free Tibet, Hainan, and Taiwan.
What kind of army was this, which called itself the "People's Liberation Army" (and has kept this name until today)? Once again it is the indefatigable Asia traveller David-Néel who gives us an impartial impression of the soldiers and officers of this truly untypical troop. The Frenchwoman was in China again after 1936 where she, along with millions of Chinese refugees, escaped further to the west in the face of the advancing regiments of the Japanese Emperor. At a train station, soldiers en route to the frontline mixed among the crowds of people who had been snatched from their homes by the war: "Among them I again saw young soldiers, who were well-dressed and who paid straight away for what they had eaten, without haggling. They also spoke politely with the owner of the snack bar. These manners were new to me. During my earlier stays in China I had always encountered soldiers who served themselves as the fancy took them, insulted the innkeepers and shop owners and took their booty without ever even thinking about paying for it. I was told that these new soldiers belonged to regiments from the Communist forces in the south, who were advancing to the furthest front."3 A little while later she observed PLA soldiers unloading a freight train and the scene again struck her as noteworthy: "These soldiers were wearing clean uniforms; they performed their work well and in a good-humoured manner, under the leadership of an officer whose friendly behaviour contrasted with the usual arrogance of the higher ranks in Asia. As the goods clearly had to be unloaded quickly, the officer pitched in by loading sacks onto his shoulders while laughing and joking with his subordinates. All of them were young, swift and seemed incredibly likeable. I was again told that they belonged to the Communist forces. They were indeed Communist troops, who had come running to stop the first assault in Chansi and I heard that they were the only ones with good discipline and weapons.(...) It is in any case true that, despite the war that Chiang Kai Shek was waging against them after he had split up with them, and despite the massacres arising from it, the Communists had immediately been willing to serve their country and defend it against the aggressors."4 Under the impressions of these experiences, she noted: "How much it had changed, this China, where I had lived for so long and had left fifteen years ago!"5
However, change was no pleasant perspective for most Tibetan aristocrats and high lamas. When the victory of the Communists in the civil war was looming, they fluctuated between panic-stricken fear of the Communists and self-deception, fueled by wild wishful thinking and profound ignorance. David-Néel commented in this regard that "the country squires in those regions" into which the PLA was to advance "naturally pictured the behaviour of the Chinese soldiers in exactly the same way as they knew it from the stories about the battles in Tibet and its closest neighbours, and exactly how they would undoubtedly have behaved themselves if they were in the same position: they would go looting."6 They would probably also have pillaged, raped and massacred. At any rate, David-Néel felt that the Tibetan notion of how a victor should behave had remained "at the utmost Barbarian level."7
The wealthiest Tibetans illegally arranged for their precious movable belongings, jewellery, and gold, to be transported to Sikkim and India; many also settled there, primarily in Kalimpong. Even the young Dalai Lama himself fled, after asking all important oracles and upon the advice of those around him, to the border town of Yatung, accompanied by hundreds of laden pack animals, which brought his (Tibet's!?) transportable riches and treasures to Sikkim. Shortly beforehand, the sixteen-year old had been hastily appointed to office and the regent Taktra forced to resign after consulting several oracles and protective gods, including via a kind of divine verdict lottery.8
David-Néel commented: "The young Dalai Lama (...), possibly half Chinese, also fled. More precisely: people from his surroundings took him out of Lhasa before Chinese troops could manage to get there. He took with him a large number of officials, servants of differing ranks and a caravan of more than one thousand mules plus a range of carriers, which transported boxes full of gold and valuables from the treasures of the Potala. Where did these refugees actually go? – The same ignorance of the current political circumstances in Asia, which let them believe that a British intervention on their behalf was conceivable, undoubtedly triggered even more absurd dreams. They were wrong about the significance that the world ascribed to their country with its backwards civilisation, which had neither a modern culture nor a powerful army."9
The French Buddhist then reported about the noble refugees in Kalimpong: "A few months passed, the filthy rich Tibetans spent a lot of money because life in the now overpopulated town was expensive and their normal sources of income had dried out. Furthermore, they were not treated there with the desired respect but were instead viewed as foreigners, so that they were subjected to some formalities that are used to bother anybody who dares to set foot outside of the territory in which they have been born..."10 Their "state" had, of course, failed to provide them with any personal documents, identification cards or passports. Most of them eventually returned to Lhasa.
The central committee of the Communist Party in China planned to "free" Tibet in a peaceful manner if possible, as they said. In doing so, they tried to convince the Tibetan elite that they could initially continue to lead their existing life and that they would not bear the cost of Tibet returning under the wings of the central government. The Khampa revolutionary Phünwang, who had played an important role in preparing for the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet, reported that gifts were bought (Japanese swords, radios, silk brocade etc.) that were to be handed over to the Tibetan aristocracy when the opportunity arose.11 At the same time, there was also a desire to exert pressure on the obdurate members of the Lhasa aristocracy and lama elite, to make clear to them that the times and power relationships had fundamentally changed and that, as a result, the time of de facto "independence" of Lhasa had passed. Phünwang wrote: "We were trying to do two things at once. On the one hand, we were organizing for a military attack. On the other, we were doing what we could to persuade the Tibetan government to accept peaceful liberation. We sent religious leaders like Geda Trulku to Chamdo to talk with Lhalu, the government-general who had succeeded Yuthok. And I went to see Panda Tobgye and persuaded his brother, Apo Raga, also go to Chamdo and try to influence Lhalu."12
Yet the "living Buddha" Geda, who had been sent by the central government and was meant to travel further to Lhasa for negotiations, was captured in the border town of Chamdo (Qamdo) and murdered there in August 1950. According to the Chinese version, the Briton Robert Ford, who was there as an advisor, radio operator and spy, was directly involved in the murder.
A division of the 18th army under Fan Ming in 1951 en route to Lhasa
Soldiers of the Lhasa army lay down their weapons after their defeat in Chamdo.
In the event that a military approach could not be avoided, the PLA soldiers had the strict order not to harm the farming population in any way or affect their way of life and culture. As it is difficult to stop hungry soldiers from getting food from the local population, the PLA developed a long-lasting and easily transportable form of power nutrition, which the soldiers were to take with them on the march through Tibet.13 It was impressed upon them that under no circumstances were they to take something from people using force and that they must always "respect the symbols of the indigenous nationality, culture, and religion."14 The PLA had previously gathered experience in the Tibetan populated border regions and had been actively supported by the population who, for example, provided several thousand yaks for transport purposes, as the Communist army paid good money for these.15
The demand sent to the Lhasa government by messengers was that they must negotiate a peaceful release. Yet Lhasa gave no answer for several months; rather, it sent representatives such as Shakabpa and Changöpa to India, so that they could implore Great Britain, India, and the USA for military assistance.16 For his part Lhalu, the General Governor of eastern Tibet,17 gave the border troops hope: the Chinese Communists would not be coming to Tibet so quickly. Lhasa would send reinforcements and modern weapons so that the PLA could be prevented from crossing the border river at that time (the upper course of the Yangtze). India actually did provide concealed military assistance, albeit very reluctantly, in the form of military advisers and supplies of weapons.
Unless Lhalu's confidence was merely fake, it indicates a well-advanced loss of reality. According to information from Goldstein, he was in command of around 3,500 soldiers, some of them over fifty and others under sixteen. Their commanders generally had no military training as any official could serve as an officer. Opposing them on the other side, in Derge and Batang (western Sichuan) on the former Tibetan border, the PLA had gathered together 20,000 battle-tested, well-equipped, highly motivated soldiers led by experienced officers.18 Overall, the People's Liberation Army had more than five million men at that time. Moreover, the local Khampa population was not exactly well-disposed towards the Lhasa government;19 well-known local Khampa leaders and higher-ranking religious people instead actively supported the Chinese Communists.20 However, Lhalu dared to build up a Khampa militia, against the advice of those around him, who feared that they could turn against the Lhasa troops. The government there sent, among other things, British machine guns and a trainer from the bodyguard regiment, but above all (in December 1949), the Briton Robert Ford with three radios and another four radio operators trained in British India. These were to strengthen the fighting power of the Lhasa troops through improved communication. At the same time, the Briton Reginald Fox was commissioned to maintain radio contact with Robert Ford and develop a Lhasa radio broadcaster, so that the viewpoint of the Lhasa government could be sent around the world in Tibetan, Chinese and English.
After months of waiting, when it became clear that Lhasa was not willing to negotiate but, on the contrary, was preparing for an armed confrontation, the central government decided to send the 18th army on 7th October 1950 across the Upper Yangtze river. Within twelve days the Lhasa army in Chamdo was crushingly defeated: 180 Tibetan soldiers died or were injured, 898 were captured, including the Governor General Ngabö Ngawang Jigme, who had just replaced Lhalu. A further 4,317 armed soldiers surrendered.21
Ngabö, who was later to play a major role, came from the Tibetan high nobility. His ancestors were, as the Gelders wrote, "kings in Tibet thousands of years ago." He was also a member of the government and "owned 4,000 square kilometres of land and 3,500 serfs."22
He and the around thirty captured Lhasa civil servants were treated exceptionally courteously, as the peaceful liberation of Tibet remained "the priority" of the central government. For example, they were allowed to eat together with the higher PLA officials and continue to wear their distinguished garments. Ngabö obtained his old luxury abodes.23 In a letter delivered to the Tibetan Council of Ministers by two freed civil servants, the captured dignitaries reported on the consideration and respect shown by the PLA to the population and political and religious leaders in Chamdo. They advised urgently acting to prevent unnecessary bloodshed and destruction. It took a while for the answer to be received that a five-person delegation from the Tibetan government would travel to Beijing.24 Two delegates, Thubden Lengmön and Sampo Sey, rode from Lhasa via the countryside to Chamdo and from there travelled together with Ngabö to Beijing. Kheme, the supreme commander of the Tibetan army, reached the Chinese capital together with a high-ranking monastic official (Lhautara) along the sea route via India.
The group around Ngabö, who was travelling with his wife and servants, was personally welcomed at the train station in Beijing by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. The Tibetans who arrived from Yadong a few days later brought with them a ten-point comprehensive position paper that, after reviewing it in detail, the delegates dismissed as unrealistic. They therefore didn't even show it to the Chinese side. Under no circumstances did the kashag want to let Chinese soldiers into Tibet. The affiliation of Tibet to China was, on the other hand, not negotiable for the central government, and the right to position soldiers on its borders is one of the sovereign rights of any state. The kashag ultimately had to give in on this point, nolens volens, as otherwise the arrival of the PLA in Tibet would have been unavoidable. Ngabö therefore pleaded among the Tibetan delegation not to consult with Yadong about every decision, as he feared that the conservative circles of monks within the government would, due to their ignorance of the modern world, stubbornness, and total misjudgement of the situation, prevent any progress in negotiations or at least draw them out endlessly. He feared that the government in Beijing would lose their patience and abandon their course of peaceful settlement, with fatal consequences for Tibet. He personally assumed responsibility for this process. If, at the end of a negotiated agreement, the Tibetan government did not want to accept it they could always declare it invalid with reference to the delegation having overstepped its competence. The other delegates agreed.25
Members of the local Tibetan government welcome General Zhang Guohua, 26th October 1951.
The subsequent negotiations in the Beijing Hotel, which started on 29th April 1951, were performed, at least officially, on the Tibetan side by Ngabö. Phüntso Wangye (Phünwang), who acted as interpreter during the negotiations, emphasised however that Kheme actually made the decisions during the Tibetan's private discussions. Kheme was the uncle of the powerful Surkhang, was involved in the "discovery" of the 14th Dalai Lama and was together with him in Yadong at the border with Sikkim, so that he was more familiar with the current mood in the court and Lhasa government than Ngabö. His position had also been weakened by rumours that he had been bought by the Chinese.26
A major point of contention in the negotiations with the Chinese People's Government was initially the question of the relationships between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, whose latest incarnation Lhasa had to date not yet wanted to acknowledge. The Chinese side ultimately demanded that the dispute within Tibet be settled, whereby the Dalai Lama finally decided to acknowledge the 10th Panchen Lama, reassert his historic rights and let him return to Shigatse and Tashilhunpo.
As already mentioned, the Tibetan side most strongly resisted the sending of PLA troops to Tibet and stationing them there. If necessary, it was willing to acknowledge the affiliation of Tibet to China, yet wanted to prevent, if possible, concrete measures arising from this. It ultimately consented, but it was agreed in a secret additional protocol that as few Chinese soldiers as possible should come to Tibet and that two members of the kashag should form part of the military commission to be created. The Lhasa armed forces should gradually be integrated into the PLA. Furthermore, the local Tibetan government should be allowed to keep its own police forces.
The central government ensured the Tibetans that the social circumstances in Tibet should (initially) remain unchanged and that the secular and clerical elite would retain their privileged positions. Above all, the Dalai Lama's status should not change. Social reforms would only be performed amicably and without compulsion, if desired by the Tibetan population.
When the negotiations ended after around one month, "Ngabö told the Chinese he had the authority to sign but did not have his official seals. The Chinese asked if their duplicates would be acceptable, and the Tibetans agreed to that arrangement."27 On 23rd May both sides signed the "Agreement between the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet," which is known as the 17 Point Agreement. A photo in Goldstein's biography of the Tibetan Communist and interpreter Phünwang shows the Tibetan delegates writing the Tibetan version. They are sitting in a traditional fashion on a carpet, together with the Khampa revolutionary.28 After the agreement had been signed, there was a "large party" attended by 300 people including Zhu De, the supreme commander of the liberation army. Ngabö then returned to Lhasa with the original copy of the contract in his luggage. General Zhang Jingwu, a veteran of the "Long March," fled (along with members of the Tibetan delegation) with a copy for the Dalai Lama to Yadong. There the god-king informed him that he had already decided to return to Lhasa. However, he initially avoided any official statement on the 17 Point Agreement and first wanted to meet Ngabö and see the original.
The Dalai Lama's "Tibetan exile government" and the "Free Tibet" community claim today that the agreement was signed "under threats and coercion" and that "the Chinese leadership" had "printed a false seal of the Tibetan government on it." Furthermore, it came into force "even though the Tibetan government initially resisted this falsified document with all its powers."29 The Dalai Lama himself claimed that the Tibetan delegates had been insulted, mistreated and personally threatened and they had not been permitted to consult him or his government.30 None of these often-repeated assertions stands up to scrutiny.31
In reality, the Dalai Lama returned to the Tibetan capital in early July 1951 – after the 17 Point Agreement that he had apparently rejected so vehemently and in anticipation of the PLA units marching to Lhasa. He did not listen to opponents of either the agreement or his own return (Surkhang, Shakabpa, Namseling, his supreme chamberlain Phala). He did not leave his refuge in Yadung and head towards the Indian border. He also did not respond to the offers from the American government to reject the agreement and set off in golden exile towards Sri Lanka, Thailand, or the USA. He ignored the advice of his two older brothers, Lobsang Samden and Taktse Rinpoche, who, on behalf of the CIA, wanted to convince him to flee to Kalimpong, where the family had long owned a luxury lodging.
From 28th September 1951,32 the Tibetan "National Assembly" (i.e. the kashag's Council of Ministers plus the abbots from the three great monasteries) was in session in Lhasa, where Ngabö defended his approach and explained the agreements with the central government. After lengthy consultation, the "National Assembly recommended that the Dalai Lama accept the agreement and make a public announcement, in effect officially ratifying the Seventeen-Point Agreement."33 On 24th October, the 14th Dalai Lama sent an official confirmation via telegram to Mao Zedong. The telegram stated, "The local government of Tibet, the monks and the entire Tibetan people express their unanimous support for this agreement." It was negotiated by kalön Ngabö "and another four plenipotentiary delegates" and "signed on a friendly basis."34 Patrick French, the prominent "Free Tibet" activist, could not avoid confirming: "Contrary to retrospective popular belief, which casts Ngabö as a solo villain on a frolic of his own, the Seventeen Point Agreement was endorsed by both the Tibetan government and the Tsongdu, the national assembly, and was not repudiated until the Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959."35
Notes
1 David-Néel, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 1036 2 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 106 3 David-Néel, Sous des nuées d´orage, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 702 4 Ibid., p. 707 5 Ibid. – Truly impressed by the "pleasant men" from the PLA was also, for example, the Frenchman Migot: they do not play the "typical parasitic role" but rather help the villagers with their work and maintain "perfect" discipline without any external compulsion. (Migot, Tibetan Marches, London 1955, p. 275, 277) 6 David-Néel, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 979 7 David-Néel, ibid., p. 970 – See her statements on the Tibetan national epic Gesar von Ling, whose eponymous hero, an incarnate god, "creates" the kingdom of justice "through terror." The epic indulges in endless description of Gesar's bloody battles, massacres, lootings, arson attacks and other atrocities. For example, after a victorious battle Gesar demands that the enemy General Kula be skinned alive, because he ascribes magic powers to his skin and wants to be wrapped up in it. See ibid., S. 970-976; see also other real massacres perpetrated by the Tibetans, for example the massacre of April 1905 in Batang, about which Bonet reports: the lamas in the region, who feared for their power, exercised "the most barbaric revenge" on the Chinese and foreign missionaries with the help of armed bandits. The Chinese garrison of more than one hundred soldiers, who had laid down their weapons against the promise of free passage, were massacred down to the last man. The paters Mussot and Soulié suffered the same fate. On 27th April, eleven Tibetan patriarchs, who had converted to Catholicism, were barbarically tortured and then shot in Yerkalo. (A. Bonet, Les chrétiens oubliés du Tibet, Paris, 2006, p. 212-213) 8 See also Grunfeld, The Making of... p. 109 and Goldstein, The Demise, p. 701 ff. 9 David-Néel, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine nouvelle, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 979-980 10 David-Néel, ibid., p. 979 11 See also Goldstein/Sherap/Siebenschuh, A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 137 12 Ibid., p. 138-139 13 See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 137 14 Ibid., p. 136 and 137 15 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 40 16 They met, for example, on 16th October, with the American ambassador to discuss American military assistance. Per Goldstein, The Calm... p. 51 in a comment. 17 He was the son of Lungshar, who avoided the ban on holding public office through the lie that he was not the biological son of the blinded one. 18 French states, without any more detailed information, the figure of 40,000. The former leading "Free Tibet" activist had clearly not freed himself from the typical over-exaggerations of the scene, even though he laments some of them publicly. 19 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 639 and p. 641; see also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 108 20 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 640; Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 133, p. 144 (on Geshe Sherap Gyatso), p. 137 (on Panda Tobgye among others), p. 147 etc. 21 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 108 and Goldstein, The Calm... p. 48 ff. 22 Stuart and Roma Gelder, The Timely Rain: Travels in New Tibet, Foreword by Edgar Snow, London, Hutchinson, 1964, p. 62 23 See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 141 – The Catholic history teacher Deshayes does not provide much evidence of his seriousness as a historian when he writes, naturally without stating sources or even a trace of evidence, that Ngabö was "re-educated in the Chinese prisons!" In Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 323 24 See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 143 25 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 760 26 Phünwang counters this and similar rumours and considers them to have been plucked out of thin air. See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 145-146 27 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 113 28 See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 152 29 Tenzin Choedrak, Palast des Regenbogens, p. 142 30 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 111 31 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 111-112; Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 140-153; Goldstein, The Demise... p. 761 ff. 32 See also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 812 33 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 113; also Goldstein, The Demise... p. 812. They refer to the Dalai Lama himself and the monastic official Lhautara as sources. 34 Goldstein, The Demise... p. 812-813 and Goldstein, The Calm... p. 226. The whole text can be read there, as well as Mao's response. Goldstein quotes as sources Hsinhua, Tass and the archive of the British Foreign Ministry. 35 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 202
16 "Winds of Change" – approaches to reform, a political honeymoon, and a forgotten love poem
Although many of the more barbaric and objectionable aspects of Tibetan customary law and justice were discouraged and in actual practice abandoned, the main body of Communist China's statutory law was never enforced in Tibet.
The behaviour imputed to the Chinese Communists by the Tibetan exiles and their western supporters would have completely contradicted their political line and strategy. Goldstein emphasises that Mao was very well aware: "China's long-term national interests were served best not by quickly destroying the old Tibet but rather by slowly winning over Tibetans to become loyal citizens of a new China."2 A document from the central committee quoted by Grunfeld presents the Chinese "united front" policy. This policy expressly stipulated, "winning over the Dalai Lama and the majority of his leaders and isolating the handful of poor elements." No violence should be used when implementing the agreement. Economic and social changes in Tibet should be made gradually over several years and without any bloodshed. The central committee's document emphasises that "to force its implementation will do more harm than good." They would even have to forego primary schools if desired by the Tibetan side. The document also states, "Let them go on with their insensate atrocities against the people, while we on our part concentrate on good deeds – production, trade, roadbuilding, medical services, and united front work (unity with the majority and patient education)."3 In an address in Chengdu Deng Xiaoping, for example, warned the first civil cadres sent to Tibet that they were not to talk about class struggle and socialism there. They should limit themselves to helping the Tibetans.4 Indeed, during that time "the Chinese were respectful of Tibetan customs and institutions and were not trying to incite class hatred among the masses."5 No measures were taken against religion and the clergy. In contrast, "the monasteries were actually given additional subsidies by the Chinese government."6 It also provided USD 500,000 for renovating the Lamaist temple in Peking and, in 1957, gave Tibetan Muslims money for their pilgrimage to Mecca.7
How were the Han, whether soldiers or civil cadres, accepted by the Tibetans? It depended. Harrer's comrade Aufschnaiter "told British diplomats in Kathmandu that ordinary Tibetans liked the Han because they were honest and they distributed land." The young generation of the aristocrats also saw the presence as "an opportunity to make positive changes": "Many who had been previously studying in British-style schools in India voluntarily transferred to the Central Institute for National Minorities in Beijing."8 Goldstein names a range of progressive officials from among the aristocracy and clergy who wanted to work together with the central government and saw the long-awaited opportunity finally to reform state and society.9
The young Bengali diplomat Sumal Sinha, the only foreign contemporary witness from the early 1950s in Lhasa, reported to New Delhi, "One is confronted with the unusual spectacle of Tibetan love and enthusiasm for things Chinese; there is everywhere a keenness to imitate the Chinese, to dress, to talk, behave and sing as the Chinese do, and this is particularly noticeable among the respectable bunch of official families in Lhasa, who first succumbed to the spell. The inroad of neo-Chinese culture into Tibetan society whether in music, ideology, dress, or speech is truly remarkable, for what was static in this land has become alive and dynamic. There is not a home in Lhasa where portraits of Mao and his colleagues have not found a place in the domestic shrine."10
Even Choedrak, the anti-Communist personal physician of the Dalai Lama, remembers the first encounters with representatives of the new China in Lhasa: "The Communists, who were as zealous as missionaries, spoke extensively with the people who had gathered near Norbulingka. Their message was simple: – We are here to free and modernise Tibet. The Chinese undertook a comprehensive programme of construction measures. They also distributed a lot of money. (...) Consequently, the people in Lhasa welcomed the occupiers with increasing goodwill."11 Even more so when "the Chinese," as the later Tibetan exile concedes, actually built "schools, bridges, hospitals, roads" and the "standard of living in Tibet (...) improved." Yet this could not dissuade "some people" from being mistrustful of "this generosity, this suspicious friendliness."12 He describes the situation in 1952 – after his return from India, where he had visited the Dalai Lama's family – as follows: "The Chinese propaganda had a major impact on our population. In Lhasa, it had become good form to wear the red scarf, the emblem of the Communists. On the streets, many Tibetans were displaying Chinese hairstyles. They were not afraid of abandoning some of our traditions and, for example, cutting their beautiful long hair."13
The "united front" policy pursued by the central government, which involved gradually executing reforms and delaying fundamental changes to Tibetan society until a later time, to also win over most of the aristocracy and higher clergy, initially resulted in success. In particular, the schools founded in Tibet by the new rulers were a great success.
"In 1951 there were no modern schools anywhere in Tibet," writes Goldstein. "Members of the elite who wanted their children to obtain a modern education sent them to Darjeeling and Kalimpong, in India."14 The central government therefore saw building a modern school system as a priority. Point 9 of the 17 Point Agreement states: "The spoken and written language and school education of the Tibetan nationality15 shall be developed step by step in accordance with the actual conditions in Tibet."
From the outset, the Chinese side had recognised the need for their own people to master the Tibetan language. So, on 12th January 1952 they started specialist training in Trungjilingka Park, where more than forty Tibetan teachers taught the Tibetan language. Some of these teachers had come to Tibet with the People's Liberation Army and some came from the upper class in Lhasa. One of the female teachers, Ms. T. D. Taring, remembered in an interview with Goldstein: "The Chinese leaders wanted all their soldiers to know Tibetan, so in 1952 an Army school was organized." On the premises, a former summerhouse of the secular officials, eight hundred students, most of them young soldiers in the PLA, slept on the floor.16
On 15th August 1952, the first primary school in Lhasa, the Seshin school, opened its doors and immediately received a lot of support, even though reactionary circles resisted it particularly strongly. The subjects taught, across seven class levels, were Tibetan (grammar and later poetry), arithmetic, natural science, geography and even music. Lessons were conducted in Tibetan; Chinese was not a separate subject but was introduced in the form of songs. Among the around 340 pupils were ten orphans, whose maintenance was paid by the school (food, accommodation, clothing). One of the people who looked after them, Dorje Tseden, remembers that many children also moved from Tibetan private lessons to the Chinese school. The reason: they had previously not learnt any grammar or maths, and they were often beaten.17
Towards the end of the same year a further school, the "social school" (jitso lapdra), was opened in Trungjilingka Park, the current location of Tibet University. It approached adolescents and adults and also taught Chinese.18 "The success of these two schools quickly led to the start of a middle school in Lhasa," which is why Goldstein comments: "All of these schools (...) met a need that the traditional government had failed to address."19
Grunfeld states that, particularly from 1955 onwards, many state schools were founded. "Supplies, books, and tuition were, for the most part, provided by the state. By July 1957 there were 78 primary schools, with 6,000 pupils; 1,000 other students were studying in nationalities institutes in other parts of China (the ten nationalities institutes graduated 94,000 students – from all fifty-plus minorities – in the years 1950-78). These schools were confined to urban areas."20
The newly founded mass organisations, which aimed to contribute towards modernising society in a different way and creating a change in mentality, were also well received. Within the context of the Democratic Youth Association, men and women from the upper and middle classes met to spend evenings singing and dancing together. Sporting events were also developed upon the initiative of the Communists. In particular, football became popular again. In 1944 the game – the only sport that existed at the time because of British influence – had been banned by the regent. The reason: "kicking a football was as bad as kicking the head of the Lord Buddha."21 In the patriotic women's association, under the initial leadership of Tsering Dolma, the Dalai Lama's sister, the wives of the aristocracy and senior officials met up and many of them felt that they had a lot to thank the new rulers for. Ms. Surkhang remembered this and told Goldstein in an interview in 1992 that many wives believed that: "The Communist Party has given women equality (...) They said that in the old days we Tibetan women were hopeless. Even regarding school, it was felt women didn't need education. They were just kept at home..."22
After the dismissal of the sitsab,23 the local Tibetan government was finally willing to make tentative initial reforms itself: in September 1952, with the agreement of the Dalai Lama, a major "reform assembly" (Legjö Tsondu) was announced for 1953. The initial meetings were attended by around seventy representatives; later, around forty delegates met up one to two times per week. In 1954, a "permanent committee" was established under the leadership of a monastic official and a civil servant from the tax authority, which met every day. Goldstein stated that the undertaking was moderately successful: it was exceptionally difficult to reach a consensus. As soon as the issue was a land reform (i.e. a fundamental change to the feudal structures), upon which the prosperity of the monasteries also rested, there was massive resistance. In particular, the "abbots protested vigorously whenever land and tax reforms were proposed," as these would "hurt religion."24 However, it was ultimately possible to pass a significant reform: the enormous burden of debt under which many Tibetan farmers had often suffered for generations was reduced, and some old debts were even waived. Even the compulsory transport labour that was so onerous for the rural population was to be reformed, although not completely abolished.
On the issue of debt, it is important to know that interest of up to 25 percent was not uncommon in old Tibet25 and the monasteries were the worst usurers. Kundeling, a member of the "reform association" remembers, "For many in rural Tibet, loans were a recurring necessity. In addition to special one-time occasions such as deaths or weddings, bad harvests... frequently left farming households short of grain for food and seed for planting... And as there were no banks in Tibet, peasant families borrowed grain from the lords of estates and particularly from the monasteries and labrang, which functioned informally as Tibet's main lenders. Moneylending, moreover, was lucrative, since interest rates were not regulated..."26 Winnington made the following on-site observation at the start of the 1950s, "Some families have debts of 250 tonnes of grain, an amount that generations will be unable to pay back."27
The reforms passed in principle were ultimately fairly ineffective, as they were only implemented very slowly in the following years and were met with a lot of resistance. Goldstein therefore draws the following conclusion: "It was a start but a modest one."28 In any case, the Lhasa uprising in 1959 fundamentally changed the situation as, when designing the social framework, the Chinese Communists no longer needed to show consideration for the reactionary majority in the Tibetan upper class and the monasteries.
Occasionally, western friends of the Dalai Lama cite the aforementioned reform approaches as evidence for their assertion that, in the early 1950s, the Tibetan government wanted to execute reforms and the long overdue modernisation of Tibet. Yet they were prevented from doing so by the Chinese Communists.29 Goldstein writes, "Although some Tibetans and Westerners have claimed that the Chinese side prevented the Tibetan government from making reforms in the 1950s, the evidence does not support this."30 The opposite was the case; the first cautious reforms did not come about until the central government had forced the dismissal of the sitsab – a dismissal that the Dalai Lama also initially resisted. It is therefore absurd when western authors credit the Dalai Lama with the debt reforms and cite them as evidence for the bold assertion that the Tibetan government itself, without any pressure or assistance from the Chinese, was willing and able to undertake fundamental reforms and the modernisation of Tibet.
In these early years, the positive achievements on the way to economic modernisation and a better life for the Tibetans include the new roads that have connected Tibet with the rest of China ever since, and which were built by the People's Liberation Army under adverse conditions and in record time. The first road, in the south, leads across fourteen mountain passes and along 2,400 km from Ya'an (Sichuan) to Lhasa. The second comes from the north, from the province of Qinghai, and has a length of 2,100 km. The 1,200 km long Xinjiang-Tibet road was added later (in October 1957).31
Road construction is often vilified by the western "Free Tibet" scene. A propaganda document from the Tibetan exiles claimed that the roads have "no practical use to the Tibetans and their country."32 A bold statement. A lorry could now transport in two days what it had previously taken twelve days for sixty yaks to transport. The new road connections brought about a drastic reduction in prices for imported goods from Inner China. For example, the price of tea fell by two thirds within two years. The roads made travelling easier and significantly reduced travel times. This was beneficial not least to the Dalai Lama himself and his divine backside. When he travelled from Kumbum Monastery to Lhasa as a child, the journey took "three months."33 When he set off for Beijing in 1954, the first part of the journey through Tibet was still incredibly difficult. "In those days, there was still no bridge over the Kyichu and we crossed in animal-skin coracles."34 When, "after more than three weeks" they finally reached a navigable road he "found" this to be "a great relief" as he "was already quite sore from riding." The same applied to his escorts: "It wasn't only me who felt like that. I shall never forget the sight of one of my officials. His backside was so painful that he rode sitting diagonally across his saddle. In this way, he contrived to rest first one cheek and then the other."35 From Chengdu he travelled on to Xi'an via aeroplane and then to Beijing on the train. Two years later the modern era, with its freedom known as "mobility," had even reached the Tibetan west and southwest, and the holy Lama backside was surely grateful that its owner could use one of the "military roads that now cover the whole country" and "travel almost the whole way to Sikkim by car." He remembers that it was only at the border with Sikkim that "we exchanged cars for horses."36
Deshayes, the French friend of the Dalai Lama, is unimpressed when he states in his Histoire du Tibet that the roads were (only) built for "troops to advance along." From Sikkim, Nepal, and India? A further allegation sounds even worse: "The Chinese fell back on Tibetan workers, mainly without paying them." They "worked under conditions" equivalent to "compulsory labour (...) whereby malnutrition, mistreatment and accidents" resulted in "genuine mass mortality."37
The roads of course also had military significance. Yet not so much for transporting troops, as the PLA had long since been in Tibet, but rather for getting supplies to them. Furthermore, the significance of modern transport routes for the development of industry and trade cannot be estimated highly enough. Let us remember: before 1951 Tibet had no navigable roads; all goods were transported on pack animals, often also on people's backs. Tibet had been cut off spiritually, culturally, and economically from the rest of the world for centuries, and the Tibetan economy had essentially remained a subsistence economy. To redress this finally, Tibet needed road links to the rest of China and the neighbouring countries. In his speech before the first session of the National People's Assembly in 1954, the Dalai Lama himself found that these roads would lay the "foundation for the building of a prosperous new Tibet."38
Deshayes' allegation that the roads were built by unpaid Tibetans essentially performing compulsory labour is as ridiculous as it is ignoble. Did not the traditional ula system, which had been in existence in Tibet for more than one thousand years, mean the constant obligation of the serfs to undertake unpaid compulsory labour? Paid work was unknown in old Tibet. That the "Chinese" paid the Tibetans well who worked for them was also one of the main allegations made against them by reactionary aristocrats and monks. The truth is, the construction work on the Sichuan-Lhasa road, for example, was performed from Chamdo by around 31,000 PLA soldiers and 16,000 civil workers and technicians. "Almost all workers were Chinese."39 Tibetans were primarily involved in procuring the required pack animals, with the result that "the elite who owned the large herds of yaks made enormous sums of money." By 1954, 8,061 Tibetan workers were involved in performing the work in the western sector. Goldstein also refers to the traditionally unpaid compulsory labour, to which the Chinese authorities could actually have laid claim. However, "the Chinese were committed to not levying any new taxes on the people, so paid the workers good salaries in dayan coins" and up to 80 dayan per month. For most of these poor Tibetans, it was the first time in their life that they had possessed so much money. Furthermore, landowners and land users were compensated for their fields that were needed for constructing the roads.40
In 1954, the Dalai Lama accepted an invitation to Beijing where the National People's Congress, a type of Chinese parliament, was to approve the constitution of the People's Republic of China. For several months, he then visited his bigger home country before returning to Tibet.
In Beijing, he met the most important personalities in new China. Some of them (including Zhu De) welcomed him and the Panchen Lama at the railway station. Mao later received him "many times"41 and was very courteous and friendly.42 In an initial meeting, he assured him that the central government would make major efforts to support Tibet's development. For his part, the Dalai Lama was incredibly impressed by Mao and reacted euphorically. His interpreter, Phünwang, reported that the god-king hugged him through joy and excitement in the car in which they were travelling.43
Together with the Panchen Lama he took part in the first meeting of the National People's Congress as a delegate. On 16th September 1954, he delivered a speech there praising the policy of "equality and unity among the nationalities" in the new constitution and added: "For a long period in her history, Tibet suffered oppression under domestic reactionary governments and, in particular, was for some time more or less alienated from her motherland because of foreign imperialist provocation." That had changed since the peaceful liberation and now the sense of unity among the different nationalities was growing day by day. The initial "apprehension and misgivings of the Tibetan people" had gradually disappeared. Above all, the "pernicious rumours" about the planned destruction of the religion by the Communists had now been "utterly exploded."44
On 27th September, the Dalai Lama was elected as the deputy chairman of the Permanent Committee of the National People's Congress. During the subsequent round trip through several Chinese towns, which he undertook along with Liu Geping, a member of the Hui minority, the Dalai Lama was "clearly aware" of the extent of the backwardness of Tibet and the urgent need for modernisation.45 The experience left such an impression on him that he even wanted to join the Communist Party of China. Liu Geping clearly had great difficulty in talking him out of the idea.46 The central committee of the CCP was concerned that the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama could isolate themselves from Tibetan society through excessive zeal and impatience. In March 1955, the central committee instructed the responsible Chinese parties in Lhasa not to encourage the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama to be "too progressive in their speech and action". "We should have sound understanding of the political role of Dalai and Panchen based on the supreme religious faith they both enjoy among Tibetans." Therefore, the express instruction was, "Do not encourage them to say or to do anything that hurts their religious customs. Even if they would like to say it or to do it, try to persuade them not to in order to avoid any inconvenience or even danger to them."47
On 8th March 1955, a few days before setting off on his journey back to Tibet, the Dalai Lama asked Mao to receive him again to say goodbye. Instead, Mao spontaneously decided to visit the Tibetan himself. Goldstein, who published the transcript from the final conversation, made the following comment: it "again" shows the "worldly-wise" and "moderate" attitude of the revolutionary leader and the "enthusiasm of the Dalai Lama in terms of modernisation and the affiliation with the Chinese nation."48
Mao Zedong, Ngapö Ngawang Jigme (right) and the 10th Panchen Lama (left) during a banquet to celebrate the agreement on peaceful liberation, on 24th May 1951
Leading members of the "Tibet Work Committee" visiting the Dalai Lama at the Norbulingka Palace, November 1951. From left: Jigyab Khembo Ngawang Namgye, Li Jue, Wang Qimei, Zhang Guohua, the 14th Dalai Lama, Zhang Jingwu, Tan Guansan, Liu Zhenguo and Phünwang.
The 14th Dalai Lama welcomes Deng Xiaoping, 1954.
Yet, in those days a shadow fell on the friendly relationship. Friendship is known to end when it comes to money and Grunfeld critically notes that the Dalai Lama promised Mao at that time that he would bring back to Tibet the treasures from the Potala stored in Sikkim. But that never happened. Furthermore, he assured the revolutionary leader that his older brothers had no contact with anti-China foreign powers – either evidence of astonishing ignorance or a brazen lie.49
While the Dalai Lama was still in Beijing, on 9th March 1955 the "Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet" was launched. It was gradually to assume government tasks in Tibet. It was originally composed of 51 members (46 Tibetans and five Hans), but was then increased to 55 members (50 Tibetans and five Hans). The Dalai Lama became its Chairman; his Vice-Chairman was the Panchen Lama.50
After his return, the Dalai Lama performed a religious ritual in Lhasa (chenrezi wangchen) and spoke for the first time publicly about the recent political development. This "speech clearly projected a very positive image of the Chinese government and of the Chinese then living in Tibet. This was a Dalai Lama very different from the one being represented to the U.S. and Indian Government."51
Grunfeld describes the early and mid 1950s as a "honeymoon"52 between the Dalai Lama and Beijing. At that time, he composed a long poem in praise of Mao, which resembled a political declaration of love. The original is hanging in the Lamaist temple in Peking. Today the Dalai Lama no longer wants to be reminded of this, as is often the case with separated couples who are embarrassed by their earlier professions of love and outpourings of emotion. He wrote:
"O! Chairman Mao! Your brilliance and deeds are like those of Brahma and Mahasammata, creators of the world.
Only from an infinite number of good deeds can such a leader be born, who is like the sun shining over the world.
Your writings are precious as pearls, abundant and powerful as the high tide of the ocean reaching the edges of the sky."53
Stuart and Roma Gelder took the following verses as a prelude to their book and as a source for its title:
"Your will is like the gathering of clouds, your call like thunder, from these comes timely rain to nourish selflessly the earth!"54
Notes
1 George Ginsburg/Michael Mathos, Communist China´s Impact on Tibet: The First Decade. Quoted from: Grunfeld, The Making... p. 123 and comment p. 284 2 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 184 3 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 112 4 See also Grunfeld, ibid. 5 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 399 6 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 122 7 See also ibid., p. 122-123 8 Ibid., p. 115 9 See also Goldstein, The Calm... p. 191 10 Cited from French, Tibet Tibet, p. 203 11 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, p. 143 12 Ibid., p. 144 13 Ibid., p. 151 14 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 309 15 See also Alt et al., p. 152; Goldstein, The Calm... p. 308 16 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 309 and 310 17 See also Goldstein, The Calm... p. 401 18 See also ibid. 19 Goldstein, ibid., p. 402 20 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 123 21 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 404 22 Ibid., p. 406 23 See the next chapter! 24 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 457 25 See also Goldstein, The Calm... p. 458 26 Quoted from Goldstein, ibid. 27 Winnington, Tibet: Die wahre Geschichte, p. 230 28 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 461 29 See also Klemens Ludwig, who claims that the 14th Dalai Lama continued with "the efforts of his predecessor shortly after he took office" and "released many farmers from debt bondage." "However," the Chinese People's Liberation Army rejected the "modernisation." (Ludwig, "Zweitausend Jahre tibetische Geschichte", In Alt et al., Tibet ... p. 72) Lenoir or F. Robin are equally shameless: the 14th Dalai Lama wanted to overcome the existing "injustices," but did not have enough time for that (Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 89) 30 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 457 31 See also Goldstein, ibid., p. 519 32 Tibet under Chinese Communist Rule, Dharamshala, 1976, p. 5, cited by Grunfeld, The Making of... p. 122 33 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 15 34 Ibid., p. 91 35 Ibid., p. 93 36 Ibid., p. 125 37 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 328. As usual, Deshayes does not state any sources. 38 Quoted from Goldstein, The Calm... p. 495 39 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 414. All information per Goldstein, ibid., p. 414-419 40 See also, ibid., p. 417, particularly the interview with the Tibetan Maya (Tsewang Gyurme) in Dharamshala 41 As per the Dalai Lama himself in Goldstein, The Calm... p. 504 42 See also Goldstein, ibid., p. 492 43 See also ibid. 44 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 494-495. The whole speech can be found there. 45 Goldstein, ibid., p. 504 46 See also the autobiographical Freedom in Exile, p. 98, where the Dalai Lama confirms that, at the time, he expressed a "wish" to become a "party member." 47 Quoted from Goldstein, The Calm... p. 520 48 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 515 49 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 116 50 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 118; Goldstein, The Calm... p. 500 51 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 531. The last sentence is also in italics in Goldstein. 52 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 107 ff. 53 Quoted from Grunfeld, The Making... p. 116-117 54 Gelder, Timely Rain, p. 5. The Dalai Lama wrote this poem in Lhasa in 1954 and handed it over to Mao Zedong on his visit to Beijing.
17 Hunger, economic boycott, and a Tibetan Ku Klux Clan – reactionary circles thwart the 17 Point Agreement
Mao's longer-term goal was to incorporate Tibet in a way that would generate cooperation and friendship. In today's language, it sought to win over Tibetans to willingly become loyal citizens of the new multiethnic China.
Later, in exile, the Dalai Lama claimed that Mao whispered to him in Beijing at the time that religion was poison.2 Phünwang, who had been present most of the time during the meetings as an interpreter, cannot confirm this remark and there is no interview transcript that could support the Dalai Lama's account. The casual observation itself, which is actually a variant of Marx' comment about the "opium of the people," barely fits with Mao's documented statements where he demands respect for the Tibetans' religious traditions or even makes positive comments about the historical Buddha. So he said, for example, on 8th March 1955 to the Dalai Lama: "We need to do things well in the world. This is a principle of Buddhism. The founder of Buddhism, Shakyamuni, spoke for the oppressed people in India. He believed in saving everyone from his or her own suffering, and in order to do it, he gave up being a prince and founded Buddhism."3 In an interview in 2004, the Dalai Lama himself remembered that "Chairman Mao praised Shakyamuni as well as the goddess Tara. Shakyamuni he considered a great revolutionary."4
However, the deep faith of a large number of Tibetans actually proved to be "poison" for the relationships with the Communist central government, after it had been poison for the development of Tibet over centuries. There was therefore major resistance to the Dalai Lama's planned trip to the National People's Congress in Beijing, both within and outside the government. It was only after consulting the gods many times5 and the oracles speaking in favour of the trip that the opponents conceded. However, the high lamas did not want the god-king to get into an aeroplane. Cleverly distributed rumours fed people's concerns about the soul and life of the "living Buddha." Would the non-believers even allow him to come back? Would his life be secure outside of Tibet? Choedrak, the monk's doctor who has already been cited here a few times, reminds us that at the time (1954) there "was talk" that the god-king "would go to Washington;" "some of his closest confidantes" had urgently advised him not to do so and he "unfortunately – never made – this trip." Instead, the Dalai Lama travelled to Beijing. Choedrak mentions the "rumours" that were circulating and states: "The population of Lhasa were concerned about him and were unanimously against this trip. During a religious celebration in Norbulingka he tried to calm us and promised to come back the following year."6 However, when the time came for him to leave, a fanatical, hysterically crying and desperately screaming group of people tried to restrain the god-king. "Because people were afraid that, in their sorrow, the Tibetans would rush into the river, they were not allowed to set foot on the banks of the Kyichu, which His Holiness was to cross in a boat made from yak leather."7
Their fanatical religiousness meant that parts of the clergy and the uneducated classes were susceptible to the words of those who were stirring up resentment for the 17 Point Agreement and were determined to prevent it being implemented. In 1951, this had also reached the top of the Tibetan local government: the two managing "prime ministers," known as sitsab, who had been appointed in 1950 to represent the Dalai Lama who had fled to Yatung, were following their own agenda. With cunning and deceit (and probably behind the back of the young Dalai Lama) they thwarted the agreement and put obstacles in the way of the PLA and the responsible Chinese whenever they could.
On 26th October 1951, the main part of the PLA troops, composed of around six thousand men from the eighteenth army corps under General Zhang Guohua, had arrived in Lhasa. They were followed one month later by 1,600 men from the First Field Army of the north-western office of the PLA under the command of Fan Ming. The central government was aware that the presence of so many soldiers8 in small Lhasa could create a difficult situation and presented a major logistical challenge for providing food, animal feed and burning material for the PLA. For political reasons, the local population could under no circumstances bear the costs of feeding the troops and the use of violence was ruled out. The central government had therefore, from the outset, planned a whole range of measures to ensure that supplies reached the troops. In the longer term, both the roads brought into operation and the food production undertaken by the PLA itself should secure supplies to the troops. In the short term, purchasing parts of the Tibetan grain stocks that filled the warehouses owned by the Tibetan government, the monasteries and the major landowners should help to bridge shortfalls in supply. It was not for nothing that the 17-Point Agreement expressly stated (in point 16), "The local government of Tibet should assist the PLA in the purchase and transport of food, fodder and other daily necessities."9 For this purpose, the troops who had arrived in Lhasa brought "hundreds of yaks laden with boxes of silver dayan coins."10 Furthermore, in September and October, before the main PLA forces had reached Lhasa, the Chinese had repeatedly pushed for the creation of a joint committee to handle the purchase and import of foreign grain from India. Yet some responsible parties on the Tibetan side consistently thwarted this. The same applied to the sale of Tibetan grain that, despite the good prices, did not go as planned.
It came thus to a difficult supply crisis soon after the arrival of the larger troop contingents, because "the sitsab-led Tibetan government continued to drag its feet in assisting the PLA."11 The responsible parties officially pretended that Tibet did not have the volumes of grain needed to supply the troops. Goldstein proved that this was not true. The stocks of grain that the government, nobility and monasteries had sometimes hoarded for decades would have easily been sufficient to meet the requirements of the PLA soldiers and "the acute shortage of grain," which prevailed in Lhasa from the end of 1951 and into 1952, had "clearly" been "artificially" created.12 In an interview in 1992, a Tibetan official confirmed, "No one openly said you can't sell to the Chinese, but private people saw the government's policy of not wanting to sell [grains] and followed that lead."13
The leaders of the PLA tried to counter the shortages in supply by reducing the soldiers' daily rations to half of what they actually needed and quickly relocating some of the soldiers to other regions of Tibet.
The daily calorific intake of the soldiers in Lhasa was so low that they ate the roots of wild plants, even when faced with the danger of being poisoned by them. The physically weakened soldiers and officers of the PLA quickly set about making wasteland arable and starting their own agricultural production. On 25th November 1951, after the kashag had issued the relevant authorisation, the troop started converting a large area to the west of Lhasa into arable land. Over seventeen days, slaving away day and night in three shifts, they transformed more than 153 hectares of wasteland into new arable land. Jambey Gyatso, a Tibetan member of the PLA dance troupe, told Goldstein that the soldiers initially had to dig up thorn bushes, break up the frozen ground and spread fertiliser. For this they had gathered large amounts of faeces from Lhasa and picked up bones on the roads of the city, which they burnt and crushed.14 From March 1952, a large part of the troops worked on exploiting further areas so that, in 1952, they "were able to plant grain and vegetables on over 3,000 mu (200 hectares) of land."15 According to Chinese sources, in that year the PLA planted 934 hectares throughout Tibet and harvested 380,000 kilograms of barley and around one million kilograms of vegetable crops.
Lhasa 1939, the wool harbour (Federal archive, image 135-S-12-43-07 / Schäfer, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
Goldstein comments that the unusual behaviour of the Chinese soldiers triggered displeasure among some Tibetans. The collection of faeces from humans and dogs shocked them, the smell of the bones burned to chalk disturbed them and they were worried that this could offend the protective gods of Lhasa.
More understandable is the anger of the PLA members towards the Tibetan aristocrats and high lamas, who boycotted the 17 Point Agreement and whose arrogance was unbroken, despite their previous military debacle. They intentionally let the Chinese troops starve, while they feigned helpfulness or even sympathy. Most of the time, because Lukhangwa, one of the two sitsab once asked Zhang Guohua during a verbal altercation with blatant gloating, "Tell me, Commander Zhang, is it not harder to go hungry than to be defeated in battle?"16
So as not to endanger the united front policy and the good understanding with most of the Tibetan upper class, the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army exercised a form of restraint, which Goldstein finds both impressive and astonishing. Liushar, the former Tibetan "foreign minister," recounted in an interview in 1981 in an ironic tone the discipline and consideration shown by the PLA on the day. After a while the Chinese in Lhasa had no more fuel. "At that time, there were very dense trees in Nortölinga uncultivated. If the Chinese had been like other people, they would have cut the trees right away [for fuel]. But the Chinese soldiers were educated people, so they didn't touch even a single tree and remained for two or three days without any hot drinks."17 To control the high inflation, which had developed due to the shortage of food and the additional amounts of money brought into circulation by the PLA, the leaders issued strong rules for the troop. A PLA member called Yu Dehua told Goldstein: "At the time, the kashag did not sell us any grain, and we could not find any wild vegetables in Lhasa once the winter came. We were very hungry. After we arrived in Lhasa, each of us women soldiers received two silver dollars for our special needs. There was no cash for anything else. We saw that the Tibetans sold flat breads in the street, so I saved my money in the hope that I could use it to buy food. Our discipline however was very strict – no one was allowed to purchase any food from the street. However, I could not stand my hunger, so one day I sneaked out and bought a bag of flat bread. (...) When I got back, I started to divide the bread among my mates, but just then our political commissar walked in. He asked who bought the bread, and I admitted that I had. He confiscated all of it. (I heard that he returned it to the seller.) I was disciplined for this."18
The supply problems were overcome after a few months through further vigorous measures. At the end of October, a sub-division of the kashag of which, alongside Ngabö, the ministers Shasur and Dombor were members, started to address the supply problems and to cooperate with the PLA, bypassing the sitsab. At the end of 1951, the Chinese government also asked the Indian government to allow them to transport rice via India to Tibet. The Indians agreed under the condition that they could keep some of the rice for themselves. So up to 3,500 tonnes were shipped from Guangdong to Calcutta, from there transported via train to Siliguri near Kalimpong and then carried on the backs of pack animals via the Himalayas to Lhasa – in view of the distances and the number of animals required this was an "enormous challenge," as Goldstein found.19 India kept a further 6,000 tonnes of Chinese rice for supplying the suffering region of West Bengal. In addition, huge amounts of food were brought from the neighbouring Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai. Between 1951 and 1954, 71 million pounds of goods were transported via Chamdo, whereby more than 66,900 pack animals and over 15,600 workers were involved. From Golmud (Qinghai), more than 26,000 camels brought food to Lhasa in 1953.20
Even though the authorities eventually got the supply problems and inflation under control, the damage had already been done. Many Tibetans now saw the presence of the Chinese soldiers, which had resulted in inflation and a shortage of food, with a lot less sympathy. In addition, the Tibetan economy was shaken by a measure that affected Tibet's most important export good: the USA, previously one of the largest buyers of Tibetan wool, completely stopped their imports from one day to the next. Tibet now belonged to "Red China" and any form of economic relationship with the Chinese Communists was banned. The American trade ban led to the price of Tibetan wool falling by 60 percent within two weeks. "Interestingly," wrote Goldstein, "this was exploited in Lhasa by anti-Chinese activists. They blamed the Chinese instead of the USA for the damage caused to the Tibetan wool trade and the Chinese actually intervened: they bought the wool from the Tibetan merchants at a high price."21
On the Tibetan side, there was also sustained resistance to the implementation of the 17 Point Agreement in terms of point 8, which foresaw: "Tibetan troops shall be reorganised step by step into the People's Liberation Army and become a part of the national defence forces of the People's Republic of China."22 The sitsab used the "step by step" formulation to delay the integration of the Tibetan army into the PLA until the cows came home and they opposed each individual measure in this direction. The Tibetan fighting forces did not only keep their own headquarters, which continued to be responsible for recruitment and remuneration, but their own command structure, their own uniforms and their flag. In particular, the fact that they continued to march under their own military flag, but not under the flag of the People's Republic of China, caused bad blood among the PLA and led to some fierce confrontations between Chinese officers and the sitsab. General Fan Ming quarreled with them once, whereby he ultimately threatened: "If you don't do fly national flags, we will put it up on your Military Area Headquarters." Whereby Lukhangwa replied: "Even if you put up flags one hundred times, we will tear them down one hundred times!" Fan Ming then announced that he would complain about this to the Dalai Lama, tell him that Lukhangwa and Lobsang Tashi would create problems and demand from him their deposition. The fanatically defiant response from Lukhangwa was, "If you Chinese order us to resign we will not obey, but if the Dalai Lama tells us to jump into the fire, we will kill ourselves by doing that, and if he says jump into the water, we will jump."23
Even the plan for a secular primary school for Lhasa had to deal with resistance from reactionary circles in view of the unsuccessful attempts to found schools in earlier years. As soon as the intention of the Chinese became known, the opponents to such a school arranged for signatures to be collected. Surkhang was suspected of being behind it. He was one of the most influential kashag ministers, who had only recently returned from India. Within the kashag there was open criticism of the scheduled teaching plan. Some ministers opined that "the teaching should be controlled by the Tibetan government and that it was necessary to include some supplemental religious teaching in the curriculum."24
In this situation of intensifying tensions (supply shortages, inflation, collapsed wool exports, school project), a radical nationalist organisation appeared on the scene for the first time, which was called the "People's Association" (mimang tsondu). It was not only anti-Chinese and anti-communist, but also against the Tibetan government, which it portrayed as being too weak and incompetent when dealing with the Chinese. Goldstein notes that politics in Tibet was traditionally reserved for a small elite from the high aristocracy and high clergy, and there was no concept of democracy or political involvement of the population, and "no political parties and no freedom of political expression." "Tibet's traditional political ideology was simple and straightforward: the work of governing was not the concern of its subjects."25 So it can be no surprise that the "Tibetan term for 'the people,' mimang, is actually a neologism that had been coined by the Chinese communists to translate the Chinese term ren min."26 It is composed, in direct dependence on the Chinese expression, of mang, "simple," "common" and mi, "person," "people." The fact that the chauvinistic zealots gave themselves the name mimang tsondu despite its etymology was later explained by a Tibetan aristocrat as follows: if the Chinese Communists had delivered a speech, they would constantly invoke the word 'people.' "It was almost a case where if the people said, 'Jump into the river', the Communist Party might jump. That's how much they thought of the people... So, when we needed to challenge the Chinese, if we didn't use this word, then no other word would do." And further: "The Chinese considered the people a most precious thing, saying that they have come to serve the people, so if the people revolted against them, then (laughs) – if the thing that they considered so precious revolted against them, then what's going to happen? What are they going to say?"27 In addition, he finished with the words: "It was precisely... because the Chinese used the word 'people,' and not because of the notion of a democratic process."28
Goldstein then also states that, despite the chosen name, the "founders and leaders did not really belong to the simple people." Like most of the members they came, not from the (numerically very small) political elite, but from the circle of the many literate monks working in the administration and the middle-class officials.29 Fanatical nationalism, particularly among the middle classes, who felt that their traditional existence was under threat, and among those who were half-educated – that reminds us very much of certain trends and developments in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Even the false name, here the intentional misuse of the name "people" for political goals, which run contrary to the interests of the lower classes, finds its parallels here. Wasn't it a "workers' party," and a "socialist" one, that shattered the parties and organisations of the workers' movement in Germany at that time and waved their red flag, which had been defaced with a white spot with a swastika?
The Tibetan "Peoples' Association" was therefore not composed of democrats or what would today be described as dissidents, even if it criticised the kashag for its collaboration with the Chinese Communists. Like the nationalist extremists and "revolutionaries" in Europe between the world wars, the members of the Tibetan "Peoples' Association" knew that they were secretly in union with powerful patrons and protectors up above, because "the sitsab's open opposition to the Chinese had provided an ideological green light for this kind of political protest."30 So the reactionary elements among the Tibetan high nobility harnessed the "Peoples' Association" for their purposes. As well as the sitsab, these were the conspirators from the so-called Namseling clique. It was composed of Namseling, one of the four members of the tax authority, Tashi Bera, the commander of the Trabchi regiment, and a monastic official, and it had close relationships with Phala, the Dalai Lama's High Chamberlain.
The "Peoples' Association" recruited in secret, primarily in the monasteries and the Tibetan army. It provoked incidents with PLA soldiers who were jostled, beaten, robbed, spat on, or abused on the streets. Female soldiers were sexually harassed. It organised acts of sabotage such as cutting through telephone lines, it fired at night on the PLA's quarters and tried in different ways to stir up anti-Chinese resentment. An early member of the "Peoples' Association," a soldier from the Gyantse regiment, remembers: "Monks put on laymen's clothes and made their way to Lhasa carrying guns and knives. So at that time there were many groups of people gathered here and there. It was even said that we had to go to Zhang Jingwu's residence."31 A popular method was also to spread rumours that were sometimes absurd. One example was that Mao Zedong and Zhu De had been captured by the Americans in Korea, the Communist government would soon collapse and the Americans had already arrived in India to free Tibet from the Communists.32
The violent attacks of the "Peoples' Association" were also aimed at those Tibetans who were open to reforms and working together with the Communists. The new secular schools and the activities of the Youth League and Women's Association were the targets of violent attacks and provocations from reactionary forces. The Cadre School even had to close for a while. A former pupil told Goldstein, "The (Tibetan) teachers in the Cadre School were people loyal to the state, so they were sent letters to scare them. These letters said that you teachers are devils (tib. dü), and we will kill you one day. Moreover, when these teachers went to the market, some people threw stones and spat at them and told them to stop teaching at the school immediately. I recall seeing one of our teachers crying under a tree." A former Tibetan soldier and member of the "Peoples' Association" recalls that "the monks" caught some of the female Tibetans who were active in the women's league "and beat them up." He gives a specific example: "Once at the Trungjilingka, there was a meeting at which it seems Mrs. Thangme said a lot of things, so the monks wanted to 'ambush' and beat her with a stick quite a lot."33
In their violence against the defenceless, their cowardly attempts at intimidation, their battle against modern schools and teachings that they did not like, their exploitation of good old religion for their reactionary political purposes, their resolve to prevent any change to the unjust old society – in all of this the members of the "Peoples' Association" remind us quite a lot of the Ku Klux Klan in the southern American states after the lost American Civil War and the forced liberation of slaves.
The "Peoples' Association" collected signatures under a petition, which essentially demanded the withdrawal of the PLA from Lhasa, and handed it over to the local government that was holding a meeting in Potala. When the kashag refused to accept it, the emissaries from the "Peoples' Association" called on the sitsab for support. And the sitsab Lukhangwa did actually tell the kashag ministers, who enquired about his stance, that they should accept the petition and hand it on to Zhang Jingwu. The kashag minister Lhalu recalls: "Actually the Dalai Lama should have been consulted, but he wasn't. Lukhangwa settled it on the spot, telling us to accept the petition."34
The long petition, whose style and design suggested backers with diplomatic experience drafted it, states that Buddhism is "the source of all benefit and happiness," and "the three great monasteries and the other major and minor monastic institutions" are the "foundation of Tibetan Buddhism." In the old society, all Tibetans had lived "happily and peacefully through the kindness of all the Dalai Lamas who reigned," and "even beggars" had "full freedom and no worries." However, due to the presence of the PLA, people's living conditions were "getting worse day by day," so the troops had to withdraw apart from a small remainder. Moreover, the "Chinese should lift the trade ban" on Tibetan wool (that the USA had imposed).35
When representatives of the "Peoples' Association" handed over the petition to Zhang and the kashag the next day, an armed mob besieged them at the same time, thus reinforcing the demands for the withdrawal of the PLA and for the retention of the traditional system of government. Shots were apparently fired on Ngabö's house. A nighttime curfew imposed by the Lhasa "mayor" (the nangtsesha mipön) following discussions between Zhang and the kashag was not observed. Gunmen continued to roam the streets and provoked incidents. In this situation, "the Chinese decided to bypass the sitsab and turn directly to the Dalai Lama for assistance in restoring order."36 On 15th April 1952 the kashag agreed to a ban on the "Peoples' Association" and its activities but refused to overthrow the sitsab because they had nothing to do with the "Peoples' Association" and its activities. Afterwards, Zhang Jingwu wrote to the Dalai Lama and asked him to remove Lukhangwa and Lobsang Tashi from office. In future, he would no longer work together with them, but rather only with a kashag reporting directly to the Dalai Lama. Zhang remained firm in the presence of a Tibetan delegation who visited him the next day and advocated the continuance of the sitsab in office. When, after several days, nothing had been achieved on the Tibetan side, neither any concrete measures against the "Peoples' Association" nor the dismissal of the sitsab, Zhang made his way in person to the Potala in the morning of 19th April. Those around him feared the worst and were afraid for his life. Yet he finally succeeded in convincing the Dalai Lama to dismiss both sitsab. The kashag ministers also pressed for this. After Zhang Jingwu had agreed that Lukhangwa and Lobsang Tashi would not be punished and they could retain their privileges and ceremonial status, the Dalai Lama dismissed them on 27th April.
An investigation commission composed primarily of Tibetans then addressed the operations of the "Peoples' Association" and summoned their ringleaders. After being instructed on the inadmissibility of its activities and the ban on its organisation, it had to agree to future good conduct. Nobody was ultimately punished and calm was quickly restored in Lhasa.37 By 1955/56, the Tibetan chauvinists of the "Peoples' Association" were no longer visible. Once again, the Chinese Communists had displayed considerable patience and restraint, if not to say leniency. They now even waived a rapid integration of the Tibetan armed forces and the Tibetan soldiers were allowed to keep their uniforms and flags. During a later visit to Peking by the Dalai Lama (1954/55), Mao told him that he fundamentally saw no problem in the use of a Tibetan flag alongside the Chinese one. Unfortunately, a few reactionary Tibetans misinterpreted this moderate attitude of the central government and the CCP as a sign of weakness.
Goldstein considered the outcome of the conflict with the sitsab and the "Peoples' Association" to be positive: in the coming years, more moderate and realistic opinions would set the tone in the kashag and develop a good collaboration. Tibet would therefore have a further opportunity to try to create a convenient niche within the People's Republic of China.38
However: the underlying problems faced by the Chinese Communists and the political powers in Tibet who were ready for reforms had in no way been solved, and we must ask whether they could be resolved without any major conflicts or resistances, without compulsion, violence or counterviolence. Grunfeld talks about the many misunderstandings, which arose solely from ignorance about the mentality and practices of the other side. It was difficult to redress this. The Chinese government was able to spread its viewpoint via Radio Peking, which started broadcasting in Tibetan in 1949-1950, but there were hardly any Tibetans who owned a radio. Political opinion making in Tibet therefore continued to be based primarily on religious prejudices, wild rumours, and hearsay.
According to Grunfeld, the Chinese were not aware that "any change– regardless of how small and seemingly insignificant – could not help but have a profound effect on such a rigid and ossified feudal society."39 Grunfeld states a few examples that illustrate what has been said: the ban on PLA soldiers buying food from the Tibetan people, which had been issued by the political leadership, resulted in many soldiers trying to improve their meagre fare through hunting and fishing and thus breaching the Buddhist ban on killing. Modern doctors working in Tibet had to be incredibly careful not to be accused of anti-Buddhist actions when they rid Tibetans of their lice or tried to tell them that they killed bacteria for reasons of hygiene.40 Any public criticism of monks was automatically viewed as mocking the religion. Setting up radio antennae could desecrate holy sites unintentionally. In Kham, the performance of a census was misunderstood by the local people as preparations for mass arrests.41 Innovations such as veterinary stations, experimental breeding stations, schools for children, areas for winter feeding etc. reduced the mobility of the nomadic herdsmen and were therefore rejected by them. Above all, the seizure of private weapons was met with resistance from these nomads, who saw their weapons as their most valuable possessions.42
No major social revolution was therefore required, according to Grunfeld, to antagonise the conservative parts of the Tibetan population. Even minor developments were seen as a threat to the traditional Tibetan social system: "Telephones and telegraphs came in 1952, together with banks (Bank of China subsidiaries). These were followed by newspapers, radio programmes and modern printed books and pamphlets in Mandarin and Tibetan. Hospitals and nursing teams were set up, medical personnel were trained, and veterinary stations were established. In 1956, a flight connection was launched, while the foundations for industry were built with the first coal mine in 1958 and the first blast furnace in 1959."43
The principle of voluntariness supported by the CCP and the gradual approach to reforms could not prevent there being major conflicts in the long term. On the one hand, some local responsible Chinese officials found it difficult to have enough patience, had a deep sense of mistrust for the Tibetan elite and were very reluctant to work together with them. On the other hand, the Communist Party had promised the serfs freedom from the feudal yoke. Now their patience was being put to the test. What does a Communist say to a serf who is justifiably complaining about his exploitative master, if this master has had his status, privileges and possessions guaranteed for the coming years? The Khampa revolutionary Phünwang describes such an incident that caused bad blood on both sides:44 a young Tibetan called Wangye Phüntso had participated in training on the issue of democratic reforms in Gyantse and, in doing so, acted against the will of his feudal lord, who had demanded compulsory labour from him and didn't want to let him go to school. The disobedient one was therefore sentenced to flogging. Thereupon, a responsible Chinese official demanded that the feudal lord be punished, as otherwise Tibetan serfs could be deterred from participating in political activities and training in the future. Tibetan cadres were freed from ula obligations in the future. The matter was settled through an apology and financial compensation, the feudal lord and his lackeys were not punished, but the incident made clear that the Chinese Tibet policy was a balancing act that could certainly fail. Namely because, despite all the efforts made, they did not succeed in winning over most of the Tibetan elite and, on the other hand, the hopes of the masses impatiently waiting for social change and material improvements were disappointed. An awkward, hasty approach to reforms in the peripheral regions and foreign interference would soon also make a critical contribution towards there being dramatic developments, rebellion, repression, and a spiral of violence.
The "teaching wheel." Symbols of Tibetan Buddhism on the roof of a Gelugpa monastery in Ganzi (Photo: Colegota)
Notes
1 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 38 2 See Goldstein and al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 196. Kollmar-Paulenz or Patrick French for example also mention the apparent statement from Mao without any context or specific circumstances as a fact that cannot be questioned. See also French, Tibet Tibet, p. 109; Kollmar-Paulenz, Kleine Geschichte, p. 56 3 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 516 4 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 518 5 Goldstein talks of "divinations." These are part of a decision-making process based on the familiar "heads or tails?" method, but before the eyes of a statue of a god or Buddha. The result was understood to be a divine indicator, a divine verdict. The most important political decisions were still being made in Tibet in this way and on the basis of oracle sayings in the 1950s. The Dalai Lama still swears by it today. 6 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens... p. 151-152 7 Ibid., p. 152 8 According to Goldstein it was, before part of the troops were sent to other regions of Tibet, around 8,000 men. Yet Kollmar-Paulenz talks about 20,000, without stating any sources. The number probably comes from the Tibetan "exile government," whose tendency to exaggerate has been known at the latest since the revelations from French, and which follows a Tibetan custom, about which David-Néel reported. 9 Quoted from Alt et alt.: Tibet... annex, p. 154 10 Goldstein: The Calm... p. 248 11 Goldstein: The Calm... p. 249 12 Ibid., p. 252 13 Goldstein, ibid., p. 249 – Even apparently serious and objective western authors such as those gathered by Blondeau/ Buffetrille (Le Tibet est-il chinois?) do not shy away from making the Chinese solely responsible for the grain shortage at the time and the inflation. They let a Tibetan exile claim – in agreement and without any further commentary – that the People's Liberation Army had to get its supplies from the Tibetans: "Despite the large size of its territory and the low population density, the geographical and political conditions meant that the foodstuffs produced in Tibet were barely enough to sustain the local population. Supplying an occupation army of more than 10,000 men entailed a shortage of foodstuffs..." (p. 123) 14 Goldstein, ibid., p. 256 15 Goldstein, ibid., p. 257 – A photo on p. 258 shows PLA soldiers standing knee-deep in water and clearing waste land, partly just with their hands. 16 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 252 17 Ibid., p. 251 18 Ibid., p. 256 19 Ibid., p. 260 20 For further details, see Goldstein, ibid., p. 261 21 Ibid., p. 264 22 Quoted from Alt et al., Tibet... p. 152 23 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 303 24 Ibid., p. 312 25 Ibid., p. 314 26 Ibid., p. 317 27 Ibid., p. 319 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 319, p. 320-321 30 Ibid., p. 321 31 Ibid., p. 331. Zhang Jingwu was the representative of the CCP for the Dalai Lama and the First Secretary of the Tibet Working Group. 32 Ibid., p. 329-330 33 Goldstein: The Calm... p. 406 34 Ibid., p. 333 35 Ibid., p. 333-338 36 Ibid., p. 340 37 See also the very detailed and documented explanations in Goldstein, The Calm... p. 365-369. In contrast, Deshayes alleges, the "responsible ones" among the mimang tsondu had been "thrown into prison" or had escaped to India. As usual, he does not provide any evidence or state sources. See also Deshayes, p. 386 38 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 369 39 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 129 40 See also Winnington, Tibet: Die wahre Geschichte, p. 88: "I saw, during an examination, lice from a patient crawling over the doctor's sleeve. He didn't try to remove them; he didn't even seem to notice them." The reason: consideration for the patient's religious feelings. 41 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 129 42 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 125 – Even in a country such as the USA it is well-known that it is not possible to curb the madness of free ownership of weapons. 43 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 122 44 Goldstein, A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 220; see also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 129-130
18 The early exile, the "holy family" and the rich uncle from America
... the majority opposed the Dalai Lama living in exile and favored his returning to Lhasa. Coming to a decision about this was complicated by the intervention of the United States, which immediately tried to persuade the Dalai Lama to denounce the agreement and flee to exile.
On 16th October 1950, before the military disaster in Chamdo, a Tibetan "trade delegation" in India met with the US ambassador Loy Henderson to discuss Tibet's military "needs." Over the following months, there was repeated contact between high-ranking representatives from the Tibetan government and the USA, who tried to influence events in Tibet in their interest; and the Tibetan opponents to a compromise with the Chinese government sought the help of the western super power to bring about the Dalai Lama's flight into exile.
Shakabpa was the high-ranking Tibetan who assumed the lead role during these contacts with the USA. He promised the Dalai Lama government in Yadong, which was faced with the alternative of striving for an amicable settlement with China or conducting a war against the Chinese Communists from exile, that the USA would greatly support them in the second case.2
In March 1951, as the Tibetan delegates were on their way from Yadong to Peking, James Burke from Time-Life magazine brought Heinrich Harrer to Henderson. Harrer wanted American assistance for the Tibetan government and told the US ambassador that the young Dalai Lama desperately needed advice, as the monks in his environment were putting him under pressure to return to Lhasa. Washington should therefore clearly declare its interest to him. Goldstein notes that, in Henderson, Harrer had found an "anti-Communist hardliner and cold warrior"3 – a man to the liking of the SS sport teacher.4
Yet Harrer was not right about the monks in the Dalai Lama's environment: the most important opponents of a compromise with the Chinese government were, alongside the powerful kashag minister Surkhang, a few high lamas, namely Phala, the High Chamberlain of the young god-king, and his tutors Ling Rinpoche and Trijang Rinpoche.5 These hardliners received support through the arrival of the oldest brother of the Dalai Lama, Taktse Rinpoche. The former abbot of the Kumbum monastery in Qinghai had pretended to the Chinese that he wanted to speak up for the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet towards his younger brother. Yet he did the exact opposite by vilifying the Communists and claiming that they wanted to destroy Tibetan culture and Tibetan habits and customs. For example, they had supposedly said "that the Tibetan custom of offering butter lamps was bad" and "the butter was being wasted."6
In spring 1951, Ambassador Henderson wrote a secret letter to the Dalai Lama, in which he openly advised him: "His Holiness should in no circumstances return to Lhasa or send his own treasures or those of Tibet back to Lhasa." Furthermore, "It is suggested that His Holiness send representatives at once to Ceylon." They "should try to arrange with the Government of Ceylon for the immediate transfer to Ceylon of the treasures of His Holiness." Moreover, they should already request a promise of asylum for the Dalai Lama and his family.7 If a Tibetan delegation wished to visit the USA, it would be no problem to issue American visas.
Liushar (Thubden Tharba), who could be described as the Vice Foreign Secretary of the Tibetan government at the time, repeatedly met with Wilkins, the first Secretary of the US Embassy, in Kalimpong and Calcutta in May 1951. Shakabpa did the same. In one of these meetings (during the negotiations in Peking) he wanted to know from Wilkins whether the USA would be willing to grant asylum to the Dalai Lama and an entourage of around one hundred and also assume their maintenance costs, whether the Dalai Lama would be welcomed in the USA as head of state, and whether the Americans would, in due course, provide military and financial support for an uprising of Tibetan "groups" against the Communists. The telegram to the US State Department at the time, which listed Shakabpa's questions, also contains the sentence: "Money was needed to encourage groups."8
On 15th June, Shakabpa secretly met with the US Vice-Consul N. G. Thacher in Kalimpong, who feigned a holiday with his wife and children for this purpose. There were repeated discussions during the meetings as to how the Dalai Lama could be persuaded to denounce and reject the 17 Point Agreement.9
On the Tibetan side, a few hotheads had completely crazy expectations, whereas the US Americans were not at all willing to lay a wager on the lame Tibetan horse. Goldstein cites Vice-Consul Thacher: "There was a sense of the absurd. They talked wishfully in terms of America providing them with tanks and aircraft."10 The US government also did not intend to stick its neck out too far from a diplomatic perspective. Support for the Lhasa government in front of the global community would have meant many complications, "whereas persuading the Dalai Lama to flee into exile and become an important Asian symbol/voice of anti-communism was 'low risk and high gain.'"11 The USA therefore denied Tibet's plea for support from the UNO that Sinha, the Indian representative in Lhasa, had drafted.12
Tibetan emissaries meeting the Indian Prime Minister Nehru in New Delhi on 8th September 1950. Front row: Tsecha Thubten Gyalpo, Pema Yudon Shakabpa (wife of Tsepon Shakabpa), Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Tsering Dolma (older sister of the Dalai Lama), Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa, Depon Phuntsok Tashi Takla (husband of Tsering Dolma). Back row: Dzasa Jigme Taring, unknown monk (possibly Geshe Lodo Gyatso), and Chepon Chemo Driyul (brother-in-law of Tsepon Shakabpa) (Photo: Unknown author)
As already mentioned, in June 1951 the 31-year old Taktse Rinpoche (Thubten Jigme Norbu), oldest brother of the Dalai Lama, arrived in Kalimpong. Shakabpa told Wilkins that the Dalai Lama wanted his brother to travel to the USA, where he could unofficially speak on his behalf. In Goldstein's opinion, Shakabpa often used the Dalai Lama's name without him being aware of this.13 The US Embassy supported Taktse's journey, even without official travel documents. They also recommended financial support. Both were approved by Washington.
Taktse had a very secret letter bearing the Dalai Lama's signature, which raised the idea of a secret agreement between Tibet and the USA. According to Taktse, the letter had not been shown to any other member of the government. Goldstein comments: "This appears to be the first instance of the Dalai Lama or his family or both operating a U.S. foreign policy independent of the rest of the government. It will not be the last."14 Not only Goldstein asks the question as to whether the Dalai Lama's inner circle, particularly his older brothers, had close contacts with the USA without his knowledge or approval.15 In any case, Taktse/Norbu ultimately worked "closely with the CIA" in the USA.16 The Committee for a Free Asia, one of the countless cover organisations of the CIA, gave him the necessary means17 and he soon became Director of the CIA station Radio Free Asia.18 He suddenly cancelled a Tibet campaign in the USA that had been planned together with the CIA, very likely so as not to endanger the local mission of another brother. In February 1952, the Dalai Lama's mother and his other siblings, including the 24-year old Gyalo Thondup19 and his sister Tsering Dolma, returned from Kalimpong/Darjeeling to Lhasa. Goldstein calls Gyalo's decision to return to Lhasa a "dramatic reversal": he had "too suddenly changed his mind," particularly as he had previously spent five months in the USA and was due to start a degree at Stanford University. Goldstein therefore assumes that Gyalo wanted to exert political influence in Lhasa. He tried there unsuccessfully to convince the sitsab to undertake radical reforms – reforms, which would have been able to knock down the argument from the Chinese Communists to release the serfs.20 Yet he was so radical that some people even found him to be "even more red than the Red Chinese themselves." It goes without saying that he was unsuccessful. Equally futile were his attempts to persuade the Dalai Lama to leave Tibet.21
So he decided again after three months, seemingly without the god-king's knowledge, to return secretly and "illegally" to India to organise Indian and American support there if possible. Goldstein was surprised by the secrecy and description as "illegal": "The Chinese were not restricting the travel of Tibetans to and from India, and since Gyalo's wife was in Darjeeling, it would have been easy for him to say she was sick and he had to return to assist her." In reality, Gyalo Thondup and Lobsang Samden "were plotting to start a secret anti-Chinese organization in exile without the knowledge of the Tibetan government or the Dalai Lama. A key to the success of this organization was for Gyalo to secure the cooperation of Shakabpa, the most prominent anti-Chinese government official in India." After the return of the Dalai Lama, which he had tried to prevent, Shakabpa had stayed in Kalimpong. The active support of the USA and its secret services was perhaps even more important. The conspirators probably therefore decided also to entrust their most important treasure to them: In a letter to Shakabpa, Lobsang Samden expressed concern for the Tibetan gold treasure removed from Lhasa and raised the question as to whether it wouldn't be better stored in an American bank.22
On 6th September 1952, Gyalo Thondup met the American General Consul in Calcutta, Gary Soulen, but did not make the best impression on him. He was evidently not in a position to supply the Americans with important information and they were suspicious of his depiction of the development in Lhasa, which was shaped by wishful thinking.23 Gyalo alleged, for example, that the Dalai Lama wanted to give the nobility's large estates to the people and so beat the "Commies at their own game." Goldstein calls these and other assertions from Gyalo "inaccurate." When this meeting proved to be unsuccessful, Gyalo turned directly to the US Foreign Minister in a letter from 12th November 1952. In the letter, he suggested recruiting Tibetans overseas, training them in secret service activities and smuggling them behind the Chinese borders. From here they would attempt to "encourage" the Tibetans to rebel. He also suggested creating an "organisation," which could battle the Chinese "from the border areas from all sides." "If our effort progresses well, then we could organize a proper military command center."24
The US government took a lot of time for this type of direct help. Even the contact with the Guomintang government in Taiwan, China and Mullik, the Head of the Indian secret services, failed to bear any fruit. Quite the opposite: India and China concluded an agreement in which India renounced the privileges inherited from the British in Tibet and acknowledged the affiliation of the region to China.
Gyalo Thondup, Shakabpa and a monastic official called Lobsang Gyentsen, who had recently arrived in India, decided to work together to build an anti-Chinese movement among Tibetans in India and to influence India's Tibetan policy for their benefit. In summer 1954, they founded a secret "association for the welfare of Tibet." Their programme stated (in the rough English version that Goldstein found) that Tibet had "under the former dual government system25 achieved freedom of religion and the pleasure of the fruits of the country." The "main political aim" it indicates is that "His Holiness" would "retain his leadership of the dual government." Furthermore, "all the activities of Communists and the atheists" would be banned. In light of recent events, the authors still complain demagogically that the Dalai Lama had been taken to China against the wishes of the three great monasteries and the population.26 Particularly interesting is a sentence that we must read twice in the context of 1954 as it is so incredible: two years before the start of the Khampa uprising and five years before the riot in Lhasa and its suppression, the document from the exiled Tibetans accuses "the Chinese" of committing "atrocities" and a "genocide" against the Tibetans: "...so many Chinese men and women were taken to Tibet. This was to accomplish their wish to genocide Tibetan people by bringing in Chinese because of Tibet's small population."27 The well-known catchword, completely independent from any real events, was already in the world in 1954. So soon after the genocide of European Jews – which, as is well known, did not occur through schools, roads, or hospitals, nor through the immigration of doctors, teachers, and engineers, but rather through mass deportations in cattle trucks, shootings, gas chambers and crematoria – this incredibly brazen misuse of the expression "genocide" is a first-class political obscenity.
In November 1956, the Dalai Lama accepted an invitation from the Maharajah of Sikkim to attend Buddha Jayanti, the festivities to celebrate the 2,500th "birthday" of Buddha. He was accompanied by the Panchen Lama, Ngabö Ngawang Jigme, and other high-ranking dignitaries. During his stay in India, which lasted several months,28 he not only made pilgrimages to the holy sites of Buddhism, but also spent a lot of time with the anti-Chinese conspirators in self-imposed Indian exile: with his brothers Gyalo Thondup and Thubten Norbu alias Taktse Rinpoche, and with Shakabpa and Lukhangwa. They used the opportunity to exert political influence on the younger one. They urged him not to return to Tibet, but rather to battle China together with them and the Americans. They almost managed to convince the "god-king" to remain in exile. It was not until the Indian Prime Minister Nehru, who did not like such a development, talked to him and arranged a meeting with Zhou Enlai, who was passing through, that the leaf turned. Zhou Enlai met the Dalai Lama twice,29 listened patiently to his complaints and concerns and ensured him that there would be no socialistic transformation in Tibet against the Dalai Lama's will. The Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa, under the condition that his complaints would be taken into account.30 In discussions with his Chinese interlocutors, he expressed his determination to address grievances more clearly in the future and contribute towards solving conflicts. In public speeches, he told the Tibetans that the Chinese had not come to repress them, but rather to help them and they could therefore candidly criticise mistakes made by the Chinese.31
Mao Zedong had already delivered a speech on 27th February 1957, in which he criticised the "Han chauvinism" and the "chauvinism of the local nationalities" and emphasised that "democratic reforms" in Tibet "can only be decided when the great majority of the people of Tibet and the local leading political figures consider it opportune." He added: "... and we should not be impatient." For the time of the Second Five Year Plan (1958-1962) it had already been established that these reforms would be waived; whether they could be undertaken during the Third Five Year Plan must be decided in light of the circumstances then.32
Yet at that time the circumstances already existed for a change for the worse and they were heading towards a violent confrontation.
Notes
1 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 113 2 Ibid., p. 51, p. 112-113 3 Ibid., p. 114-115 4 See further below for our discussion of Harrer as a Nazi. Yet we can say so much in general: passionate Nazis did not automatically stop being Nazis simply because their "Reich" had been defeated, and a use for their anti-Communism was soon found in the West after the Second World War... 5 See also ibid., p. 53 6 Ibid., p. 56 7 Ibid., p. 120 8 Ibid., p. 124 9 See also ibid., p. 128-129 10 Ibid., p. 129 11 Ibid., p. 119 12 Ibid., p. 59 13 See also ibid., comment p. 123 14 Ibid., p. 130-131 15 See also ibid., p. 370 16 Ibid., p. 371 17 See also ibid., p. 130 18 See also Desimpelaere/Martens, Tibet, au-delà de l´illusion, Brussels, Les Éditions Aden, 2009, p. 142 – Thubten Norbu/Taktse Rinpoche died, incidentally, as an American citizen, in September 2008 in Indiana/USA. 19 This brother of the 14th Dalai Lama was the son-in-law of a former Guomintang general and had studied in Chinese Nanking. 20 We know the recipe from Europe. In Germany, for example, Bismarck's anti-"socialist laws" and his modern social legislation were two sides of the same coin; under the Nazis, the destruction of the unions and the workers'movement were accompanied by "Kraft durch Freude" holidays etc. 21 Goldstein: The Calm... p. 375 22 Ibid., p. 377 – Lobsang Samden (1933-1985) was another brother of the Dalai Lama. 23 See also ibid., p. 465 24 Ibid., p. 468. See also pages 466-468 with the whole letter. 25 This refers to the traditional double occupancy of each high office with a cleric and an aristocratic layperson. 26 This naturally refers to the (voluntary) Dalai Lama trip to Peking to the National People's Congress and subsequent tour through the heart of China. 27 Goldstein: The Calm... p. 561-564 (Appendix C). 28 He arrived in New Delhi on 26th November 1956 and was back in Lhasa on 1st April 1957. 29 See also Goldstein, The Calm... p. 216 30 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 119 31 See also ibid., p. 120 32 Ibid.
19 Khampa uprising: robbers and "holy warriors" become CIA "freedom fighters"
We already knew this rabble – they were Khampas.
The Khampas, the Tibetan freedom fighters, fought particularly violently.
The accusation of CIA aid has no truth behind it.
Nobody, either in committed or uncommitted countries, would be taken in by the communist allegations that ... the rebellion was supported by imperialists, the Chiang Kai-shek bands and foreign reactionaries.
The rebellion was by no means a popular uprising of the serfs and the herdspeople. It was initiated and led by the chiefs of the clans and wealthy traders who were certainly encouraged if not covertly aided by contacts with some outside forces.
From 1951-52, there were reports of sporadic rebel activities in Tibetan occupied regions, which can probably be ascribed to the remnants of the defeated Kuomintang armies.6 The Chinese west was one of the last regions from which they had been driven out. According to accounts from the exiled Tibetans there were, in this region that the Tibetans call Kham, the first "uncoordinated attacks" and battles "under the command of the local chiefs" before 1956.7 However, the Canadian-American historian Grunfeld sees the actual start of the resistance during the "democratic reforms," which the Communist government initiated in 1956 in these regions that had been directly governed by China for centuries.8 This included a land reform, which took away the property of the lords and monasteries, i.e. the foundation of their economic and political power. This reform was possibly implemented too quickly and without sufficient preparation. In any case, it was met with unexpectedly strong resistance.
In his autobiography, the Dalai Lama states as reason for the rebellion, "the work of the monasteries was being grossly interfered with and the local population had begun to be indoctrinated against religion." He wisely does not talk about the economic and political power of the lamas, and not about legal vacuums or monasteries, who wanted to evade any government control, clung to their feudal privileges and colluded with bandits. According to the Dalai Lama, "monks and nuns were (...) subject to severe harassment and publicly humiliated." They are, in truth, terrible humiliations and mistreatments that he lists: "They were forced to take part in extermination programmes for insects, rats, birds and different kinds of vermin, even though the Chinese knew very well that killing is forbidden in Buddhism."9 To rescue the vermin, did they then move to killing Chinese and unbelievers? As a second reason, he states the Khampas' love of their shooting weapons: "The Khampas, who were not used to outside interference, did not take kindly to the Chinese methods: of all their possessions, the one they valued above all others was their personal weapon. So when the local cadres began to confiscate these, the Khampas reacted with violence."10 They could be certain of having the full understanding of the members of the American Rifle Association...
Grunfeld emphasises that the rebellion was initiated by, "in the words of one former rebel leader, 'big traders in Lhasa and the heads of Kham monasteries.'"11 Their leaders had close relationships with the Tibetan upper class, who had fled early to Kalimpong in self-imposed Indian exile, and, in 1956, unsuccessfully requested that the Dalai Lama, who was visiting India, should also remain in exile.
The first armed rebels against the Communist central government were therefore, as Grunfeld puts it, the "wild and feared Khampa nomads."12 During their uprising, which started in spring and summer 1956, the events around the Lithang monastery played an important role. The monks there had stubbornly refused to allow an inventory of the monastery's possessions and hand over the weapons hoarded there, which ultimately resulted in a 26-day siege of the intractable monastery by the People's Liberation Army and its partial destruction. This resulted in deaths and injuries on both sides. Thereupon, the Tibetans took revenge by attacking PLA units, which triggered a spiral of violence.
In Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer initially explains the term "Khampa" to his readers as he understands it from statements of his Tibetan interlocutors. "'Khampa' must be a resident of Kham, the eastern province of Tibet. Yet the name was never used without an undertone of fear and warning. Ultimately, we understand that the word had the same meaning as 'robbers'."13 In one of the following chapters, he talks about a "meeting with the robber Khampas" – that is also the title of the corresponding chapter.14 When Harrer and Aufschnaiter told a friendly family about their dangerous experience, the Tibetans were not surprised but rather explained to the foreigners "that the Khampas' encampment was called Gyak Bongra, a name which inspired fear throughout the countryside." The robbers were "heavily armed with rifles and swords" and were a "regular plague" due to their "efforts at extortion."15
Later on, when the new Communist government in Peking restored Chinese control over the Tibetan region, Harrer recollected the fact that an SS man may not let himself be outdone by anyone in his anti-Communism. So the Khampas were suddenly no longer "rabble," no longer feared robbers and a plague, but rather an "exceptionally hard and upright breed."16 He then even abruptly explained that the Tibetans, including the Khampa bandits, were "the most peaceful people on earth."17 Yet this did not prevent him, immediately after this grotesque assertion, from celebrating the armed Khampa uprising and delighting in the apparent deaths of thousands of killed Chinese soldiers. In view of his own biographical-political context (see our explanations below), we are instinctively reminded of the feigned peaceableness of Hitler and Goebbels shortly before they "fired back."
So it is no surprise that Harrer's choice of words and tone in this context remind us of the customary cult of the hero and leader among Nazis. As is well known, in its time of major need (alternatively: in its most difficult hour) a leader and liberator of the German people rose in the form of the Austrian private who had been chosen by destiny to free Germany etc. We almost expect to hear in the background the well-known sequence from Franz Liszt' Les Préludes or a Wagnerian Walkürenritt sound when Harrer raises a heroic song to the Khampa leader and informs his readers – note the choice of words – "that around this time a hero and liberator rose to the people in the province of Kham. It was the 44-year old Andrutchang, the head of one of the oldest (?), richest (!) and most esteemed Khampa families."18 Why and how, of all people, the son of one of the wealthiest feudal lord families should "liberate" a people composed mainly of serfs, farmers and shepherds remains Harrer's secret. The key to solving this secret probably lies in the ideology of the racial "peoples' community," the "national revolution" and the "leadership principle."19
Grunfeld takes the view that the uprising in no way covered all of Kham. The conflicts related to the state interventions in monasterial matters were a local phenomenon, which only affected those monasteries that often rebelled: "One lama, who later moved to the United States, remembered travelling extensively through Kham up to 1959 and never once having his religious activities or studies interrupted."20
Even the CIA author Conboy concedes that not all Khampas supported the uprising. He mentions, for example, a prominent tribe leader from Bathang, who spoke to the Khampas in Lhasa and in the larger monasteries about working with the Communists.21
However, from 1956 onwards there was a bigger, open uprising in parts of Kham, whereby the rebels used "religious festivals as covers for recruiting and meeting" and "the monasteries to store food and arms."22 The "lawless Khampa nomads," Grunfeld further explains, thought nothing of unleashing a "scorched earth" tactic, by breaking connection routes, plundering, attacking, pillaging and murdering.23 They probably inspired fear in most Tibetans. Namdrub, a nomad who was actively involved in the uprising, confirmed in discussions with Patrick French: "We were ruthless because we knew that if we were caught we would be shot."24
This Namdrub told French that people at the time did not know about the Chinese civil war between the Guomintang government and the Communists until around 1951 when the first Communists arrived in their region. They were friendly and courteous, gave out medicines and cigarettes. It was not until 1955 that it became uncomfortable when the PLA soldiers appeared and suggested to them that they join the communist (they probably meant the anti-feudal) reforms. They and the neighbouring clans (their feudal masters or chieftains?) rejected this and thought that the matter had thus been resolved. However, some more PLA soldiers had come to the nearby town and others had set up a camp on a hill. "Finally, all the local nomad chiefs decided we had to take them on." ... So around four hundred riders, armed with swords and guns, attacked the soldiers. They did not have the slightest chance of defending themselves and lost eighty men; the other side endured hardly any losses. He said that his personal reason for taking part in the uprising was "pride".
Afterwards a band of forty men continued to fight. During a shooting a bullet went through his hip and hit him in the stomach. His intestines were oozing out of the large hole it created. Heavily injured, he therefore fell into the hands of the Communists. Yet he did not wake up in the realm of God and not as a new incarnation of himself, but rather "in a prison hospital," where he was being nursed back to health.25 He was finally willing to convince his co-rebels of the hopelessness of their battle and bring them back from the mountains. In return, the Communists promised him an amnesty and held their word, even though some of the earlier counterrevolutionaries were again persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.
Can we thus evaluate the armed rebellion in some regions of the "Wild West of China" and later in Tibet (1959 in Lhasa) as a popular uprising and liberation struggle? In any case, the historian Grunfeld had strong doubts.26 The rebel leaders claimed that most of the people were opposed to the presence of the Han Chinese. Yet some of them admitted that many poor Tibetans were happy to see the Hans. In any case, we must ask about the reality of the free will of the rank and file, when the leaders of the rebellion were feudal masters. A wealthy rebel leader, for example, admitted having provided 46 of his "staff" including the necessary weapons and horses for the good cause, followed by reinforcements and food e.g. hundreds of pack horses and mules.27 The servile subjects of the feudal masters possibly had no more free will than the aforementioned horses and mules. Grunfeld estimates that a majority of the small upper class, possibly 70 percent, sympathised with the rebels. However, it is impossible to say how much support they received from the normal people, if at all any. The (mainly very fanciful!) figures provided by the Tibetan exiles ranged from a total of 35,000 to 300,000 Tibetans who supported the rebellion.28
The political-ideological background attributed to the rebels who were mainly presented as "freedom fighters" in the West even appears questionable to French when he writes: "... the Chushi Gangdrug, an organisation now often depicted as a symbol of militant Tibetan nationalism, was at its inception a movement for the preservation of religion. Its military badge carried the legend 'Guardians of Religion in the Land of Snows.'"29 The organisation, which today still operates a website from Swiss exile, itself explains the symbolism of its flag: it shows two crossed swords on a yellow background. "Yellow stands for Buddhism (sic!), and we wanted to protect Buddhism(!) from the Communist Chinese. One of the swords is burning and symbolises wisdom. The sword of the wisdom of the Manjushree that can destroy the roots of ignorance. The second sword stands for fearlessness."30 It was not for nothing that the heading of an interview with the "Dalai Lama's brother," in the American newspaper USNWR read "'Holy War' in Tibet".31
French cites a Chushi Gangdrug veteran and former monk named Raduk Ngawang who, in 1958, took part in an attack on the PLA and gives us a small insight into the understanding of Buddhism and the mentality of the insurgents when he acknowledges: "As a Buddhist, the invocation of om mani padme hum comes to my lips when I kill an insect, but I didn't feel sad during that battle. I was happy. The Red Chinese had killed monks and destroyed monasteries, so we killed them. I felt nothing when I saw them lying there dead. They had no religion."32
In the context of the Cold War at the time and the western roll back strategy, all kinds of Communist haters were welcome allies, even if they were reactionary, fanatical, and unscrupulous. Thus, the battle of the Khampa gangs for their good old religion very quickly became a highly secret, because illegal and illegitimate, killing on behalf of the CIA and US interests in eastern Asia. When describing the following events, we again do not want to follow any "Chinese propaganda" but rather focus on "western" sources and sources from Tibetan exiles. Some valuable information may still be marked as classified and top secret and lying around in US archives but a lot of other information is now generally available and has been published by authors from within the US services or even directly from "Buddha warriors" themselves. All of these sources agree that, from very early on, the CIA provided military training for the Khampa fighters, equipped them, supported them logistically and controlled them from a safe distance. That the Dalai Lama's brothers played a key role from the outset. That the "Tibetan struggle for liberation" was at no time "peaceful" or "non-violent" but rather extremely violent, brutal and unscrupulous. And finally that the Dalai Lama lied to the public for decades about the backers and backgrounds of this struggle.
The February 2004 issue of the American newspaper Military History contained an informative article about the "largely unknown struggle" that "got support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which sponsored secret training camps and made arms and equipment drops." The text entitled CIA's Secret War in Tibet from the pen of a certain Joe Bageant was published online on 12th June 2006.33 His most important statements are presented here, occasionally complemented with other sources.
In the mid-1950s, "influential Tibetan traders" began recruiting men for a resistance movement, which then led to the creation of Chushi Gandrug. Their leader was "a hard-drinking (!) 51-year old trader named Gompo Tashi Andrugtsang." The man had a serious alcohol problem: when he visited Phala, the Dalai Lama's chamberlain, on one of the few motorbikes there were in Lhasa, he was often inebriated.34 As the rebels needed outside help, the Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, who had already been approached by the CIA, contacted the Americans. The Americans were quite intrigued with the prospect of supporting the Tibetans as part of a global anti-Communist campaign. Even if the US government was hardly willing to advocate an independent Tibet, the reactionary Tibetans were a welcome opportunity to create "running sore for the Reds," as one CIA man put it.
The article later explains how, in spring 1957, a CIA aircraft flew six Tibetans from Gompo Tashi's group via Bangkok and Okinawa to the island of Saipan in the western Pacific, where they received military training for six months. The leader of this first group (and a later head of the terrorist base in Mustang) was Gompo Tashi's nephew, Wangdu Gyatotsang, who had grown up in the Lithang monastery and is described as "hot tempered from childhood." He was so violent that he became a murderer even before his career as a terrorist began. In the small town of Menling he shot a bodyguard of the local tribal chief, who had rudely asked him to take off his hat. However, he avoided punishment on "account of his family connections."35
As a further internet article also divulges,36 the Dalai Lama's brother Norbu (Taktse Rinpoche) joined the group in Okinawa and fled with them in their C-118 to Saipan. This small volcanic island, which is under US control and belongs to the Mariana islands, was used by the CIA at the time for training anti-Communist espionage, sabotage, torture, and terror specialists from several Asian countries. Alongside Tibetans, Kuomintang Chinese, Koreans and Thais, also Laotians and Vietnamese were trained there for the outbreaking war in Indochina. The CIA agents who were instructing the Tibetan fighters were thus, in part, identical to the soldiers, warhorses, and murderers who would soon be pursuing their criminal activities in Laos or Vietnam. For example, Anthony A. "Tony Poe" Poshepny, who later achieved notoriety in Laos, also spent four years "working" with the Khampa rebels.37 In Laos, he became a brutal "jungle warlord," who collected the ears of killed "enemies" (he paid his Hmong child soldiers for this...) and enclosed them with his written success reports to his superiors. He also arranged for severed heads to be dropped over "enemy territory" or skewered on sticks and displayed in the region. The half-crazy film figure of Kurtz, played by Marlon Brando in Coppola's Apocalypse Now, was based on him.
The training programme in Saipan included weapon techniques, guerilla tactics, espionage and the use of codes and radios. "We lived only to kill the Chinese," one of the pious warriors said. A later commander of the Chushi Gangdrug, Gyato Wangdu, asked the CIA official Roger McCarthy about a portable atom bomb that he could use in Tibet. He was not given one but the CIA appreciated Wangdu's enthusiastic participation in the explosives training just as much as his ability to handle rocket-powered grenades and grenade launchers. However, there were major difficulties when the Tibetans were to estimate or measure distances, record, or code messages, learn the Morse alphabet etc. Most of them were illiterate and had no previous knowledge. A Tibetan teacher was also needed to teach them initially in their own language, as they could only speak their local dialect and even this with what linguists call a "restricted code."
Towards the end of 1957 the fully-trained CIA Tibetans were dropped from US aeroplanes over their homeplace, where they made contact with Gompo Tashi. The highly secret undertaking was given the code name "ST Circus." Now the CIA was directly involved. When the rebel group, whose name initially referred only to Kham and Amdo, was renamed in summer 1958 to Tensung Dhanglang Magar (Volunteer Armed Forces for Defending Buddhism), this was done under the watchful eyes of two CIA Tibetans, who continually reported to the USA via radio. The first weapons were dropped in July. These were primarily old Lee Enfield guns, whose origin could not be traced back to the US.
The described US intervention took place without the approval of the kashag and Dalai Lama. However, on the Chushi Gangdrug website Khampa rebels complained that the American Foreign Ministry initially demanded "a formal request from the Tibetan government" to authorise the supply of weapons to the insurgents. "General Gompo Tashi" asked Phala, the Dalai Lama's Upper Chamberlain, "for support" and warned that his "troops" would otherwise "run out of ammunition." In 1958, the "Tibetan government" was also asked via "radio messages" to submit "an official request for support" to the USA. "Despite this, and for reasons known only to the government, they ignored all attempts at contact. The guerrillas' situation was becoming critical and the Eisenhower administration gave the CIA the order to start with the support measures. Aeroplanes were to drop material over the region of the freedom fighters. Volunteers were also to be trained. The first, long-awaited supply flights were launched in August 1958, without the authorisation of the Tibetan government."38
The Americans did therefore not particularly care about any "sovereignty of the Tibetan government" nor the well-being of the Tibetans; they were even less interested in historical, legal and ethical questions. The Military History article notes that only a few US citizens would have been able to find Tibet on a world map and that even CIA boss Allen Dulles initially looked for Tibet near to Hungary, before one of his agents politely "enlightened" him.39 However, that did not prevent the US Secret Service from setting up a top-secret training camp for anti-Communist Tibetan fighters in Camp Hale, Colorado, formerly the home of the 10th Mountain Division of the US army. The "teams" who were then dropped over western China were all equipped with weapons, radios and a potassium cyanide capsule attached to their left wrist. Initial successes by the Buddha warriors encouraged the Agency to launch three more parachute drops of weapons and ammunition in 1958.
For its part, the Chushi Gangdrug website states – with reference to the book Tears for Lotus by Roger E. McCarthy (the former CIA official) – that in those years there were "35-40 supply flights" "with 200,000-400,000 kilograms of weapons and ammunition." This included "British 303, US M1 and M2 guns, 50 and 80 mm, 30-calibre machine guns and 3.5mm bazookas and also "semi-automatic guns, hand grenades, pistols, TNT, C3 and C4" explosives.40 They were flown by "the Civil Air Transport (CAT), one of the CIA airlines."41
After the uprising in Lhasa and flight of the Dalai Lama, the CIA made greater efforts to train, equip and supply an anti-Communist guerrilla army. It was now no longer necessary to exercise any caution; whether the origin of the weapons was uncovered in China was no longer relevant. The Military History article names "several arms drops soon afterward," this time with "M-1 Garand guns, mortars, grenades, recoilless rifles and machine guns." Nor were they small drops. The first one consisted of 126 pallets of cargo, including 370 M-1 rifles with 192 rounds per rifle, four machine guns with 1,000 rounds each and two radio sets. A second similar drop came the next month, and a third 226-pallet drop during the next full moon provided 800 more rifles, 200 cases of ammo and 20 cases of grenades. On January 6, 1960, some 650 pallets landed with more arms, plus medicine and food.42
Moreover, the article mentions the figure of 259 Tibetans who were trained in Camp Hale and were then to be secretly dropped over Tibet by parachute. Their guerilla and sabotage deployments in China had not been very successful and most of them ended fatally: so, for example, in September 1959, 18 guerilla fighters jumped near to Chagra Pembar, around 200 miles to the northeast of Lhasa, to provide military advice and training to local nomads living there with their families and animals in a tent settlement. Only five of them survived; all the others were hunted down by the PLA and killed. The article continues that the entire Tibet undertaking quickly turned into a disaster. The large rebel camp in Nira Tsogeng, which had just been supplied by the CIA with 430 palettes laden with weapons, was bombed by the PLA and destroyed; the survivors fled through the bleak Ladakh plain, where most of them died of thirst. Yet that was not enough: in spring 1960, seven men jumped over Markham in eastern Tibet. Their leader, Yeshe Wangyal, was the son of a local tribal chief. The group joined the fighters under Wangyal's father, who had fallen a few months previously, and supplied them with weapons and ammunition. However, the rebel troop was immediately attacked and surrounded by the PLA. According to the only survivor from the CIA team, two of them swallowed their potassium cyanide capsules. He himself, a former medical student named Bhusang, was overwhelmed before he could take his own life and had to spend the next 18 years in a Chinese prison.
Despite massive logistical support from the USA, the attempted counterrevolutionary guerilla war was condemned to rapid failure, because it found no notable support among the population. The fighters dropped by parachute from CIA aeroplanes were quickly caught or captured because their Tibetan compatriots betrayed them. The Chushi Gangdrug rebels at least allude to this when they write, for example: "Six trained men jumped by parachute over Markham. This group also did not manage to make contact with the local guerillas. They turned to a family whom they asked for food and support. But they were betrayed to the Chinese."
The American Military author summarises that the Chushi Gangdrug fighting force in Tibet was quickly defeated, wiped out and its remains hunted down and driven out by the PLA; Gombo Tashi himself ultimately joined the flow of refugees who followed the Dalai Lama into exile. Despite receiving medical treatment in England and Darjeeling for many months, he died in September 1964 of the delayed effects of the injuries he suffered during the fights. The Military History article draws the following conclusion about "ST Circus": out of forty-nine CIA Tibetans who jumped over Tibet at that time, only twelve survived, two of them in Chinese custody.43
As per information on the Chushi Gangdrug website, the remaining CIA Tibetans who had been trained in Colorado were taken to India, where they were stationed on the border with China, "performed various tasks for the Secret Service within the CIA and worked until 1961 for the Tibetan training programme." Overall, according to the French author Donnet, around one thousand Tibetans received military training in the USA.44
The Military History article confirms the deployment (misuse?) of the Tibetan CIA recruits for espionage and sabotage in the sole interest of the USA. Whereas military operations in China ended in a fiasco and resulted in nothing but the loss of human lives (of non-US citizens, mind you), the author refers to successes in the area of Secret Service findings: in 1962, Tibetan spies right in the heart of China photographed Chinese military complexes, drew maps and gave the USA information about the Chinese rocket weapons and atomic weapons programme. Tibetan agents also installed sensors, which enabled the USA to find out details about the first Chinese atomic weapons test in Lop Nor in 1964. The author of the Military History article is particularly proud of one achievement, which he lets a "veteran" called Acho explain in detail and recounts with clear pleasure. Forty riders attacked a small column of vehicles and shot the driver of a truck in the eye. The brain mass squirted out behind the victim and the vehicle came to a standstill while the motor was still running. Afterwards, they all shot at the vehicle in which a woman with a blue bag was still sitting. When the CIA colleagues in Washington opened the blood-covered bag punctured with bullets they were speechless: it contained 1,500 secret documents with important information e.g. about the unsuccessful "Great Leap Forward." The Tibetans were delighted to have been so useful to their employer, even though the "veteran" Acho complained in an interview in 2001: "We still don't know what was in that bag."45
Let us allow the Tibetan exiles to tell us themselves what else happened on the ground at the western Chinese border: "Shortly after their arrival in India, General Gonpa (sic!) Tashi and other leaders made plans for a guerilla base. Alongside our former allies for war material, the CIA, we received a similar commitment from the Kuomintang government in Taiwan. Tsepak Dorjee, a former military pilot who had represented the Republic of China, donated Rs. 40,000/- (sic!) and offered further donations from his government, if our organisation desired it."46 Further assistance from Taiwan was politely declined and priority was given to a close collaboration with the US Secret Service.
From four possible locations in India and Nepal, Mustang, a region on the border between Nepal and Tibet, was selected as a guerilla base. It was a remote, desolate and almost uninhabited area from which several passes and routes led to Tibet. Around ten thousand people lived here from a subsistence farming economy. They soon perceived the armed Tibetans in their ten guerilla camps as an "occupation force."47 In Darjeeling, a recruitment office was also opened; at the same time, further terrorists received military training in Camp Hale. The Dalai Lama's brother, Gyalo Thondup, and the organiser of the guerilla base, Lhamo Tsering, replaced Gompo Tashi with Baba Gen Yeshi. Even the Military History author finds that he was more akin to "a feudal tribal chief than a contemporary guerrilla commander," whereas others characterise him as "illiterate but highly intelligent and extremely ruthless."48 The Military History continues that the new commander unfortunately embezzled money and supplies and "terrorised the locals and stole from farmers."49 Old habits are hard to break.
By the mid-1960s, the situation for the 3,000 Tibetan fighters had become more difficult, according to information from Chushi Gangdrug, because Nepal was no longer willing to tolerate the use of its territory for terrorist purposes in a neighbouring country. India was also becoming increasingly "nervous." However, the attacks on the other side of the border continued until the end of the decade (according to Chushi Gangdrug even until 1974); the CIA launched a final arms drop over Tibet in May 1965, it was further stated.
In 1969, General Gen Yeshi was removed from command and Gyato Wangdu, one of the Tibetans trained in Saipan and per Military History a "steel-hard fighter," was appointed as commander of the Mustang base. However, it now came thick and fast for the "Buddha warriors." After Nixon's visit to China, the CIA's support for the guerilla base was discontinued in 1972. At the end of 1973, King Birendra gave the Nepalese armed forces the command to disarm the Tibetan fighters. The deposed Baba Gen Yeshi had seemingly informed the Nepalese army in Kathmandu in detail about the Mustang base and the fighters there. Meanwhile, they were preparing for battle against the royal army. It was not until the Dalai Lama personally sent a recording asking them not to resist that most of them laid down their weapons. "However, General Gyato Wandu suspected a 'falsehood' from the Nepalese authorities, as per the Chushi Gangdrug website, and tried to abscond with a few followers to India. However, they were caught by royal Nepalese paratroopers and killed in a gunfight. Six guerilla leaders, who had surrendered to the authorities in Pokra, were put in prison in Kathmandu for 7 years. That marked the end of all resistance activities in Mustang in 1974."50
Some of the Mustang Tibetans now joined an elite troop of the Indian armed forces composed of Tibetan soldiers, who are described in the text of the Chushi Gangdrug as "Armed Force 22." The Indian soldiers gave them the nickname "Lama Fauj" or "Lama army."51 This Indian version of the foreign legion had been set up by Nehru in 1962 during the Indian-Chinese border war under the title "border defence forces." The basis was an agreement between the Indian Secret Service (RAW), to which it was subordinate, the CIA, who pulled the strings, and Chushi Gangdrug.52 The soldiers were trained by the Indian army. The original intention was to "drop the unit from a flight over Tibet." This did not happen. "Armed Force 22 never had the opportunity, as intended, to battle Red China but they were deployed, with the approval of his Highness, the Dalai Lama, against East Pakistan in 1971,"53 acknowledged the Tibetan exiles and later flaunted their heroic military acts.
In any case, we note that the Dalai Lama, the apparent apostle of peace, gave the Indian-Tibetan weapons his blessing and gave his followers the green light for military deployment against third parties. The fact that he also welcomed the development of the Indian atomic bomb fits seamlessly into the picture. It is no coincidence that the first Indian A-bomb was christened the "smile of Buddha." Knowledge for its construction was apparently part of a secret deal between India and the USA: they let 400 Indian students into the country to study atomic physics. The Indian service in return was to give the Dalai Lama and his exile community a friendly welcome in Indian Dharamshala...
Notes
1 Harrer, Sieben Jahre, p. 148. In the English edition, the word "Gesindel" meaning "rabble" has not been translated and the statement is thus flawed and biased. See also: Seven Years... p. 102 2 http://www.lilipuz.de/wissen/zeitkreisel/details/artikel/10031959-aufstand-in-tibet/ 3 Quoted from Grunfeld, The Making... p. 151 4 Quoted from Grunfeld, The Making... p. 152 5 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 124 6 See also ibid., p. 132 7 We refer to the Swiss website of Chushi Gangdruk, the rebel organisation that waged an armed battle against the People's Republic of China until the 1970s: http://www.chushigangdrug.ch/geschichte/geschichte_kalachakra.php, accessed on 11th September 2012 8 In actual Tibet, the central government initially guaranteed the extensive maintenance of the social status quo. 9 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 114 10 Ibid., p. 114-115. – Incidentally, Deshayes holds the interesting view that the "abolition of serfdom" in Kham had "negative effects." Otherwise, he agrees that the resolution to "disarm the traditional warlike population" intensified "anti-Chinese sentiments." In: Histoire du Tibet, p. 330-331 11 Grunfeld: The Making... p. 132. He refers to Gampo Tashi Andrugstang, Four Rivers, Six Ranges: Reminiscences of the Resistance Movement in Tibet, Dharamshala, 1973, p. 40 12 Grunfeld, ibid. 13 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 88 14 Ibid., p. 88 and p. 89 15 Ibid., p. 89. Harrer: Sieben Jahre... p. 421. This sentence is missing in the English edition. 16 Harrer: Sieben Jahre... p. 421. This sentence is missing in the English edition. 17 Harrer: Sieben Jahre... p. 416. This sentence is missing in the English edition. 18 Harrer: Sieben Jahre... p. 421. This sentence is missing in the English edition. 19 It is no coincidence that Harrer talks of the Khampa leader as the "liberator" of this "people." This people does not fundamentally "free" itself, but rather merely acts as the "follower" of the "liberator," who "arises" through destiny... 20 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 132 21 See also Conboy, CIA's Secret War, p. 6 22 Grunfeld, The Making...p. 132 23 See also ibid., p. 133 – In contrast, the "standard accounts" stating that "the Chinese Air Force bombed" the besieged Lithang and Batang monasteries are "incorrect", as indicated by Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, vol. 3: The Storm Clouds Descend, p. 236 24 French did not question further; he did not want to know exactly what his partner in conversation meant by "ruthless." Even the French pro-Dalai Lama journalist Donnet talks, without giving details, of the "extreme wildness" of the Khampa attacks. (P.-A. Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, p. 60) 25 All information from French, Tibet Tibet, p. 124-125 26 Grunfeld expressly rejects some accounts as the products of myths and wishful thinking with no reference to the facts. He rejects, for one, the view that the Lhasa uprising in 1959 was a "revolution," which was equally targeted towards the "imperialistic Chinese communism" and the "religious tyranny of the great abbots;" furthermore, that the uprising was "spontaneous in nature" and "nationalistic in content" and thwarted the Chinese intention "to kidnap" the Dalai Lama and take him to China. See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 141 27 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 133 28 See also ibid., p. 131 29 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 182 30 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch/geschichte/geschichte_kalachakra.php, accessed on 11th September 2012 31 US News and World Report, edition from 13th April 1959, p. 48; quoted from Grunfeld, The Making... p. 289 32 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 182. – How does it fit with the feigned non-violence and peaceableness when bloody attacks invoke admiration and feelings of happiness in His Holiness? He writes in his autobiography, after having explained about a Khampa attack: "I was very moved to hear of such bravery." In Freedom in Exile, p. 139 33 http://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.ht; accessed on 11th September 2012. See also, for example.: http://intelnews.org/2009/03/14/01-100/#more-1517 34 See also Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows, p. 166 35 Kenneth Conboy, The CIA's Secret War in Tibet, Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2002, p. 39-40 36 http://www.american-buddha.com/cia.secret.war.saipan.htm 37 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 290, who refers to a whole range of sources 38 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch/geschichte/geschichte_kalachakra.php; accessed on 11th September 2012 39 http://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.ht; accessed on 11th September 2012 40 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch/geschichte/geschichte_kalachakra.php; accessed on 11th September 2012 41 Grunfeld: The Making... p. 155 42 See also http://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.ht; accessed on 11th September 2012 43 See also ibid. 44 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch, see also Donnet: Tibet mort ou vif, p. 65 45 http://www.historynet.com 46 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 47 George Patterson, quoted by Grunfeld, The Making... p. 161 48 See also Grunfeld, ibid., p. 553 49 http://www.historynet.com 50 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 51 See also French, Tibet Tibet, p. 290 52 See also Grunfeld, p. 160, who refers to John F. Avedon, In Exile From The Land of Snows and mentions weekly meetings between Tibetan rebels, Americans, and Indians in the secret Orissa base. 53 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch
20 Lhasa 1959: Khampas and the CIA stage a "people's uprising" and bring the Dalai Lama out of the country
On this Sunday 54 years ago, hundreds of thousands (!) of Tibetans had gathered in front of the Potala palace (!), the Dalai Lama's residence in the capital of Lhasa, to protect him against being captured by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Although we have cloaked our activity on the border of India in the deepest secrecy, who in India and who in Russia would believe that such activity was being supported and directed by anyone else than the covert peacetime operational forces of the United States? ... If the Dalai Lama is spirited out of Tibet in the face of an overwhelming Chinese army of conquerors, are the Chinese going to think he found his support in heaven?
Based on information from the Khampa rebels, "many liberation fighters from eastern parts" of the Tibetan settlement region were "starting to gather" in the area around Lhasa in 1957. Their leaders came "under the veil of bringing religious gifts to Lhasa."3 They had asked the Dalai Lama to "grant them his blessing during the Kalachakra initiation," it continues, to which he "kindly" agreed. In return, the Khampas organised a major tenshuk ritual to "celebrate the longevity of his Holiness." The ceremony also symbolised "the naming of his Holiness as the leader of all Tibet and his presence as Holiness." The exchange of these religious-political pleasantries raised new questions concerning the Dalai Lama's political stance and loyalty. His good collaboration with the central government over many years, his acknowledgement of a reformed and modernised Tibet as part of China, his sympathy towards socialism through to the urgent desire to become a member of the Communist Party of China – was that all genuine? His public statements, his China tour and the assumption of important positions in the Chinese state, his good collaboration with Ngabö and other Tibetans willing to reform, his repeated calls to religious extremists for calm and moderation, his return after the India trip in 1956/1957, his repeated refusal to accept offers of help from the CIA – all of that could justify a positive response to this question.
On the other hand, the Dalai Lama had never decisively broken away from the most reactionary parts of the Tibetan oligarchy. He only enforced the deposition of the sitsab and the ban on the mimang tsondu reluctantly and under massive pressure; he kept it secret from the Chinese authorities that his brothers worked closely together with a hostile foreign power; he listened to their insinuations and those of the other anti-Chinese conspirators in India, and even wanted to remain in Indian exile after the Buddha festivities in 1957 until Prime Minister Zhou Enlai managed to persuade him to come back. Had he therefore, as his admirers in the West and most bitter foes in China agree, always only feigned his desire to work together with the Chinese government and his socialist sympathies, and thus hidden his true intentions? Had he always been a master of hypocrisy, affectation and lies? Or was he simply so inexperienced, so good-natured, so indecisive and weak-willed, so dependent on his advisors and so easily to influence that, for a long time, he repeatedly wavered between different alternatives and political camps, as Goldstein, for example, seems to believe? In any case, both scenarios would disqualify him as a religious and political shining light. As a glib hypocrite and coldly calculating schemer he would have to be compared with the worst church dignitaries of western history; as a man without a fixed point of view, without his own will and without any leadership qualities, who let people from all sides make demands of him, he would not cut a much better figure.
But let's go back to the events of those decisive months. At the start of 1959, "there must have been 25-30,000 monks" crowding together in Lhasa, and it was "packed with devotees,"4 as the Dalai Lama's celebratory graduation was to take place at the end of February. "Just before the uprising" Lhasa was therefore "full of people from Amdo and Kham."5 As per Grunfeld, in August 1958 the Khampa rebels had begun "actively recruiting" supporters "in Lhasa itself."6 Their presence and activities resulted in heightened tensions in the city and a relaunch of the "Peoples' Association" that had been banned a few years previously. Reports from refugees about the enforced reforms in Kham and the battles there reawakened the earlier fears of the Tibetan elite that they could lose their social position and their possessions.
The Tibetan government did not adopt a clear position either for or against the rebellion. Above all, it refused to deploy the (still existing!) Tibetan army against the Khampa rebels. The Dalai Lama's advisors were also disunited. Nevertheless, the Chushi Gangdrug website reported that "a four-man delegation, under Governor Lhokha" was sent to the main quarters of the Khampa fighters in the south of Lhasa. The officials from Lhasa demanded "information as to why Gonpo Tashi, Sago Namgyal Dorjee and the residents of Kham had left their home and taken up arms. They demanded valid reasons as to why this had happened. The military leaders wrote a document with their motives, which the delegation brought back to Lhasa." Later, the rebels immediately relocated their main quarters: "They knew that the CIA had offered an official collaboration and that the Tibetan government had ignored this." Consequentially, they did not trust the government an inch. Part of them went to "Shang Gaden Chokhor" to "steal weapons and ammunitions from the government's depot."7 Others carried out attacks and engaged in individual gunfights with the PLA.
The PLA exercised incredible restraint over an equally astonishing period of time. It merely secured its positions and was constantly on red alert but avoided armed confrontations as far as possible. Within the Tibetan government, the rational and moderate powers initially retained the upper hand. "In September 1958, the Tibetan government in Lhasa sent a second delegation to Lhagyri. This delegation was composed of two fourth rank government officials, namely Tekhang Khenchung Thupten Samchock and Tsepon Namseling. Their mission was to deter the Khampas from their plans. They had the kashag's letter in their hands, which explained that the Khampas were reactionaries who violated the law. They were asked to peacefully hand over their weapons to the authorities and cease their activities."8 A few weeks before the Lhasa uprising "when the rebels were seeking support on 16th February 1959, they were advised to go home and cooperate with the Han."9
However, a small spark later resulted in the powder keg exploding. The trigger was an invitation to the Dalai Lama to attend a theatre performance in the PLA's camp. The god-king himself had set the date, 10th March, one month beforehand and suggested moving the performance from the originally planned location of Norbulingka to the military camp.10 Klemens Ludwig, the "Free Tibet" activist, describes the unfolding of events as follows: "When people heard about the suspicious invitation, thousands of them set off to the summer palace to protect their leader. In response, the Chinese People's Liberation Army took a stand. Tension rose and a peaceful way out no longer seemed possible. The Dalai Lama therefore decided to flee to India. The Great Terror. The result is known: the People's Liberation Army brutally defeated the uprising and bombed the summer palace in the belief that the Tibetan leader was still there."11
For Klemens Ludwig, the roles are of course clearly allocated like in a poor Hollywood film. The peacefully demonstrating "population" in Lhasa was faced with the "brutal" Chinese People's Liberation Army. The reader may wish to compare this narrative with what parties involved, eyewitnesses or serious historians have written about the events. It is initially notable that – other than with Ludwig – there are repeated references to the critical role played by rumours. The Chushi Gangdrug rebels wrote, "In the capital a rumour is doing the rounds that the Chinese planned to kidnap his Holiness, the Dalai Lama and take him to China. Then there came the news of a highly unusual invitation, without escorts, to a theatre performance in the Chinese camp. The residents of Lhasa put 2 and 2 together and became even more suspicious." Choedrak, the Dalai Lama's personal doctor, also remembers the start of the riots using similar words: "In Lhasa all kinds of rumours were circulating and spreading at lightning speed. People were increasingly talking about a possible kidnapping of our leader by the Communists. Billboards were hung up here and there demanding the withdrawal of the Chinese and denouncing the 'Seventeen Point Agreement.'"12
The monk's doctor probably did not look into the origin and veracity of the "rumours." At any rate, he drew a veil of silence over this in his memoirs (like the whole Tibet scene). The rumour that the "Chinese" wanted to kidnap the religious leader of the Tibetans had clearly been started and spread before his invitation to the theatre performance in the PLA camp. What could be a better way to enrage devout Tibetans than the assertion that someone wished evil upon their holy lama? Moreover, the billboards that Choedrak mentions allude to planning, organisation and (literate!) backers. Grunfeld provides a further indication that suggests the scenario had been planned well in advance and questions the notion that it was a spontaneous people's uprising. One week before the start of the riots in Lhasa, namely on 2nd March 1959, the Statesman in Calcutta in India published an anonymous article, whose author clearly had "exceptional sources and insights," as he was able to predict the events of the next few days in Tibet with incredible accuracy. The article states that the Khampa rebels saw the Chinese PLA in Lhasa as only a minor threat and planned to cut off all access roads when fights broke out. Particularly noteworthy: the anonymous author held the view that the Dalai Lama would not readily want to leave the Tibetan capital and the Khampas would have to provoke some kind of incident to induce him to do so.13
The rebels who had gathered outside the Norbulingka, as described by Choedrak, remind us more of an incited lynch mob than concerned citizens. Their aggression was targeted not only towards the "Chinese" but also Tibetans, especially individual representatives of the Tibetan government: "The crowd that had gathered outside the Dalai Lama's summer residence was becoming increasingly aggressive. A Tibetan minister, Tsewang Rigzin, accompanied by Chinese guards wanted to enter the Norbulingka. Yet he had no time to get to the door. People (...) were consumed by rage, the first stones were thrown, the rumour (!) circulated: 'Tsewang Rigzin is a spy working for the Chinese. They pay him lavishly.' According to my knowledge, this man had excellent connections to our leader but how could that be explained to these rampant people?"14 The furious crowd did not dither for long as, Choedrak explains, "if someone accused their neighbour" of being a Communist sympathiser, this person was "attacked on the spot."
When people heard that the Dalai Lama "ultimately" wanted to "go to the performance organised by the Chinese" the mob "in an uncontrollable state of excitation," besieged the entrances to the Norbulingka. Choedrak's account makes it clear who was actually acting in a "brutal" manner: "Other government members, in jeeps and with a Chinese escort, were attacked by the crowd. Access to the Norbulingka was now completely blocked. A man appeared at the door of the main entrance and handed over a message from the Kashag imploring everyone to calm down." But the mob had tasted blood: "Another terrible incident took place before my eyes. A man dressed in a Chinese manner (...) was riding on a bike towards Norbulingka. It was Phagpalha Khenchung, who was known for his interactions with the Communists. The crowd immediately pounced on him and stoned him to death."15
We must remember: many years beforehand, the participants in the German Tibet expedition had been exposed to this kind of Tibetan "community of the people." Harrer talks about this in Seven Years in Tibet.16 The context: during the Tibetan New Year's festival, when several thousand pilgrims always inundated the city, he himself bore witness to a ghostly scene. Gathered around a sacrificial fire, a crowd of believers "looked on entranced, while monks threw death's heads and the symbolic effigies of evil" into the flames, along with "countless offerings of butter and grain." Then, as a "culminating moment," the state oracle came dancing towards the fire, which caused "the crowds" to "burst out of their frozen immobility into ecstatic cries and gestures." In such moments, the crowd becomes unpredictable, knows Harrer. He was certainly sympathetic to ecstatic crowds, which he knew well from the Third Reich; however, this time he knew that he was well-advised "to be very careful" because: "In 1939 the members of the only German expedition which ever came to Tibet barely escaped with their lives, for they had the temerity to try to film the Oracle and were at once stoned by the mob." His countrymen managed to save themselves by quickly taking to their heels. Yet Harrer shows some understanding for such emotions within the Tibetan soul: the sudden transformation of the devotees into a lynch mob had nothing to do with "any trace of xenophobia" but rather "was inspired by the fanatical religious loyalty of the people, which is always capable of producing such outbreaks."17 In any case, Schäfer reports in Das Fest der weißen Schleier with little indulgence about the "fanatical hordes of lamas" and "hate-filled human beasts," who "governed by group instincts, incubate evil." Not only foreign unbelievers were attacked then. The head of their "bodyguards" was struck to the ground with the words: "Traitorous cur, you belong to the foreign devils who are destroying our religion" and it was only in the last second that an officer was able to fend off a sword that "a black-faced lama" had pulled out.18
But let's go back to the events of March 1959. While the fanatical mob raged outside, discussions about the situation were being held in the Norbulingka. Choedrag also reports on this, "We could see how some functionaries sided with the Communist Party. (...) A representative of Ganden, a certain Aga, sounded an extreme note of caution. As an important person in the monastery he enjoyed major influence within Tibetan society but everyone also knew about his subservience towards the Chinese."19 The monk's doctor continues: "Even on the streets, while the Chinese drove around in jeeps spreading pacifying messages and ordering the locals to go home, Tibetans had become mouthpieces for the Communists and urged the masses not to engage in any violent resistance."20 Choedrak, of course, would never dare to accuse the Dalai Lama himself of "subservience towards the Chinese" or denigrate him as their "mouthpiece." However, the god-king was doing nothing different from those denigrated by the monk's doctor because, "In the afternoon, His Holiness sent an urgent message to the people asking them urgently not to get carried away with violence, not to respond to provocations."21
The troublemakers were not the "Chinese," who were sending "calming messages" and ordering people "to go home." The only ones with an interest in a spiral of violence were the "Buddha warriors" and their overseas backers. In its account of the riots, the Chushi Gangdrug website emphasises the role of Khampa fighters supported and instructed by the CIA: "In the morning of 10th March 1959, when the theatre performance was due to take place in the evening, thousands of armed (!) people took to the streets, including many Khampas;" and it was these Khampas "who assumed responsibility for securing the doors to the palace," even though a few hundred men in the Tibetan army (with weapons!) were on site. Moreover, a "few Khampa fighters" had met with "government officials in the army's main quarters" to "develop safety measures."22 These measures aimed to get the Dalai Lama out of Tibet, apparently for his own safety. Still in the evening of 10th March, a group of "around seventy junior government officials,"23 members of the Dalai Lama's bodyguards and representatives of the Khampa rebels gathered outside of the Norbulingka and decided to "renounce the Seventeen-Point Agreement and call for the expulsion of all the Han from Tibet."24
The fact that the Dalai Lama's safety was under threat from the Chinese is anything but certain; it is even highly unlikely.25 In connection with the events in Lhasa 1959, Grunfeld remembers that the Dalai Lama had friendly relationships with the responsible Han Chinese from the outset and supported them. When he complained of difficulties in 1956, the Chinese authorities immediately reacted and, in January 1959, he published speeches and articles in the Xizang Ribao newspaper, in which he expressed his "most effusive support for China."26
Above all, the correspondence cited by Grunfeld creates of the events that directly resulted in the god-king's flight a different picture from the one we know from later accounts from exiles. After the Dalai Lama's chamberlain had informed the Chinese on 10th March that he could unfortunately not attend the planned theatre performance due to the siege of the Norbulingka by the demonstrators, and after the Dalai Lama had tried to calm the crowds outside with the assurance that he would under no circumstances go to the PLA camp, he again sent three ministers to the political commissioner of the Tibetan military district, General Tan Guansan, to assure him that his absence was solely due to the reactions of the crowds outside his residence. It had absolutely nothing to do with him not wanting to attend the performance. Tan wrote back the same evening that he considered it "may be advisable" that the Dalai Lama "not come for the time being." In his response the next day, the highest lama complained that "reactionary, evil elements" were "endangering" him under the "pretext" of "protecting" his "safety." He felt "indescribable shame" about how events had unfolded.27 Tan informed him the same day (11th March) that the normal communication links had been broken through the fortified locations and machine gun dumps of the Khampa rebels, and the kashag had been urgently asked to do something to avert a possible PLA intervention. On 12th March, the Dalai Lama replied that he had notified the government to comply with the Chinese request to take action against the rebels. At the same time, he again assured Tan how inconsolable he was about the crisis: "The unlawful actions of the reactionary clique break my heart."28 On 14th March, he called some ministers together and declared himself in favour of reaching a peaceful compromise. Tan, in his last letter from 15th March, bitterly complained that the liberal politics long pursued by the central government had reached a deadlock due to the inactivity and duplicity of the local Tibetan government. If nothing were to happen, the People's Government would have to act itself. He offered to put the Dalai Lama under the charge of the PLA for his own safety. However, "as to what is the best course to follow, this is entirely up to you to decide."29 Tan's letter was apparently sent along with a letter from Ngabö warning the god-king about the rebels' abduction plans and advising him not to follow anyone, but instead to withdraw with a few absolutely reliable advisors to a specific building within the palace complex. He should then inform Ngabö of his location so that the building would not be damaged in the event of battles breaking out. The "rumour" was now circulating in Lhasa that the "PLA were preparing to shell the Norbulingka." On 17th March, some Tibetan ministers sent a letter to Ngabö, in which they asked him to help them secretly take the Dalai Lama to the PLA camp. Ngabö confirmed receipt of the letter and promised to help.30
Around four o'clock in the afternoon, as the Dalai Lama himself reported, "two mortar shells exploded in the marsh outside the northern gate of the Jewel Park"31 without causing any damage. Yet that was enough for panic to break out "since it was assumed – although never verified – that the Chinese, finally having come to the end of their patience, had decided to attack."32 Now the shocked Dalai Lama was ready and willing to flee. That same evening, he left Lhasa in a rush, dressed as a simple monk and under the charge of those Khampa rebels whom he had described as evil elements and a danger to his life just a few days previously.
We may question the Chinese origin of the mortar shells. The Chinese side always claimed that the PLA had been given the strict order not to shoot at the Norbulingka, Potala or Jokhang Temple. Who would actually have had an interest in causing the Dalai Lama to panic and make him flee Tibet so quickly? Moreover, the Chushi Gangdrug website reveals the central role in the god-king's flight played by the Khampa rebels who had been instructed and equipped by Washington: only the "closest advisors and a few of the Khampa's leaders were in the loop" about the "decision to flee." The Khampa organisation had made "the necessary preparations to ensure safe passage." "Late in the evening on 17th March 1959," the Dalai Lama then "crossed to the north of the lake, which was monitored by 3 commanders with their troops." "The southern banks were being monitored by Khampa volunteers from Norbulingkha (sic). Thus, His Holiness and his small team of escorts made it safely and easily through the most difficult and dangerous part of his escape." Tibetan CIA agents were among the closest confidantes of the escapee. "Athar and Lotse, who had jumped by parachute in 1957 above the Samyi in the Lhokha region, still had contact with the organisation. They had previously sought to make contact with Phala, His Holiness' chamberlain. Now they were members of his escort crew and had the important task of informing Washington about the progress of His Holiness' flight. They acted as a communication tool for the Dalai Lama."33
The entire operation was evidently controlled remotely from Washington. In any case, Professor Grunfeld is certain that plans had been made months beforehand as to how the Dalai Lama could be taken out of Tibet with the help of Khampa agents.34 They now managed to achieve what the USA had repeatedly been trying to do without success since 1950, namely persuade the Dalai Lama to leave Tibet to use him as an anti-Communist symbol for their own purposes. "Washington used coded messages to notify his Holiness of its willingness to provide support. Our radio team also received the information to travel in small groups and reach the border as quickly as possible."35 Elsewhere it is even clearer: "As per the radio instructions sent by the CIA, the group accompanying His Holiness was kept small, so that scouts flying overhead would not recognise them." Grunfeld also reports that the CIA provided the escapees with food supplies from the air; they used a Lockheed C130 that had been specially converted for flights in the thin Tibetan mountain air.36
The acceptance of the refugees in India was arranged from Washington: "From Lhuntso Dzong, our radio team sent, via Rs 1, the encrypted message to Washington, in which His Holiness requested asylum in India from Prime Minister Nehru." The US government "sent the message, again encrypted, to the US Embassy in New Delhi," who "passed it on to the Prime Minister." His "positive response," including "information about the welcoming contingent of Indian officers" that would wait for the refugee "at the border post," was sent via Washington back to the Khampas "radio team" in "MangMang, a small border town."37
The Chushi Gangdruk report on the smuggling of the god-king and his "37 closest employees" from Tibet to India ended with a new reference to the central role that first made possible "the safe flight of his Holiness." "On 30th March, they crossed the border into India at Chu Tangmo, where they received a warm welcome from the Indian welcome committee." With great foresight, the "costs" that "would be incurred during the trip to India" had been obtained (in Washington?): the CIA Khampas accompanying him gave the god-king 200,000 "Rs." (Indian rupees) at the border for this purpose.38
The Dalai Lama had not even reached the Indian border and the western propaganda machine was in full flow. As per Grunfeld there were only "a few voices of reason" at the time. One of these was the Indian ambassador in China, who criticised the "sensational reports from American correspondents and the horror stories written by Taipai agents (sic!) in Hong Kong." Another such voice belonged to David S. Connery, the head of the Time-Life office in New Delhi. "Writing in the Atlantic (significantly not in Time), Connery described how Kalimpong became deluged with journalists from around the world, who were inundated with phone calls from frantic editors pleading for colourful, descriptive accounts of burning monasteries. So relentless was this pursuit of 'information' that one reporter from a major British newspaper was heard to declare in exasperation, 'Fiction is what they want. Pure fiction. Well, by God, fiction is what they are going to get'"39 Grunfeld comments "And fiction is what they got. Stories circulated of two thousand to one hundred thousand Tibetans killed. Elaborate descriptions of the villages the Dalai Lama was alleged to have passed through were openly plagiarized from a book on village life in the Indian Northeast Frontier Area (NEFA). The London Express reported that the Dalai Lama had arrived at 9.00 P.M., 'under a brilliant starlit sky', when in fact he arrived at noon the following day. The Daily Mail reported that the Dalai Lama was met by monks in bright yellow robes, when Tibetan monks' robes are maroon-colored."40 As per Grunfeld, the actions of the Daily Mail journalist Noel Barber were particularly negative. He chartered an aeroplane with which he wanted to fly over the NEFA region and look out for the Tibetan refugee column. As a precaution, he wrote the article about it beforehand, on the ground. The fact that the flight was ultimately cancelled due to the poor weather conditions did not hinder publication of the freely created reportage in any way. The CIA itself fed the media and created bogus media reports. As in the Life International issue from 12th October, which contained an article and six drawings depicting "Chinese excesses" that were apparently from "refugees." "The drawings had actually been made by the agent trainees at Camp Hale as part of sketching drills during a class on intelligence collection." The "best" of these drawings then found their way via D. Fitzgerald, the Head of the Far East Department, to CIA Director Dulles, who passed them on to the Life International publisher C. D. Jackson with the request to publish them in a corresponding article.41
All the stories of atrocities recounted by the rebels and refugees naturally found their way into the media without being verified and are still sold as irrefutable facts today. It was not only the Khampa rebels who claimed that "in the morning of 20th" the Chinese had started with the "bombardment" of the Norbulingka to destroy "the palace and his Holiness" and that "thousands were killed during the bombardment."42 The western press reported that the summer palace "had been razed to the ground" and the Potala was "heavily damaged." The Drepung and Sera monasteries were also "completely destroyed."43 Half a century later Franz Alt parrots the lie openly: "On 20th March 1959, they bombarded and destroyed his summer palace, where they believed he still was."44 Grunfeld comments: "As to the Norbulingka, the stories of its destruction were meant primarily to incite public sentiment against the Chinese. British visitors in 1962 confirmed that the palace had suffered little damage and there was no evidence of rebuilding. A Tibetan who left in 1969 asserted that as late as 1964 the Norbulingka remained intact."45 In the meantime, the Norbulingka had been put on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites at the request of the Chinese government. It had still not been destroyed...
To turn the western public against China, it was not only the extent of the destructions and the victims of the repression that were excessively overstated, but also the riots were exaggerated as a "people's uprising" that affected all of Lhasa and even of all Tibet. The Chushi Gangdrug website only vaguely refers to thousands of "armed" people who took to the streets. Tenzin Choedrak, the Dalai Lama's doctor, alleges that on 10th March 1959 "ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand people" had besieged the entrances to the Norbulingka in an "uncontrollable state of excitement."46 Although this rough estimate is not necessarily reliable, simply on account of the state of excitement of the witness himself. The historian Grunfeld therefore speaks cautiously of "ten thousand to thirty thousand" people, who besieged the Norbulingka in the morning of 10th March, "including the entire Tibetan army."47 If we think that many Khampas, monks and pilgrims were staying in Lhasa, the assertion that it was the (entire) population of Lhasa that had risen up is strongly relativised. The excessively exaggerated figures of one hundred thousand or even 300,000 demonstrators, which are reported on the internet and in western newspapers, thus either come from the wild imagination of authors from the Tibet scene or were released by the Dalai Lama's exile government.48 In any case, they clearly show how little care was used when dealing with numbers and facts (and with the truth) in these circles.
The same applies to the geographical extent and appeal of the riots. Grunfeld reaches the conclusion: "The revolt was, in the final analysis, highly localized – confined almost exclusively to Lhasa and the Loka region. One refugee reported that the people of Sakya, an important center only a few days' travel from Lhasa, only learned of the revolt when the PLA arrived there in April." As per Grunfeld the following repression was also limited. "Around 10,000 Tibetans" were captured, but most of them were released after eight months. According to Tsering Shakya, the exiled Tibetan historian, the detainees were "Tibetan aristocratic leaders who took part in the revolt," almost "the entire Tibetan army and many monks." They were taken to labour camps, the two largest of which were near to a hydroelectric power plant that was being built and a borax mine. The prisoners were used as "a source of cheap labour," he criticises (like the serfs by the landowners?), but admits in relation to the labour camps, "Even here, the Chinese tactic was 'thought reform' rather than outright terror." He does not indicate the total number of prisoners who died in these camps. It was "hundreds," he writes, but nowhere does he state any particular atrocities.49
The Dalai Lama's account is very different, as per which not only the excessively exaggerated numbers of victims but also the details of the repression must have come from the particularly active Lamaist imagination. An imagination that had already proved itself when painting the agonies of the Buddhist underworlds or when inventing ingeniously brutal punishments and means of execution in old Tibet. Soon after his arrival in exile, the former god-king talked about 70,000 victims in Lhasa alone. At that time, Lhasa had around 20,000 inhabitants and its population may have swelled to possibly 40,000 in those days. In one of his bestsellers, the number of Tibetan victims quickly even rises to 87,000. According to the Dalai Lama, as if he himself had been a witness, the Chinese normally crucified the victims, dissected them while they were still alive, cut them into pieces and disembowelled them. Also common "were beheading, burning, beating to death and burying alive, not to mention dragging people behind galloping horses until they died or hanging them upside down or throwing them bound hand and foot into icy water." And to prevent them from screaming "Long live the Dalai Lama!" on the way to the execution site, they "tore out their tongues with meat hooks."50 The reported Chinese atrocities were "so horrifying" and "so abhorrent" that he "did not really believe them for many years." It was not until he "read the report published in 1959 by the International Commission of Jurists" that he "fully accepted" what he "had heard." So the cat bites its own tail: the CIA jurists refer to the Dalai Lama, who in turn refers to the Commission of Jurists.51
Choedrak, the lama doctor who became a victim of the repression after the failed uprising, in part because of his close relationships with the Dalai Lama's family, was allowed to keep his intestines, all his limbs and his tongue. However, he had to spend many years in prison. He recounts in his memoirs that he previously lived together with the "Yabshi family" (the Dalai Lama relatives) in their "residence," the "Changseshar." In the "impressively majestic house with around sixty rooms and a giant garden", he had a servant who cooked for him.52 This reactionary member of the Tibetan elite gives us additional insights into events, even if much of what he explains is propaganda against the hated "Chinese." He reports that the residents of Changseshar were imprisoned in the morning of the 12th March. In any case, "The Dalai Lama's grandmother was released due to her age. I was very relieved about this. Everyone else was taken in single file to the house of the Tsarong family, where I was to be detained for almost three weeks. There I saw again residents from Lhasa and Shöl, including many young people who had taken up weapons."53
These armed insurgents were clearly not immediately court-martialed and shot, as was common in many countries.54 There was also no generalised handling of the Tibetan lay and monk aristocracy, quite the opposite: "High-ranking personalities from Tibetan society were released."55 Even high-ranking backers of the uprising were treated somewhat mildly. Patrick French mentions the fate of Lhalu who, as one of the leaders of the 1959 revolt, expected to be executed.56 He was sent to prison for six years and, afterwards, lived for some time under "close police supervision" as a simple farmer to the north of Lhasa. He was given a second chance there and he even held some political offices again. His grandchildren are now successful restaurant and hotel owners in Lhasa.57
Choedrak feels particular compassion towards the stinking rich insurgents from whom the Chinese "were able to take everything": "I remember that the rich families from Lhasa and the surrounding had brought a large part of their possessions to the Potala and Drepung monastery, which were considered to be safe places if there was danger looming over region. Straight after the Dalai Lama's flight, the Chinese occupied the palace and flattened the monasteries to the ground." They seized "all the gold and silver of the nobility."58 The apparent destruction of the monasteries is naturally a propaganda lie.59
Choedrak was outraged that "the Chinese" were now daring to shake up the former world order willed by God and karma and his compassion towards the rich and powerful knew no limits: "In prison I met several such Tibetans, whose estates had been distributed in this way to the people in the name of the Communist doctrine, and whose most valuable possessions had been taken away from them. I shall mention just two examples. One family had hidden all its gold in a used tin and, to deceive possible thieves, intentionally filled brand new tins with pebbles. That was their misfortune. During a search, soldiers found at least forty kilos of gold, which they took away laughing uproariously, while the head of the family was taken to Chonjuk."60 The "tin" must have been incredibly big! A further example: "Another family was affected in the same way. Soldiers used detectors to find, on this occasion, gold hidden under the floor." Such bad karma suggests to Choedrak the devout thought: "Did our people have a debt to settle? What was our debt towards the Chinese?"61 That the parasitic upper class was possibly in debt towards their own serfs and servants – this did not occur to the illustrious medical lama. He repeatedly talks about Tibetans who shared this view of things and were therefore actively involved in defeating the uprising and punishing the counterrevolutionaries: "It was my own countrymen, (...) who dealt me the first blows,"62 he laments and complains about "a few Tibetans, 'converted' former prisoners or collaborators from the outset, who fostered a bitter hatred towards us."63 Even "some famous lamas in the camps" only "made jokes" about the "religious practice," if they had not beaten "to death their own countrymen," to whom they "had previously shown such devotion."64
Operation Phoenix: alleged sympathisers of the "Vietcong" prior to their murder
Incidentally, his prison acquaintances also included "Tibetan resistance fighters who had been trained in Arizona (sic!) by the CIA and then jumped out over Tibet via parachute."65 The Chinese had not simply made short shrift of them. They were not at all cut into pieces, crucified, disembowelled, buried alive or burned.
The professional "freedom fighters" – or better said murderers and torturers - from the CIA were not that human. One example: CIA Operation Phoenix was run in Vietnam a few years later (1967), in part with the same personnel. It was "intended to identify and 'neutralise' FNL cadres in southern Vietnam. This euphemism is used to describe the imprisonment or murder of members of the insurgent guerilla movement."66 The former Phoenix officer Barton Osborne reported to the American Congress in 1971 how the captured suspects were treated: "I did not know of any detainee who survived an interrogation during these operations. They all died. There was never a convincing reason for the assertion that one of these individuals actually worked together with the Vietcong, but they all died and the majority were either tortured to death or thrown out of the helicopter." He compared this "CIA programme of murders" with the "atrocities of the Nazis."67
Notes
1 Felix Lee, Tibeter in aller Welt gedenken der Erhebung von 1959, In Luxemburger Wort, 9th March 2013 2 Quoted from: Grunfeld, The Making... p. 156 3 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 4 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 142 5 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 44; see also: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 136, which states that "thousands of people from Kham and Amdo" fled to Lhasa, and p. 141, "thousands more refugees from Chinese atrocity outside Lhasa had arrived," while "several tens of thousands of freedom fighters" were bringing "their raids closer and closer to Lhasa." 6 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 134 7 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 8 Ibid. 9 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 134 10 On moving the performance to the PLA military camp, see also Tsering Shakya, The Dragon... p. 187 and Sam van Schaik, Tibet: A History, p. 232; see also Grunfeld's explanations (The Making... p. 137), who proves that the Dalai Lama and his followers doggedly told falsehoods in this matter. 11 Klemens Ludwig, Zweitausend Jahre tibetische Geschichte, in Alt et al., p. 75 12 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, p. 157-158 13 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 143 14 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, p. 160 15 Ibid. 16 Later, Harrer persistently denied ever knowing the members of the Schäfer expedition, in particular Beger, the race researcher from Auschwitz. 17 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 200 18 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 209-211 19 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, p. 161 20 Ibid., p. 162 21 Ibid. 22 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 23 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 147 24 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 135 25 The Khampa terrorists naturally talk on their website about the "evil intentions of the Communist Chinese." 26 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 141 27 Quote also from Wienand, p. 72 28 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 135 29 Ibid., p. 136 30 See also Grunfeld, ibid., p. 136 31 Dalai Lama, Das Buch der Freiheit, p. 200 32 Grunfeld, p. 136 33 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch, see also French, p. 253, who discussed this with "Lithang Athar Norbu" in an Indian refugee camp. 34 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 155 35 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 36 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 155 37 All quotes from: http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 38 Ibid. 39 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 144 40 Ibid. 41 Conboy, The CIA's Secret War... p. 124-125 42 http://www.chushigangdrug.ch 43 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 137 44 Alt et al., p. 24 – The fact that Alt talks about the Norbulingka as being one building shows his ignorance. The Dalai Lama's summer palace is a giant palace and park complex and consists of many palace buildings and pavilions, including the Kelsang Potrang, the Tsokyi Potrang dating back to the 8th Dalai Lama, the Chensel Potrang, built in 1922 for the 13th Dalai Lama, and the Takten Migyur Potrang, which was built in 1954. 45 Grunfeld, ibid., p.137-138; he probably refers to Stuart and Roma Gelder who, at the time, discovered only a few holes in buildings in the Norbulingka, which they interpreted as loopholes made in the walls by the rebels. 46 Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast des Regenbogens, p. 160 47 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 134 48 A secret study by the American State Department talks in this regard about "wild exaggerations" and makes Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's brother, personally responsible for this. See also Grunfeld, p. 134 49 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 138; Tsering Shakya, The Dragon... p. 245 50 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 136 51 See also the following chapter 52 Tenzin Choedrak, Palast des Regenbogens, p. 154 53 Ibid., p. 166 54 We are reminded of the murder of the captured Che Guevara in Bolivia at the CIA's request... 55 Tenzin Choedrak, p. 166 56 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 171 57 Ibid., p. 171-172 58 Tenzin Choedrak, p. 177 59 It is not the "ground" that western tourists describe. Nancy L C from Dalton, Massachusetts, writes, for example, in a tourist review of Drepung on 11th July 2013: "This monastery is a must." In the large area, there are "a lot of rooms and Buddhas, Thankas and works of art to be seen." The "Petersens from Freiburg/Germany" comment (on 25th April 2012): "tip... visit the monastery first on trip to Tibet... great big monastery with beautiful building (sic!) and some mediaeval paths... definitely go down to the east of the monastery because of the prayer flags." See also: http://www.tripadvisor.de/Attraction_Review-g294223-d325688-Reviews-Drepung_Monastery_Zhebang_Si-Lhasa_Tibet.html#mtreview_130831693. There are also lots of current photos there. 60 Tenzin Choedrak, ibid., p. 177 61 Ibid., p. 178 62 Ibid., p. 179 63 Ibid., p. 188 64 Ibid., p. 202 65 Ibid., p. 213 66 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phoenix, accessed on 25.02.2013. – The FNL was the National Liberation Front in southern Vietnam, known as "Vietcong" by the Americans and western media. 67 Wikipedia, ibid.
21 "Tibet" in exile: mismanagement, prosperity at the expense of others and democracy as a facade
None of which is to say that the business of administration at that time was easy. Naturally, there were some personal differences between people and a fair amount of petty squabbling. That is only human nature.
Since these early days hundreds of dharma centres have been established by Tibetans all over the world, their assets running into billions of dollars... What is particularly remarkable about this series of events was that in a relatively short space of time, the highest Tibetan lamas in exile managed to establish alternative sources of income and support across the globe, in sharp contrast to many other political refugees worldwide who have faced a more terrible fate.
Once the flight of their god-king became public knowledge, many of its supporters followed him into exile, mostly to India and the small neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bhutan. Per Grunfeld, "a total of 50,000 to 55,000" and thus between "0.9 and 2 percent of ethnic Tibetans" left China at that time. However, that was "far fewer than figures commonly quoted by refugee organizations and the Dalai Lama followers."3 Since the 1960s, the population had naturally grown. Françoise Robin, who is not at all sympathetic towards China, estimates the number of Tibetans now living abroad at approximately 150,000; among a population of almost 6 million ethnic Tibetans in China that would still be a ratio of 3 % to 97%. Robin therefore comments that the widespread notion that "a considerable number of Tibetans were now living in exile" was "very far removed from reality."4
Grunfeld focuses in detail on the initial decades of the exile and we can follow his observations here. The Dalai Lama himself addresses this time and the circumstances in his autobiography in more detail than other issues, probably because the adversity of a refugee is particularly suited to awakening compassion and sympathy and increasing the international willingness to donate.
International organisations and volunteers immediately came to the aid of the refugees in 1959 but not the "the sons and daughters of Tibetan aristocrats and wealthy Tibetans studying in colleges or working around Darjeeling."5 Solidarity was not a particularly valued word among the Tibetan elite. Yet the aid funds and donations flowed in from overseas. India, which welcomed the most refugees by a long way, had already provided more than USD 6 million by 1962. At the same time, countless international humanitarian organisations such as the Red Cross or CARE, the United Nations' Commission for Refugees (1964-1973) helped, as did the governments in Switzerland or the USA. The latter paid in USD 5,300,000 in direct aid in the first decade. Grunfeld cites an exiled Tibetan source, which states that nobody could dispute that the amount of aid funding was "considerable by any standard."6 In addition, there were aid funds collected by anti-Communist organisations in the West. In March 1959, an American Emergency Committee for Tibetan Refugees (AECTR) was urgently established. This was an initiative of Marvin Liebman, a prominent devourer of Communists and until then a leading figure in the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations. In the same year, the AECTR, which was clearly financed by the CIA, sent USD 200,000 and medical supplies to the refugees in India. In 1960, a Tibetan Friendship Group was founded in the USA, followed by similar associations in France, Switzerland, England, Norway, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In the tax year June 1975 – June 1976 alone, for example, the group in the USA donated more than USD 5,600,000, whereby this does not include the separate individual donations from members such as sponsorships for Tibetan refugee children.7
However: for the simple Tibetans, who had followed the Dalai Lama into Indian exile, life was anything but good in these years: between 18,000 and 21,000 of them were employed in road construction for an average daily wage of USD 0.30. In his autobiography, the Dalai Lama reports that "the Kashag had held discussions with Indian officials about a plan to employ the refugees on road camps in northern India." The god-king viewed the plan as something positive: "This would then allow them to earn their keep and, at the same time, to be taken to a more suitable climate."8 He had expressly asked Nehru not to leave the refugees in the camps and valued their deployment as road construction workers in the Himalayas as an expression of the Indians' "humanitarian instincts." Until then it had probably never occurred to the living Buddha to meditate on the living conditions of the road construction workers in India or to "visualise" them. Grunfeld wrote about the expatriates in question: "Conditions were so bad that Tibetan refugee officials admitted in 1964 that these workers were worse off than they would have been if they had remained in Tibet. The squalor, low pay, constant threat of illness, and the shortened life expectancy were not all the refugees had to endure. The worst injustice was surely the separation of the children from their families. Five thousand children were taken from their parents to live in permanent refugee camps."9 The Dalai Lama had arranged this himself, out of "compassion," after he had seen the misery (for which he was ultimately responsible) with his own eyes. In his autobiography, he shed crocodile tears over this: "I was heartbroken when I saw them. Children, women and men were all working side by side in gangs ... They had to endure a full day's hard physical toil under a mighty sun, followed by nights crammed in tiny tents," he remembered. "Heat and humidity still exacted an alarming toll" and "the children of the roadworkers were suffering badly from malnutrition." The reaction of the church dignitary? He told the Tibetans it was "vital to remain optimistic." Furthermore, he "contacted" the "Indian government," who then "organized a new transit camp" to where some of the children were displaced.10
He himself, the "simple monk," shortly set off (on 10th March 1960) "for Dharamshala with the eighty or so officials who comprised the Tibetan Government in Exile."11 Yet not without first sending Kündeling, a member of the Kashag, "to reconnoitre the spot" that the Indian government had offered him as a place of permanent residence. As it was a former hill station of the former British colonial administration, a "place of relaxation in the mountains," and because the scout returned with the happy message "that 'Dharamshala water is better than the Mussoorie milk'" in the previously inhabited health resort,12 there was nothing more standing in the way of the move. As well as a pleasant climate, the new place of residence also offered the privileged guest of the Indian government a view "overlooking a broad valley"13 and "of magnificent mountains."14 It was a good place to live, supplied with USD 186,000 every year from the CIA fund and an additional salary from the Indian secret service.15
The 1,500 (simple) monks, who were living in a former British detention camp in Buxa in Bengal, were less to be envied. The living conditions there were so catastrophic that two hundred of them fell ill with tuberculosis. Eighty died from it. The Dalai Lama reveals in his autobiography what he did in this case: "To my sorrow, I was unable to visit the site but, meanwhile, I tried to sustain them with letters and taped messages."16 Those who remained behind were later taken south, to the Tibetan settlements in Bylakuppe and Mundgod. In the Missamari refugee camp in the Indian state of Assam more than 8,000 people lived in similarly awful conditions, which is why foreigners refused to visit there.17
With Indian and western support, agricultural settlements were created, for example in 1963 in Maniput in the state of Madhya Pradesh. At times 5,000 lived there in a climate that was unusual and unfavourable for them. Money primarily came from the American AECTR, but there was seemingly not enough and it was poorly invested. A school built in 1964 was "suddenly and inexplicably" closed just three years later. In 1978, there were only 1,100 people living in Maniput and they still had no power, irrigation, or industry.18
According to information from Professor Grunfeld, in 1981 there were 7,140 Tibetans living in the southern Indian settlement of Mundgod, who had access to around 1,360 hectares of agricultural land without artificial irrigation. Drinking water was in short supply, many children were undernourished or malnourished. The infant mortality rate was 162 per thousand live births. In 1980, an American doctor reported on the situation of the refugees in India in general, the Tibetans, naturally excluding the Dalai Lama and the privileged few from the "exile government," were deported to the poorest regions and fell into poverty, apathy, illness, alcoholism, and despair.19
However, the poor health situation also had cultural causes in part, as Grunfeld emphasises. "Visitors of the agricultural settlements have found that even when medical facilities exist they are often underutilized because of a lack of understanding of modern medical practices and the deep-seated belief in karma."20 Even the Dalai Lama is aware of the problem when he concedes that "not all the problems" of the Tibetan exiles' settlements were financial or "practical": "At times, our culture has made it difficult for us Tibetans to adapt to new conditions. On that first visit to Bylakuppe, I well remember the settlers being very concerned that the burning they were having to carry out to clear the land was causing the death of innumerable small creatures and insects. For Buddhists, this was a terrible thing to be doing (...) Several of the refugees even came up to me and suggested that the work should be stopped."21 Was that the same kind of "culture" that had caused so many problems during every attempt at modernisation and in defence of which his Khampas travelled through the whole area for many years committing murders and stealing? In any case, "projects set up with the assistance of the overseas aid agencies failed for similar reasons. For example, all attempts to set up poultry farms and piggeries have been unsuccessful. Even in their reduced circumstances, Tibetans have shown themselves unwilling to become involved in animal production for food. This has given rise to a certain amount of sarcasm on the part of some foreigners, who point out the anomaly between Tibetan's willingness to eat meat and their disinclination to provide it for themselves."22 Sometimes even a Dalai Lama has the odd enlightenment!
Grunfeld hardly has a good word to say about the god-king's exile administration: "The relief operations have been bedeviled with organizational rivalry and the intrigues of 'unsavory members of the Tibetan ruling clique.' Relief supplies, particularly medical supplies, have been found to be on sale in the market in MacLeod Ganj, less than two miles from the Dalai Lama's place of residence." It feels as though we have been taken back to the time of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist when the historian adds: "The Dalai Lama's late sister, Tsering Dolma, was widely disliked. In order to control the comings and goings in the nursery that she administered, she instituted a system whereby pairs of children stood guard at all the entrances, regardless of the weather, in order to inform her first of any visitors. Moreover, while the children in her care were frequently on the verge of starvation (a refugee worker recalls an incident in which she was attacked by starving children as she was carrying a plate of breakfast scraps) she was noted for her formal, twelve course luncheons. Meanwhile, in bitterly cold weather the children were clad in 'thin, torn, sleeveless cotton frocks – though when VIPs visit the nursery every child there is dressed warmly in tweeds, wool, heavy socks, and strong boots.' In general, the corruption was so bad that the Director of Operations for the UN High Commission for Refugees noted that if all the relief supplies that were sent to India were distributed, every Tibetan should have at least one-and-one-half blankets each."23
Even though there were exceptions that prove the rule (Grunfeld calls the children's home in Mussouri endowed by the Taring family "well run" and "humane"), his summary still remains: "Considerable sums of relief money have been sent to the refugees, but this money has not been managed adequately. Blame must be put with the Tibetan leaders in Dharamshala." Even there, effectively in the Dalai Lama's backyard, where around three thousand Tibetans were living, the sanitation facilities were still wretched in 1979 – with a serious shortage of public toilets and without any waste disposal system.24
The financial bonanza from overseas clearly did not help everyone. Most refugees also had no benefit from the riches that the Dalai Lama had already sent to Sikkim in 1951. Rather, Gyalo Thondup and the Dalai Lama argued about the treasure estimated at USD 11 million, whereby the living Buddha made it very clear to his brother that he alone would decide about how to use it.25 He finally sold the booty "on the open market" in Calcutta, for which he received "an enormous sum, equivalent then to €8 million." He later displayed qualities as a businessman and entrepreneur which could compete with those of his later friend George W. Bush: he (allegedly) invested the money in "supposedly guaranteed money-spinning projects," whereby very soon he "lost the majority of the funds." "Less than an eighth of the original total was salvaged."26 At the end, he explained the loss as a manifestation of heavenly justice: "In retrospect, it is clear to me that the treasure belonged to all the people of Tibet." It was lost to him and his exile government because "We did not, therefore, have an exclusive right to it, no Karmic right."27
A strong contrast to the misery of the refugees described above in the first decades is offered, at least on first glance, by a flagship project such as the agricultural settlement of Bylakuppe in the state of Karnataka (Mysore), where the Indian authorities originally provided three thousand Tibetans with a total of 140 million square metres of land.28 Landless Indian farmers didn't or don't have such luck. In Bylakuppe, Indian, Swiss and American organisations provided significant technical support in the form of agriculture experts and modern equipment. Grunfeld reported that the exiled Tibetans there became so prosperous within a short time that they took poor Indian boys into their families so that they, in return, could perform household work such as the onerous task of gathering water. Furthermore, increasing numbers of Tibetans could afford to arrange for their landless Indian neighbours to work in their fields.29 According to Goldner, "the initial tensions with the local Indian population arose in the mid-1960s," who "viewed the enormous amounts of money flowing to the Tibetans with increasing resentment."30
Bylakuppe, the world's largest settlement of exiled Tibetans, is also not necessary a suitable example for showing the effectiveness, competence and organisational talent of the Dalai Lama's exile administration or even a successful integration policy. Grunfeld stated in the 1980s that, upon closer inspection, the "fruits of success are not evenly distributed" there, and quoted the report of an exiled Tibetan journalist. He found the "water and electricity facilities" in the flagship settlement to be unsatisfactory, the roads had no surface and the hospital was inadequate. "After sixteen years of technological and financial assistance, the camp's leadership has still failed to establish even the most rudimentary social welfare scheme for the poor under their charge."31 The educational opportunities were so poor that the richer families sent their children to school in Bangalore, whereas others preferred to keep them at home instead of entrusting them to Tibetan schools.
At the same time, the leaders of the Tibetan exiles stated in official announcements that educating and training young people was a priority. Especially because in principle it did not cost anything: in his autobiography, the Dalai Lama thanked the Indian authorities many times for providing schools and an orphanage for the Tibetan refugee children at their own expense and for hiring and paying teachers.32 However, the conclusion drawn by Grunfeld in this area is very meagre: teaching was mainly in English, the programmes were useless in terms of meeting the pupils' needs, and not all children could attend school due to the expensive school fees (USD 120 for an annual family income of USD 792-2,400). He refers to a young Tibetan who, after nine years at school, had never read a newspaper or book. The earlier aristocratic families were not affected by the educational misery, as they sent their children to Anglo-Indian private schools.
Of course, the impact of the generosity of the Indian government and the lavish donations from overseas was not lacking everywhere. Goldner, who had recently visited Bylakuppe (per him Bylakuppe) confirmed and reinforced what Grunfeld had already reported. He initially explains that the settlement consists "of five independent communes with a total of twenty villages." According to Indian sources, around 15,000 Tibetans, "including 3,000 to 4,000 monks," live there "in complete isolation" from the "surrounding Indian communities" and without any knowledge of the national language of Kannada, but in veritable farmsteads and houses with a "villa character" of which their Indian neighbours could only dream. "A lot of work is performed in the fields between the individual villages, yet the only people to be seen here are Indian migrant workers; working Tibetans are nowhere to be found." The same applies to the "two gigantic monastery complexes," which dominate the whole settlement. They seem to be very well-maintained, "the grass in the park" is always trimmed to the "length of a match" because "an army of Indian handymen" spend all their time "keeping everything clean and in good condition." Yet that does not prevent the waste from monasteries and the settlement "simply being tipped down the nearest slope." Only Indians can be found on the numerous construction sites. Recently, people have been speculating on a rise in "western tourists interested in Bylakuppa" and starting to "prepare accordingly." However, that generates little sympathy for the exile Tibetans among the "resident Karnatakis": "The least welcome are the Tibetan adolescents, who hang around in the market square in Kushalnagar every evening. They come in hordes on their Yamahas to get drunk in one of the local beer and liquor shops and then drive off again screaming and totally inebriated. There are repeatedly violent altercations between young Tibetans and Indians."33
The uninterrupted flow of international help has now, despite or perhaps because of the described corruption, resulted in this specific parasitic form of prosperity, of course primarily in the Dalai Lama's close environment. Colin Goldner visited McLeodGanj, which belongs to the district capital Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has his residence and describes it as follows: "Compared with the pitiful houses made of boards and corrugated iron where the local Indian population live, the residential and, primarily, monasterial complexes of the Tibetan 'refugees' are of virtually obscene feudality. While donations flow into the Tibetan commune from all around the world and streams of tourists continually enhance their prosperity – some of the hotels in McLeodGanj have nightly rates that equate to half an Indian's annual income – there is hardly anything left for the local Indian commune." The local Indian population primarily performed "cleaning and maintenance work in the monasteries." "Working Tibetans – not to mention the slackers in their red robes – are virtually nowhere to be seen." Over the past few years there have also been repeated "violent disputes" in Dharamshala "due to the spectacular economical chasm" between the luxury refugees and the Indians toiling away for them – Goldner calls their wages "out of the question." There were particularly major clashes in 1994 after a Tibetan stabbed an Indian during a dispute.
In Goldner's description of the situation, it was mainly the "male Tibetan youths" who seemed "not to need to pursue any form of regular occupation" but rather "hung around in hordes in the local coffee shops and amusement arcades" or roared "up and down the roads on their motorbikes." Little Lhasa, as the place is called, has long had a tangible drug problem (in 1997, the Dalai Lama's Council for Home Affairs set up its "own prevention and rehabilitation programme" and created a Kunphen Centre for Substance Dependence). Attempts have since also been made to get the massive problem of HIV / AIDS, which had been ignored for many years, under control by distributing condoms and preparing billboard campaigns.
Whereas, up until the mid-1990s, hardly any female adolescents were to be seen in public, Goldner explains further that it was now also common to find "Tibetan girls hanging around in the local coffee shops and whisky parlours," whereas in the hotels "prostitution with western tourists" was flourishing. The expansion of the landing strip in 2004, on which only small aeroplanes could land up until then, to create a "fully-functional airport" clearly achieved its goal of boosting "Dalai Lama tourism."34
The fact that spirituality, business, solidarity and holiday pleasure function so well together in Dharamshala is made clear in a casual observation from Patrick French, with his exceptional knowledge of the area: "I saw a senior monk I had known, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, walking down the street arm in arm with what I at first took to be a Tibetan woman. At closer range she turned out to be French, dressed in a thick chuba and impressive jewellery. They seemed happy – they each had a trophy – and I remembered that in his monastic days he had enjoyed play-wrestling with a big-breasted New Zealander called Carrie, who was doing her bit for the cause by sleeping with as many Tibetans as possible."35
As far as waste disposal or even recycling is concerned, nothing had changed in Dharamsala since the 1970s and 1980s. "As always, drinking water is only available in specially delivered plastic bottles" that, as soon as they are empty, "are also simply sent down the nearest hillside along with the rest of the rubbish," according to Goldner. The Dalai Lama's environmental conscience is only stirred when it comes to annoying the Chinese by demanding a Tibetan "nature reserve." In any case, Goldner establishes that, in contrast to the "Tibetans' residential complexes and monasteries" that were cleaned by Indian day labourers, the "rest of the top of McLeodGanj" resembled "a gigantic landfill site." Yet that clearly did not bother everyone: "When asked about the landfill sites behind the monasteries, a Tibetan monk explained that they were living – and not voluntarily! – in India: 'Hindus aren't bothered by dirt; they are used to living among rubbish.'" That is why, according to Goldner, the "Dal Lake located in the mountains not far from McLeodGanj" has "been turned into a dead zone" for some time after "rubbish was tipped into it for many decades."36
The parasitic side of the Tibetan luxury refugees also did not escape the Neo-Buddhist Uli Franz, when he states that in Dharamsala "too many exiled Tibetans had learned (...) how to get hold of western capital by complaining." And he also noted their contradictions and lifelong lies, as he was irritated by a certain mentality of "the" exiled Tibetan: "From afar he laments the conditions in the country that used to be his homeland. Yet he only wants to travel there and change something once it has been freed. The question is merely by whom?"37
In any case, up until then life in exile had not been that bad if you were one of those who benefitted from the aid subsidies and Dalai Lama hype. And then you also had your own "government," unlike most refugees in the world who are not only destitute, homeless and without generous international aid and solidarity, but also have to do without any political lobby of their own.
The CIA made a significant contribution to the creation of a global political interest group for Tibetan exiles. At the start of the 1960s, it undertook "a series of covert initiatives aimed at raising Tibet's worldwide profile." These included recruiting and training a "cadre of Tibetan officers for use as administrators and foreign representatives." Thus, from the end of 1964 exiled Tibetans were educated at Cornell University at the CIA's expense. The graduates were "put to immediate use in one of the CIA-supported Tibet representative offices in New Delhi, Geneva, and New York." In the heart of New Delhi, "secret funds" from the CIA were used to create a "central Tibetan cultural institution" known as "Tibet House."38
However, this political interest group always viewed its task as being such that the refugee problem could be solved neither by the return of the exiles to their homeplace (that the Chinese government always promoted), nor their integration into the society of the receiving countries. The Dalai Lama government believed that the sole potential solution would be its own triumphant return to power in Tibet, connected with the extension of their rule to "Kham" and "Amdo" and the separation of such a "Greater Tibet" from China. The actual interests of the refugees were sacrificed on the altar of these completely illusory, megalomaniac political objectives. Therefore, there were major conflicts with the locals and governments in neighbouring Nepal and Bhutan. We have already talked about Nepal in connection with the dissolution of the terrorist camps in Mustang. In the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, subversive activities from the Tibetan exiles resulted in an open conflict in 1973: there were more than thirty arrests, almost exclusively of Tibetan exiles, who were accused of having planned, along with Ashi Yanki, the lover of the deceased king, a military coup and the murder of the young monarch Jigme Singye Wangchuk. Their objective was apparently to turn the country into a military base for terror attacks against China. Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's brother and CIA collaborator, was named as the mastermind in the background.39
To mobilise the indispensable support from the West for their political activities, the "government" in Dharamshala could not leave everything as it was. Terms such as feudalism and theocracy do not sound well to western ears. So the Dalai Lama reformed his "exile government" and, despite all the resistance in his own camp, trimmed it to "democracy." Yet while continuing to appoint autocratically the local leaders of the settlements, who were like small "kings" and had absolute command over all people in their exile community, and thus saving the old interdependency between feudal masters and serfs in "paternalistic hierarchical rule."40 In his autobiography, he celebrates himself as the "utmost brutal"41 reformer: the reforms encountered a lot of rejection, particularly among "older officials who had come into exile."42 Some of them even suspected that "the government was practising true Communism."43 You jest, Holiness! The inherent contradiction of an absolute ruler implementing reforms against the majority of his own people in the name of "democracy" clearly did not occur to him. That also does not matter, because the entire reform was nothing more than window dressing. The Dalai Lama himself explains that the "Assembly of Tibetan People's Deputies" "functions much like a house of parliament" and is the "highest legislative body of the Government." The man clearly has his own view of parliamentary democracy if he sees the parliament as a "body of the government!" He explains that his "parliament" is open to "freely elected representatives of the three Tibetan provinces of Ü-Tsang, Kham and Amdo," whereby "each of the main traditions within Tibetan Buddhism likewise had seats" and seats for the Bön religion are also planned.44 Notwithstanding the fact that there are no "Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo," the seats reserved for the clergy show that the god-king had in no way renounced a theocratic system. In any case, he does not explain in this regard who will elect his "parliamentarians" and who can stand for election, particularly because his "government" will never hold an election in the ART and in other regions of China inhabited by Tibetans. Yet he – this never elected but rather incarnate "head of state" and leader for life, this Lamaist Pope who spends "at the very least, five and a half hours per day in prayer, meditation and study," who also prays "whenever he can" ("religious practice is a twenty-four hour occupation") and consults the oracle before making any important decision – does explain his original view of parliamentary democracy and separation of powers as follows: "I consider the gods to be my [!] 'upper house'. The kashag constitutes my [!] lower house. Like any other leader, I [!] consult both before making a decision on affairs of state."45
The "Tibetan exile parliament" in Dharamshala, India
It is of course true what the prominent exile functionary Pema Thinley admits in the Tibetan Review that she published: "I hate to say it, but we have always lacked and still do the most basic requisite for democratization: willingness on the part of the people to take responsibility for their own affairs and destiny."46 Patrick French adds that "no Tibetan can have an equal relationship with the Dalai Lama. Even his closest advisers, like Tenzin Geyshe Tethong, who began working in his private office nearly forty years ago, or Lodi Gyari, his envoy to Washington, defer to him with awe." The Tibet activist explains that a filmmaker once confided in him that he did not dare to interview the Dalai Lama as "an ingrained feeling of devotion and profound reverence stopped him from asking questions properly." A historian told him something similar. He feared "he would be asked to suppress unwelcome facts, and be unable to refuse."47
Andreas Gruschke summarises, in a nutshell, the discrepancy and inconsistency of western politicians and opinion makers, who believe they can support the Tibetan "exile government" and its fallen god-king in the name of democracy and human rights. "The democratic self-image of our own countries harbours no doubt that politics and religion must be kept separate. Yet regarding the democratic constitution of the Tibetan exiles with their religious leader at the top we accept the squaring of the circle."48
The fact that it is fundamentally possible to separate religion and politics even among followers of Tibetan Buddhism is shown by the example of many believers in Tibet, who follow and practice their traditional religion without seeing the Dalai Lama as a political leader and without following him down the path of separatism. According to reports, images of the Dalai Lama are even tolerated in Chinese monasteries if they merely express religious adoration of the monk and are not understood as a political demonstration in the sense of militant Tibetan separatism.49 The Austrian journalist Gerald Lehner, who worked for a while as an aid worker in Nepal, asked "ethnic" Tibetans there about their opinion of the Dalai Lama: "I wanted to find out from Pemba how the younger generation of Sherpas in Nepal view the Dalai Lama and his exile government. I would see for myself that most of them are loyal followers of the Dalai Lama. Even the communists under the Sherpas are not excluded here. Yet hardly anyone here perceives the Dalai Lama as a political player or takes him seriously as one." It is clearly true, at least for the Buddhist Sherpas in Nepal, what Lehner was also assured: "Most locals had nothing against China, not even Rinpoches and monks."50
If a satisfactory solution to the refugee problem and the "Tibet question" in general has not yet been found, this is not least due to the traditional linking of religion and politics. China always agreed to a return of the refugees including the Dalai Lama. Without further ado, he could again take up his old position as religious leader within China, if he would force himself to stick to this and finally stop behaving like the political leader of a form of extreme, separatist nationalism.
Notes
1 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 183 2 June Campbell, Traveller in Space, Revised edition, London and New York, 2002, p. 2 3 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 250 and p. 192 4 Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 69 5 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 193; he cites Dawa Norbu, Red Star Over Tibet. 6 Ibid., p. 195 7 Information per Grunfeld, ibid. 8 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 163-164 9 Grunfeld, p. 193-194 10 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 173-174 11 Dalai Lama, ibid., p. 174 12 Ibid., p. 173 13 Ibid., p. 176 14 Ibid., p. 178 15 See also Martens, Histoire du bouddhisme tibétain, p. 167; she refers to Conboy/Morrison, The CIA´s Secret War in Tibet, Kansas 2002. – In his autobiography, the Dalai Lama himself merely refers to a "stipend" that the "Indian government" continued to pay. In Freedom in Exile, p. 185. For which services? 16 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 184 17 See also Grunfeld, p. 196 18 See also ibid., p. 197-198 19 See also ibid., p. 199 20 Ibid. p. 200 21 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 189 22 Ibid., p. 189-190 23 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 201 – The quotes cited by Grunfeld come from Dervla Murphy, Tibetan Foothold, New York, 1966 and Patterson, Requiem for Tibet, London, 1990 24 Ibid., p. 199 25 See also ibid., p. 194 26 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 185 27 Ibid. 28 See also Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 512 29 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 197 30 Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 512-513 31 Grunfeld, p. 198 32 See also, for example, Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 184 ("the enormous generosity of the Indian government"), and p. 193 33 Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 512-514 34 Ibid., p. 511 35 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 276 – The parallels with Nepal, another destination popular among western tourists seeking spirituality, are clear when Gerald Lehner writes that the "Buddhist part of the population" has exploited "some business areas" there. "As well as many income sources from tourism, these include young, attractive and muscular monks physically bringing preferably American women to enlightenment. This has resulted in the term 'Instant Lama' being created – nirvana on request, to be touched from the can. Enlightenment as a pizza service." (Gerald Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya: Die Gedächtnislücken des Heinrich Harrer, Vienna, Czernin Verlag, 2007, p. 244) 36 Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 501-503 37 Uli Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 166 38 Conboy, The CIA's Secret War... p. 205-206 39 See also Grunfeld,The Making... p. 206 40 Per Grunfeld, p. 198, following Goldstein 41 The corresponding expression in German, which is almost impossible to translate, comes from a prominent Dalai Lama friend, namely Roland Koch, the former Minister President of Hessen who promised to clarify "utmost brutally" a scandal about black accounts in which he was involved. 42 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 183 43 Ibid., p. 182 44 Ibid., p. 182 45 Ibid., p. 225-226 and p. 233-234. On the issue of the democratic nature of the exile government, see also the criticism from prominent supporters in http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2015/10/13/an-open-letter-to-the-sikyong-kashag-and-election-commissioner-of-the-central-tibetan-administration-in-dharamsala-india/ 46 Quoted from French, Tibet Tibet, p. 277 47 French, p. 283 48 http://www.tibetinfopage.de/dalai.htm, accessed on 14/09/2013 49 This is testified by André Lacroix, translator of Goldstein's biography of Tashi Tsering into French, in relation to a monastery in Qinghai. See also.: http://www.tibetdoc.eu/spip/spip.php?article255; accessed on 29th October 2013 50 Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya, p. 253
22 "International Commission of Jurists": CIA jurists enter the Cold War
When we read the interviews with countless members of the Tibetan elite contained in Melvyn Goldstein's 800-page standard work, it becomes clear that, between 1912 and 1950, no Tibetan thought "nationally" but rather only in terms of religion...
The talk was of a Chinese invasion or even aggression, terms that completely fail to describe the situation. What happened in Tibet? – Nothing that had not already happened countless times in its history. Let us not call it the occupation of Tibet; the suitable term is: reoccupation.
For centuries, Tibet's history has been very closely connected with that of China. For centuries, Tibetans and Chinese have measured themselves on the battlefield or the field of an elemental but resourceful diplomacy, without ever being able to separate themselves from one another completely.
... even today international legal experts sympathetic to the Dalai Lama's cause find it difficult to argue that Tibet ever technically established its independence of the Chinese Empire, imperial, or republican.
Until 1950, Tibet had all the characteristics of a sovereign state: "ethnic identity, cultural unity, linguistic homogeneity and the knowledge of being an independent people" – these are the words of Franz Alt in his Tibet pamphlet.4 "Academics agree that, based on modern criteria, Tibet became a completely independent state in 1911 at the latest." This is also claimed by the "data and facts" of the "International Campaign for Tibet Deutschland e.V." – without any sound evidence and any convincing argumentation. They don't need to do this as it is superfluous, due to the prejudices and clichés in the heads of most readers.
First of all: if academics agree on controversial issues then that possibly suggests more a lack of academic curiosity and of a culture of dispute, if not even political-ideological conformity, than the indisputability of a brashly alleged "truth." The unclear, completely vague formulations lead us to suspect that the "truth" being sold to us here is not worth much. What exactly is meant by "academics"? Are they competent experts (historians and lawyers, specialists for international law and legal experts) or are they, let's say, theologists, Buddhologists, art historians, geneticists, linguists, and psychologists? Given that the independence of academic research in many areas, for example in medicine and pharmaceuticals, gene research and even climate research is increasingly being discussed and questioned: how independent are these not named academics? What is their nationality and who are their employers? And what does "according to modern criteria" mean? Are there also less modern, traditional, possibly centuries old criteria that would give another result? And who actually decided that these "modern criteria" are the only applicable ones?
The Trier sinologist Heberer gives us elements of an answer to some of these questions when he writes, "China assumes and assumed a different concept of a nation and a state than modern western nation states." The "term used in China for 'Chinese people' (Zhongguoren)" relates to "all people living in Chinese territory, regardless of nationality" i.e. ethnicity. "The nationality described by us as 'Chinese' (...) is known in China as 'Han' and is one of 56 nationalities. Unlike in Western Europe, where in the 18th and 19th century relatively uniform nations formed nation states (national principle as nation principle), in China the territorial principle applies as nation principle." This gave rise, according to Heberer, to two "different legal standpoints". What those in the west viewed as an "occupation of Tibet" was, "from a Chinese legal viewpoint," the "restoration of legitimate rights, which China was unable to exercise due to temporary weaknesses and inner conflicts."5 What Heberer does not say: also in Western Europe, the national principle has not applied in general for a long time. Both large countries such as Spain, Great Britain and France and small countries such as Belgium do not fit this picture at all. Neither the Scots, Welsh, Galicians, Basques, Catalans and Corsicans, nor the Flemish, Walloons or Frisians have their own state. Not to mention South Tyroleans, German Belgians, Ladine, Sorbs or Roma people. On the other hand, for example, there are still two "ethnic" German states: Germany and Austria. Furthermore, and above all, there is no reason why the Chinese (and all other peoples in the world) should adjust their legal positions to the European nationalism of the 19th century and, ultimately, the national ideas of a few German romantics.
Further, what is a "totally independent" state in the first place? Does this not include some form of international recognition? Even within the EU, there is no consensus as to whether Kosovo, for example, is to be seen as an independent state.
Furthermore, under which conditions is a unilaterally proclaimed (by whom?) "independence" then legally effective? How long must a "de facto" independence hold true in order to be legal? Months, years, decades? And from what point is the re-established status quo ante legally valid again? If we believe that China must give back to Tibet the "independence" that it apparently (de facto) had from 1912 or 1913 until 1950, what does that mean for Manchuria, which had already "been since 1919 under Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Xueliang more or less independent"(until 1929) and that Japanese militarists made into the "independent state of Mandschukuo"6 in February 1932? What about "Katanga" (de facto independent from Congo 1960-1963) or "Biafra" (de facto independent from Nigeria 1967-1970)? What about the "Confederate States of America" (de facto independent 1861, 1865 forced back to the USA with massive military force)? Could Italian Neo-Fascists evoke the existence of the "Republic of Salò" (from 1943 to 1945 de facto "independent" from Hitler's favours) to reclaim northern Italy as their own state under their own rule? That would of course be grotesque.
Germans should probably not forget that a weakened Germany was also confronted with the problem of separatism not that long ago. An independent "Rhenish Republic" was established in October 1923; this was followed in November by the proclamation of a "Palatine Republic." After General Otto von Lossow's removal from office and the ban on the Völkischer Beobachter (by President Ebert and the Minister of Defence Otto Geßler), there was also an uprising of the right-wing Bavarian regional government against the Reich. On 22nd October 1923, the Bavarian "Reichswehr" troops were bound to Bavaria and removed from the command of the central power. Even more recently, after the Second World War, Saarland went its own way. On 16th July 1947, it introduced its own currency ("Saarmark") and one year later, the residents were granted their own citizenship. It did not come back to the Federal Republic of Germany until 1957.
As we can see, the assertion from the Free Tibet followers raises many more questions than it answers. What would these ladies and gentlemen say, in turn, about an assertion such as the following: "Since 1951 at the latest, Tibet has undeniably been an integral part of China, a fact which is not disputed by the international community of nations?" This statement would have a much more stable factual basis, as China's effective control over Tibet cannot be questioned, just as the legally decisive fact that all states that have diplomatic relationships with China (practically all states in the world) acknowledge its borders and, therefore, Tibet's affiliation to China.
In his article7 for an international academic symposium on Tibet McKay, a New Zealand researcher at the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden, provides interesting insights into the genesis of the "historical opinions that form the basis of an important part of our academic research work." (This relates to the image of a national state of Tibet once independent from China as conveyed in our media). These opinions, according to McKay, were "largely shaped by British officials" who "worked in Tibet between 1904 and 1947."8 "Political factors" exerted a "very substantial influence on the British construction of the Tibetan image," which "served the political interests of British-India and the allies of the colonial government in Tibet's ruling class."9 The British people under Charles Bell were working towards making the "independence of the country" seem like a fait accompli. "In the ten years from 1913 to 1923 Tibet introduced, based on Bell's advice to the Dalai Lama, countless symbols and attributes of an independent state. They developed their own flag, their own currency and their own stamps, agreed their borders with the British." Above all, the "military" was strengthened "with British assistance." The Britons' stated goal was, at the same time, to "develop a Tibetan national conscience" and "promote the Tibetan national entity."10 So they did not have both things? And further: "Ideas and images were part of a battle to establish Tibet on the international stage" and a "weapon" for creating the desired Tibetan "buffer state."11 The British-Indian colonial administration wanted this because it saw China as an unpleasant neighbour "from where a threat to British influence in other regions of the Himalayas such as Nepal and Bhutan could originate."12 Internationally influential institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society and London Times played an active role in circulating the image of Tibet that was convenient for the British and their interests. Deviating reports, accounts and opinions were either censured13 or criticised as being "unreliable"14 and suppressed. In his "conclusion," McKay emphasises the fact that "the British assumed and privileged the perspective of Lhasa. Their alliance with the ruling class in Lhasa involved, for example, the interests of the east Tibetan principalities, who were striving for autonomy or even closer ties with China, not being expressed. In this sense, the historical image of Lhasa is censored."15
Yet even the British attitude was never clear, and not all Great Britain's representatives shared the views and goals of Charles Bell. On 14th November 1950, for example, the head of the British delegation at the United Nations, Sir Gladwyn Jebb, expressed in a telegram to the Foreign Office the view that the Tibet question was "extremely obscure" and "in any case Tibet cannot be considered as a fully independent country."16 At the instigation of the Lhasa government, the small Central American state of El Salvador, actually a loyal satellite state of the USA brought the Tibet question before the UNO at the end of 1950. Goldstein draws the following conclusion from the UNO debates at the time: Tibet's appeal to the United Nations failed because "western nations, such as the United States and Britain, had refused to support Tibet's appeal or even to allow the Tibetan delegations to enter their countries."17
A complicated matter under international law such as the one raised here, in which major political-strategic interests of global powers also play a part, cannot even in part be answered in a fair and objective manner if we are not willing to enforce the fundamental legal principle of audiatur et altera pars. The Tibet lobby does not do that at all. If these people make the effort to state sources then these come solely from their own camp, namely from Tibetan exiles18 and Dalai Lama admirers, or they refer to very questionable western authorities. Thus, the reference to the reports and "verdict" of the so-called "International Commission of Jurists" and its Legal Inquiry Committee seems to be the most common line of argument. It is therefore unavoidable for us to focus on this organisation and its announcements in more detail. In doing so, we will again address mostly the statements from A. Tom Grunfeld, Professor for History at the New York State University, in his book The Making of Modern Tibet. In fact, the "International Commission of Jurists" classified the re-establishment of Chinese control over central Tibet, described by China as a "peaceful liberation," as an "invasion" and took the view that Tibet had been a completely independent state up until then. The reader can draw its own conclusion based on the historical facts and backgrounds that we present here. In any case, this "Commission of Jurists" in no way took the Chinese positions and arguments into consideration; it was anything other than impartial.
The jurists gathered there can also claim the dubious merit of having spread internationally, for the first time, the propaganda formulation of "cultural genocide" in Tibet that has since been repeated millions of times. A claim that quickly mutated into a "genocide" in the heat of the propaganda battle.19 Probably not by coincidence. According to Josef Goebbels, as is well known, lies are even more willingly believed the greater they are – if they are repeated often enough.20
In contrast with many other western authors, the historian Grunfeld asked and researched what the "International Commission of Jurists," its "investigation committee" and their conclusions are all about and his findings are devastating. Of course, the anti-China reports were received enthusiastically at the time, when the Cold War was at its height and virulent anti-Communist propaganda in the West was ubiquitous, and hardly questioned by anyone. The US Ambassador for the UN at the time, Henry Cabot Lodge, set the tone by commenting on the 1959 report with the words that there was not the slightest reason to question any statement from the Dalai Lama. The well-known American newspaper Christian Science Monitor openly admitted that the investigations were unilateral but did not find that dubious and wrote about a "thorough examination" of the facts. In general, the report was praised as a "masterly document" from the pen of "competent lawyers" and it was even claimed that the apparent witnesses had been subject to rigorous cross-examinations.21
Yet even a fleeting glance at the origin, members and objectives of the International Commission of Jurists triggers significant doubt. What the Tibet lobby conceals at all costs: it is an organisation created and financed by the American Secret Service within the context of the ideological Cold War. The ICJ emerged directly from the "Investigating Committee of Free Jurists" (ICFJ), one of the groups founded in 1949 by American agents for the purpose of publishing anti-Communist propaganda and recruiting agents in East Germany. The association took the name ICJ in July 1952. Between 1958 and 1964 it received at least USD 650,000 from the CIA.22 A leading mind and figurehead at the ICJ was the Indian jurist and party leader, Purshottam Trikamdas, whose PSP party had close contacts with international CIA-financed organisations such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom.23 While the ICJ was still writing its final report, Trikamdas delivered a strong anti-China speech at the so-called Afro-Asian Convention on Tibet and Against Colonialism in Asia that, in his own words, aimed to support the "Tibetan people." He clearly viewed himself as a prosecutor, investigator, and judge in one person and the verdict was set from the outset.
Grunfeld reaches the conclusion that there can be no talk of an impartial and objective investigation and evaluation of the facts by the ICJ and its Legal Inquiry committee (LIC). Not only that its members never made even the slightest attempt to review the credibility of the "witness statements" of the Tibetan exiles, on which its final "verdict" is based, and check out any discrepancies. There is nothing in the report to suggest the "rigorous cross-examination" of the exiled Tibetan witnesses, as alleged by the Committee; rather, all the statements were clearly believed on word.24 Lois Lang-Sims, a British woman who, due to her sympathies for the Tibetan refugees and her own experience with them, was asked to create a pamphlet about the Chinese atrocities narrated by the Tibetans, regretfully rejected the offer: "I myself had to collect 'stories' from the refugees and failed to obtain one which I could conscientiously pigeon-hole as 'authentic.' I learnt by experience how impossible it is, when talking through an interpreter to assess all those subtle means which are so vastly important when determining whether or not an informant is describing something that actually happened to himself. The ordinary Tibetan is by nature truthful and honest. But, to rely upon this unquestionable fact without, at the same time, recognising that his view of 'truth' bears no relation to what the West would regard as valid evidence is dangerous. The Tibetan peasant has been accustomed from his cradle to his grave to accept legends and fairy tales as literal truths."25
The "competent" jurists refrained, at all costs, from even contacting the round seventy journalists who had visited Tibet in the 1950s. An application to the Chinese authorities to let the ICJ travel through Tibet was rejected. In view of the organisation's CIA background nothing else could have been expected, and Grunfeld therefore considers it likely that the application was only submitted to better counter the accusation of one-sidedness.
The ICJ and LIC jurists proved not only their bias but also their incompetence and ignorance by not contradicting completely abstruse assertions26 from Tibetan exiles. They instead accepted them simply as indisputable truths: that "serfdom does not exist in Tibet in any form whatsoever", or that practically every Tibetan working in agriculture had a minimum of 5 to 6 cows and 30 sheep.27
Grunfeld continues that the Commission's bias and partiality becomes most clear in relation to the allegation of forced sterilisations. "The LIC quotes the Dalai Lama as stating that sterilization began in 1957 and was carried out on a 'large scale'; 'two or three villages were completely sterilized.' The Tibetan leader went on to claim that 'the Communist Chinese adopted these measures under the pretext of preventing certain epidemic diseases. They administered certain injections to men and woman in order to make them impotent. They also forced upon them treatments to make the male and female reproductive organs functionless.'" Grunfeld comments on this that "the Dalai Lama's promises to produce evidence to back up these charges never materialized. That did not prevent widespread publicity; as though the allegation had been irrefutably documented. In the years following the publication of the LIC's report, the Dalai Lama, Trikamdas, and the ICJ all claimed to have found proof of sterilization; yet they failed to produce a single person who could be clinically examined to verify these claims. One must keep in mind that impotency is a frequent consequence of the ravages of venereal disease, which was rampant throughout Tibet."28
Notes
1 Oskar Weggel, Die politische Rechte und Linke im Meinungschaos um das Tibet-Problem, In Mythos Tibet: Wahrnehmungen, Projektionen... p. 161 2 David-Néel, Le vieux Tibet face à la Chine moderne, In Grand Tibet et Vaste Chine, p. 964 3 Henry S. Bradsher, Tibet Struggles to Survive, In Foreign Affairs 47: 4 (July 1969), cited by Grunfeld, The Making... p. 259 4 Franz Alt et al., Tibet... p. 45 5 Thomas Heberer, Das alte Tibet war eine Hölle auf Erden: Mythos Tibet in der chinesischen Kunst und Propaganda, In Mythos Tibet, p. 143 6 Brockhaus Enzyklopädie in vierundzwanzig Bänden, Bd. 14, 19th completely revised edition, Mannheim 1991, p. 135 7 Alex C. McKay, "Wahrheit," Wahrnehmung und Politik: Die britische Konstruktion eines Bildes von Tibet, In Mythos Tibet 8 Ibid., p. 68 9 Ibid., p. 76 10 Ibid., p. 78 11 Ibid., p. 77 - The Dalai Lama readdresses the idea of a Tibetan buffer state in his autobiography, without mentioning the British colonial origin of the concept. 12 Ibid., p. 69 13 McKay dedicates a whole chapter to the subject of British "censure" by the government or the stated institutions. See also ibid., p. 80 and 81 14 McKay states as an example W. McGovern, To Lhasa in Disguise from 1924 15 Ibid., p. 83 16 See Goldstein, The Calm... p. 67 17 Goldstein, The Calm... p. 81 18 A good example of this is the response of western "specialists" to the Chinese white paper on the issue entitled "Tibet: Ten questions and ten answers." The very comprehensive and seemingly challenging volume (Blondeau/Buffetrille, Le Tibet est-il chinois? Paris, Albin Michel, 2002), also published in English, "refutes," for example, the Chinese account of events in Lhasa in 1959, solely by invoking two sources, namely the Dalai Lama's autobiography and the account from the reactionary US contact Shakabpa. (see also p. 121) 19 See also Grunfeld, p. 148 20 The News Chronicle correspondent Stuart Gelder was also reminded of the Nazi minister in light of the anti-Chinese propaganda from John Foster Dulles. See Gelder, Timely Rain, p. 106 21 Information from Grunfeld, p. 146. 22 At that time, the dollar still had some value; the purchasing power of a dollar in 1960 was at least ten times what it is today. 23 See also Grunfeld, p. 146 ff. 24 The journalist George Gale reported that contemporary testimonies, particularly those from the Dalai Lama, were never questioned. His article in the Daily Express from 16/11/1959 had the significant title Up in Cloud Cuckoo Land with the Lama. See also: Grunfeld, p. 147 and 289 25 Cited from Grunfeld, p. 148 26 See also ibid. 27 So Shakabpa and the Dalai Lama, see also Grunfeld, ibid. 28 Grunfeld, The Making... p. 149
23 Stories from wonderland: how a "genocide" resulted in unprecedented population growth...
Through statements from eye witnesses, we know today that, between 1950 and 1982, 1.2 million Tibetans died.
Data and Tibet do not sit happily together. Some countries enjoy tabulation and statistics; others prefer myths and legends, which mix fact and fluctuating memory, imagining how things might have been in the past.
What characterises all Tibetans is their childishness. (...) The Chinese Communists extended their field of power to this childishness and created a wasteland in the Tibetan soul – that is the actual crime of the envious Chinese Communists.
The allegation of sterilisations is, of course, closely connected with another, more general allegation that is still repeated today in the Tibet scene and western media: that of the apparent genocide of the Tibetans. The "exile government" claimed that the Chinese were striving towards "demographic destruction" of the Tibetans and pursuing "the goal of eradicating the Tibetan race." Despite his own lifelong friendships with members of the SS, the Dalai Lama himself did not shy away from imputing the goal of a "final solution" to China, thus drawing a parallel with the racist eradication policy of the Nazis. In his autobiography, he does not simply talk about "outright apartheid"4 in Tibet, but also about the "destruction of the Tibetan race,"5 a "Holocaust"6 and "a Himalayan killing fields."7 His Tibetan exile government published official figures in this area in 1984, which are both shockingly high and incredibly precise. In the period from 1949 to 1979, the Chinese Communists were responsible for the death of 1.2 million Tibetans. The "Tibetan Minister for Information" offered the desired interpretation along with the figures: the number shows that it was "ethnic genocide."
This figure of 1.2 million Tibetan victims has been repeated endlessly; it was hammered into the minds of the western public so that it ultimately came to be understood as a known and indisputable fact by all sides. Tibet activist French, who looked into the matter, writes: "This figure of 1.2 million has now passed into popular consciousness, and is often cited as a piece of uncontested fact, not only in campaigning materials but in independent publications." For example: "During a randomly chosen month, June 2000, I spotted nine references to the figure in US print media alone. Most of these mentions were automatic, using it as an accepted and accurate statistic."8 The same thing has been happening in German, French and British media for many years and nobody will be surprised that all authors close to the Dalai Lama added their voice to the chorus.
For a long time, the Tibetan exile government kept control of the collection of statements, figures and documents upon which the ominous "genocide" figure was based, and did not allow any partly independent researcher to look at them. Nobody could therefore critically examine their apparent calculations.9 Instead, they provided friendly, particularly gullible or unscrupulous journalists with further figures: Vanya Kurley reported in 1990 in her book Tibet: Behind the Ice Curtain that Dharamsala had so far, after cross-checking, recorded the names of 1,207,487(!) Tibetans who were killed and that this number would continue to rise, as the exile government had more names and figures that it wanted to verify before publishing.10 We know this: successful mythomaniacs always try to complete and further decorate their tissue of lies. However, liars reveal themselves by carrying their lies too far. The Tibetan exile government is no exception here. It went so far as to claim that, between 1949 and 1979, exactly 156,758 Tibetans were executed, 432,067 died in battle, 413,151 starved to death, 174,138 died in camps and prisons and 92,931 were tortured to death; 9,002 committed suicide.11 How could such a statistic – completely absurd in its apparent precision –have been created? How could an "exile government" that had no administration and no civil service in Tibet itself, let alone in other parts of China, record data with such precision? In areas that are some of the least populated in the world and where many villages are virtually cut off from the rest of the world because they are difficult to access? Among a population that, for the most part, could not read, write or calculate and could barely count? When there was still a Lama government in Lhasa, such modern inventions as birth or death registers were unknown. The lamas and aristocrats also never conducted a census and there was no statistics office. Throughout their long history, the Tibetans were only counted by the Chinese authorities, whether imperial or Communist, and also in these cases the data collected was a long way from achieving the brazenly feigned precision and reliability of the "exile government."
The Tibet activist French initially tended to believe the figure of 1.2 million Tibetan victims after the many stories of atrocities he had heard. But a simple calculation made him sceptical: if a fifth or sixth of the original Tibetan population died, as is claimed by the exile government and also western supporters, the total number of Tibetans at that time must have been between 6 and 7.5 million. However, "using what information is available, it would appear that in 1950 there were around 2.5 million Tibetans in all, divided fairly equally between the area under control of the Lhasa government and the multi-ethnic border areas."12 1.2 million deaths would be almost half of all Tibetans living within the borders of the People's Republic of China at that time, and from the remaining half we also need to count the natural deaths and refugees!
After a great deal of back and forth, French was finally allowed to see the twenty-two part documentation on which the ominous figure was based. He reported, "After looking through the files for three days, it became clear to me that the figure of 1.2 million Tibetan deaths resulting from Chinese rule could not be accepted."13 And: "While I was going through the documents, my emotions" turned "from shock to something close to despair."14 He found "constant, unchecked duplications" and the "insertion of seemingly random figures into each section." Furthermore, there was "no list of names, as had been promised, and in most cases it looked as if no names had ever been recorded." He also noted, "The death tolls in some sparsely populated parts of northern and eastern Tibet were unfeasibly high."15 Yet even when he included all double counts, all highly inflated, all unverified and clearly false figures he did not come to the expected 1.2 million. Yet what perplexed him most: "Most disturbing of all was the fact that around of the nearly 1.1 million deaths listed, only 23,364 were female. This would have meant that 1.07 million victims were male, which was clearly impossible, given that there were only around 1.25 million Tibetan men in 1950."16 When confronted with the complete invalidity and groundlessness of these "statistics," which were so important for the exile propaganda, he and his Tibetan employee had reacted with disbelief, shame and concern, explains French, and he was initially "tempted to suppress" his new findings and "report that the survey was generally believable, even if there were some gaps in it." The fact that he ultimately did not do that honours him. Yet he continued to rescue the propaganda lie of the genocide of Tibetans by proposing the hypothetical figures of 200,000 to 500,000 deaths.17
However, this would have been the most astounding and unusual genocide in world history and would undoubtedly have earned a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, as within half a century it made out of around 2.5 million people up to 6 million. In his academic investigation into the alleged "genocide," Barry Sautman18 comes to the conclusion that the entire history was "a nationalist-crafted illusion designed to foster support for the émigré leaders' political goal of restored power in Tibet."19
Sautman himself scrutinised the figures quoted by the exile government for the individual causes of death. And the results of his examination are equally clear. He established, "The TGIE (Tibetan Government in Exile) claim of 432,000 battle deaths comes out of nowhere."20 If the claim were true, this would mean that the number of those killed in action in Tibet would have been five times more than the number of British casualties in the murderous First World War and more than four times the number of German casualties during the Second World War. The number of hunger-related deaths during the period directly after the failure of the "Great Leap Forward," which actually resulted in a terrible famine in many parts of China, as cited by the exile government,21 has also been freely invented. It would mean that the death rate in Tibet had been four times higher than in all of China, whereby the measures that resulted in the failed harvests and subsequent plight had not even been implemented in Tibet.22 In contrast, at that time the Tibetans "were recent beneficiaries of a land-to-the-tiller program and tax exemptions that increased their production." The population of the Autonomous Region of Tibet evidently did not fall, but rather rose between 1958 and 1969 from 1,206,200 to 1,480,500. These are figures accepted by the UN Economics and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).23 Sautman notes that the "most serious history of modern Tibet by an émigré scholar advances a much smaller estimate of famine deaths than the TGIE." Tsering Shakya claims in Dragon in the Land of Snows (1999) only that in Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu (not even in Tibet itself!) "thousands of Tibetans... were either killed in the suppression of the revolt or died as the result of economic disaster."24 Sautman's summary: "In short, a number of scholarly sources diverge from the TGIE's inflated death claims."25
The Tibetan Tashi Tsering, who had once been the right hand of Gyalo Thundrup, collected together with him the statements of the Tibetan refugees and translated them into English for the "International Commission of Jurists," made a very surprising return to China after staying and studying in the USA. He left behind some incredulous, speechless and outraged Tibetan exile comrades and uncomprehending American patrons. He clearly did not believe in the exile's stories of atrocities and the terrible rampage of the Chinese Communists. He instead wanted to make a contribution towards developing and modernising his homeplace and was willing to forego the luxury of the American way of life and even take the risk of being imprisoned as an active counter-revolutionary. However, he was welcomed in China with open arms and sent to a school for cadres of national minorities, particularly Tibetans, where he was to be trained as a teacher.26
Even if the numbers of victims alleged by the "exile government" are excessively exaggerated and freely created, the fact naturally remains that there were many, possibly thousands, of victims of the political and military disputes in the west of China, on both sides. And in view of the common overreaction of soldiers or police forces when repressing unrest or armed uprisings in other regions of the world: it would naturally be surprising if there had been no innocent victims or cases of disproportionate state violence when fighting the Khampa bandits and the Lhasa uprising. That would still be bad enough and undoubtedly regrettable. Yet wanting to conclude from this a particularly brutal, criminal or even murderous character of Chinese policy in Tibet seems to me unfair, hypocritical, and dishonest. It reminds me of the kind of selective perception and recollection that affects the Catholic Church, for example, when it beatifies hundreds of priests who had been shot by the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. The up to 150,000 Republicans who fell victim to the coup plotter and Dictator Franco even after his victory are simply forgotten. As is the fact that, alongside Hitler and Mussolini, it was primarily the Catholic Church that supported the Franco coup and attracted the hatred of the anti-fascists. It is therefore not sufficient to state that it came to a bloody confrontation between the new Chinese state power and parts of the Tibetan elite and to lament the fact that there were victims. We must also answer the question as to what the opposing parties stood for, what their goals were, what means they used and with whom they were connected. Whereby we are faced with a question that is not simply humanitarian, but rather political: weren't and aren't the Tibetans fighting for their freedom, for their independence from China that, in relation to Tibet, must be viewed as a colonial power?
Sautman addresses in detail the representation, which is closely connected with the accusation of genocide, of Tibet as a colony of China since the 1950s, and the allegation that China therefore handles Tibet exactly as the European states, the USA and Japan handled their colonial territories in previous centuries. Robert Thurman, one of the spokespeople for the Tibet lobby in the USA, talks about "total, rapid, mass Chinese colonization" and about China's approach in Tibet that represents "blatantly genocidal activity."27 This would indeed create the right to resistance and decolonisation. If Tibet were really a Chinese colony then the Tibetans would, like all other colonial people, have a right to self-determination and independence. The international community today unanimously rejects colonial oppression. Only recently (2013) the UN upset the French government with the demand to let its DOM-TOM colonies (Départements et territoires d'outre-mer, "overseas territories") become independent. Sautman refers to declarations from the United Nations and from the Canadian High Court about Quebec when he states, if Tibet is not a colony and not subjugated to a foreign power, nor a place where minorities are systematically refused access to government posts, then the question about self-determination and independence does not arise.28
Consequently, Sautman pursues this question by comparing the situation in areas of China populated by Tibetans with the situation in traditional colonies. In particular, he is interested in the decline in population characteristically associated with colonial conquest and exploitation. Indeed, colonialism meant a demographic catastrophe for all colonised peoples. Sautman reminds us of a few facts: "The New World indigenous population of 75-145 million declined by three-fourth in the sixteenth century and by 95 percent if a longer time frame is used. This occurred not only because of Old World diseases, but also through repression and forced labor for the colonialists." It's exactly what happened in British and American colonies. In the 18th century there were around 300,000 Aborigines living in Australia; at the start of the 20th century there were only 90,000 left. The original number of indigenous natives of Hawaii is estimated at 300,000 to 800,000; at the start of the 20th century there were less than 70,000 of them remaining.29
The declining population in the colonies was the consequence of wars of extermination. Africa's share of the global population fell from 18-20 percent in 1500 to 12 percent in 1800. Between 1600 and 1800 around 18 million Africans were sold as slaves, followed by a further 5.6 million in the 19th century. Millions died on their journey towards slavery. A few decades of colonial rule were enough to shrink the population of the Belgian Congo by half. The number of casualties is estimated at 10 million. In Namibia ("German Southwest Africa"), the Germans killed eighty percent of the Herero population and half of the Namas between the years 1904 and 1907. During the suppression of the Maji uprising in modern-day Tansania in 1905-1906, up to half a million Africans died under the Germans' scorched earth policy. In India, the British destroyed domestic industry, particularly the textiles industry, to create a market for their own products. According to statements from the Scottish author James Callender, they destroyed or drove out within a period of six years towards the end of the 18th century "no less than five million industrious and harmless people" in Bengal alone. Between 1700 and 1890 India's share of global GDP fell by more than half, from 22.6 to 11 percent, and by 1952 it had fallen even further to a mere 3.8 percent. The economic decline brought with it human catastrophes. The famines from 1876-1879 and 1896-1902 alone cost up to 29.3 million people their lives. The population figures had been on the decline for decades. The colonial government collected around half of Indians' net savings; military and police expenditure accounted for one third of all British-Indian expenditure, whereas a mere 4 percent was spent on public work. Even in Ireland, the oldest British colony, colonial rule resulted in successive famines and a strong loss in population through migration.30
Sautman then compares the life expectancy of the Tibetans with the current "predicament of indigenous peoples elsewhere." In Australia, for example, the average life expectancy of the Aborigines has been falling since the 1990s and now lies at 55.8 years for men and 63 years for women; this is 20 whole years less than the Australian average for men and 19 years less than the average for Australian women. However, the author states in relation to Tibet: "Far from being subject to massive population depletions from diseases, moreover, the life expectancies of Tibetans were rapidly raised through the development of a system of medical care that wiped out the worst communicable diseases and sharply lowered infant mortality, beginning as early as the 1950s."31 Life expectancy today is at a similar level to that of the overall Chinese population.
Sautman's comparisons between the Tibetans and the peoples colonised by the Europeans and Americans lead him to conclude finally: "We find no evidence for the demographic catastrophe claimed by Tibetan émigré leaders, but instead an overall increase in the number of Tibetans after 1949 that markedly contrasts with the population disaster that befell colonized peoples over decades and even centuries."32
Civil rights and civil liberties in China may not be as extensive as we would like but they do at least apply to all Chinese citizens equally. There is no distinction made between ethnic groups either in the constitution or in the laws and their practical application, apart from the rights of autonomy and the positive discrimination of minorities, for example with birth control measures. The situation in the European colonies was completely different as there was a clear distinction and separation between settlers and "natives," Christians and "heathens," "master races" and "savages." Leading theoreticians of colonialism strived, through the propagated reckless exploitation of the "lower races," to remove the rigid class barrier that "separated the knaves from the masters in the metropolis" according to the Italian historian and liberalist critic D. Losurdo. "The exploitation of the Chinese underlings and other more or less servile workers opened up the possibility of raising, if not the 'entire population of the West', as Hobson suggests, but a not insignificant part to 'the position of independent gentlemen'."33 A "democracy for the master race" thus developed, which determined "all of the relationships between the West and the world of the colonies, the internal and external."34 As John A. Hobson established in 1902, at that time in the British Empire only eleven of 367 million subjects had political rights outside of the British Isles. For "the overwhelming majority of the British subjects" there was no "civil liberty" there.35 Alexis de Tocqueville, who advocated the violent conquest and colonisation of Algeria by France, describes the desired colonial society there as follows: the "merging" of the French settlers with the Arabs was inconceivable, "a chimera," and it was thus "possible and necessary for there to be two clearly distinct legislations in Africa" because "we are dealing with two clearly separated societies."36 This is exactly what happened: "The Code de l'indigénat from 1875 divided the population into first and second class citizens, into French citizens and French 'subjects' without any citizenship."37 The Algerian "Muslims" did not receive French citizenships until 1947. Paris wanted to curtail the struggle for liberation that had already started.
Admittedly, there are also some academics who apply the term "colonialism" to China's relationship with the Tibetan region. However, we must question whether they really know what they are talking about. Thomas Hoppe, for example, uses the expression in a connection that makes his own colonialism concept seem very questionable. He writes, "Towns, regions and provinces in the heartland 'help' – according to the official term – Tibet to develop his infrastructure. At the end of 1995 in Shigatse, I was able to see some new infrastructure buildings, including a secondary school and a waterworks, which had been built with the help of internal Chinese units. A government spokesman quantified the number of key projects supported or created by the inner provinces in the summer 1995 as 62. These projects form part of the colonial influence in Tibet, yet they also improve the living conditions and educational opportunities in Tibet."38 As per their understanding of colonialism, were Leopold II. in Congo belge and the Germans in Namibia primarily concerned with improving living conditions for Africans? Or did the colonial project of Hitler and Himmler in Eastern Europe aim to improve "educational opportunities" for the Slavic "subhumans" and develop the infrastructure in Poland and the Soviet Union? That is how academics get on the wrong track if they do not strive for disambiguation or wear political and ideological blinkers, which interfere with the view beyond their own narrow field of expertise.
Now, the Tibetan exile government undoubtedly fibbed in regard to the "genocide" allegations. However, are the close to six million Tibetans not exposed to constant major breaches of their human rights? Is their right to education not refused? Are their language and culture not systematically being pursued, suppressed and even eradicated? Do they not face discrimination at all levels of business, political and cultural life? Are they not being "infiltrated" and becoming a minority in their own land due to the constant stream of Han Chinese supported by the state, which has long been taking on the dimension of an "invasion?" Are the prisons and camps not bursting with political prisoners who committed no other crime than sticking to their beliefs or keeping an image of their revered church leader? All of these things are continually claimed by the Free Tibet propaganda and repeated like a mantra.
Barry Sautman's article is also extremely informative in relation to the Tibetan prison population. The author writes that the assertions of the Tibetan exiles in this area sometimes reached a "fantastic magnitude" and cites the example of a Japanese newspaper. The newspaper responded to Chinese criticism of Japan's refusal to officially admit to the atrocities committed by its troops during the Second World War by publishing an article from a certain Pema Gyalpo. The article claimed that in Qinghai ("Amdo") alone there were two million political prisoners.
In the Free Tibet scene, the figure of 100,000 political prisoners in Tibet is quoted, but also the claim that one percent of the Tibetans were in prison, which would account for approximately 60,000 Tibetan detainees. Western human rights groups state much lower figures. In the mid-1990s, Asia Watch talked about 1,710 members of all Chinese minorities being in prison due to political, ethnic or religious activities.
Ironically, the "Tibet Initiative Deutschland" drastically revises the figures downwards one more time: "At the end of 2007 there were 119 political detainees in prison, most of them monks and nuns," it writes on its website.39 Even if, as it claims, the figure rose significantly in "2008 in connection with the March unrests and the Olympic Games," we are still dealing with a completely different magnitude: it was not millions who were detained, also not 100,000, not even one thousand, but rather at most a few hundred and also not simply so, but rather mainly due to their involvement in violent unrests. After all, in 2008 pedestrians in Lhasa were attacked with swords and clubs and pursued, buildings were set on fire and people, mostly Hans and members of the Hui minority but also Tibetans, were injured and killed. Are rioters, arsonists, and murderers (out of religious fanaticism or racial hatred!) actually considered in the USA and Europe to be political prisoners?
Sautman compares the numbers of prisoners in China – the government there states a prisoner quote of just below 1 per thousand, western specialists hold the view that it could actually be as high as 1.66 per thousand – with the situation in the USA: "In 2000, the United States had the the world's highest rate: 7.12 inmates per thousand population." That is almost seven times the world average. Based on information from the Chinese government, the figure for the Autonomous Region of Tibet is 0.7 per thousand. Even if the figure were adjusted, it could hardly come close to the American figure, which also reveals ethnic discrimination that is both crass and clear. There male black men are eight times more likely to be taken to prison than male white men. Compared with the Tibetans in the Autonomous Region of Tibet, the prisoner quota among black American men is eighty times as high!
Yet isn't there some element of truth in the "foreign infiltration" of Tibet by Chinese immigration? The Dalai Lama himself said to Franz Alt in an interview, "Due to the increase in migrations of the Chinese to Tibet there is – whether it is intended or not – a kind of cultural genocide taking place in Tibet."40 Franz Alt went one step further: China is responsible "for the currently most aggressive settlement policy on our planet."41 Do the Tibetans thus feel that they are being subjected to a proper "invasion" by aliens, namely "Chinese"? Apart from the fact that this discourse reminds us a lot of what the German NPD, the British National Party, the Front National, the Greek Golden Dawn Party or the Italian Lega Nord represent in their home countries: the "invasion" did not and is not taking place. Barry Sautman also pursues the question (in a "longer companion essay") of "whether China now practices 'demographic aggression' against Tibet through population transfer and family planning measures." At the end of his investigation, he concludes "that there is no population transfer to Tibet in the sense that the term is understood in international law. There was, moreover, a net out-migration of Han Chinese residents from the Tibetan areas over the course of the 1990s, the latest period from which we have census data." He also establishes in relation to the disputed policy on family planning and birth control what we have already mentioned elsewhere (in the book Free Tibet?): "Some Tibetans are affected by state enforced family planning but much less strongly than the Han."42
Even the prominent Tibet activist French must concede that "the exile government's assertion that the Tibetans are a minority in their own country" "cannot be upheld."43 And the German sinologist and Tibet activist Thomas Hoppe comes to the same conclusion in a chapter in an academic publication dedicated to the demographic situation in Tibet: "We cannot talk about an 'inundation' of the Autonomous Region by Han Chinese where they account for 10 to 14% of the population."44 The 14% are the result of his own calculations as he fundamentally mistrusts Chinese information. Nonetheless, he accuses the Chinese government of backing "a further infiltration by the Han Chinese."45 He laments accordingly that Tibet is now no longer "purely Tibetan," as it once was in 1950-51. At that time, "the class of Chinese restaurant and shop owners that are today spreading in the towns" was "completely unknown."46 As unknown as the Italian restaurants and ice cream parlours or the Turkish shops and kebab restaurants "spreading" in German towns? It is well known that they have resulted in Germany also suffering from "foreign infiltration" and, for a long time, not having been as "purely German" (or should we say "Aryan"?) as it was before 1945!
What about the "foreign infiltration" in the few bigger towns of Tibet? Isn't Lhasa at least affected largely by this? In any case, the Dalai Lama has asserted for a long time, as in 1998, "I estimate that today 100,000 to 200,000 Chinese live in Lhasa but only 50,000 Tibetans. The Tibetans are already a minority in their capital city."47 Official statistics show that, in 1990, there were 96,431 Tibetans, 40,387 Han Chinese and 2,351 Hui living in Lhasa. A "Manchurian who has been living in Lhasa for 30 years estimated during a conversation" with Thomas Hoppe "that the Han Chinese population in Lhasa was currently 40,000 people among the total population of 120,000 people that she cites."48 Is that "foreign infiltration?" Even if the comparison is awkward, as the new residents in Lhasa are not foreigners and ethnically more or less homogenous: in Berlin 27.4 percent of the residents have a migrant background.49 40 percent of the more than seven million people living in London were born overseas.50 The share of people living in Paris but born outside France (19.4% of the population) only therefore seems to be relatively low because the people who came to Paris during the different immigration waves,51 including their descendants, have long been considered as French people. Nevertheless, 41.3% of the children and adolescents there have at least one parent with a "migration background." Finally, the municipality of Luxembourg, which is comparable with Lhasa in terms of the population figures, beats all records: foreigners account for 65.22% of all residents here.52 Yet only a few extreme right beer table nationalists advocate the slogan "foreigners out!"
Notes
1 Franz Alt in conversation with the Dalai Lama, In Alt et al., Tibet: Schönheit... p. 7 2 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 277 3 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 167 4 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 295 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., p. 275 7 Ibid., p. 288 8 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 278. He lists (comment, p. 308): "The International Campaign for Tibet claims that '1.2 million Tibetans, one fifth of the country's population, died as a result of China's policies'; the Tibet society of the UK claims that 'over 1.2 million Tibetans have died in the widespread programme of imprisonment, torture and executions'; the US Tibet Committee claims that 'over 1,2 million Tibetans have died as a direct result of the occupation', Free Tibet Campaign claims that 'an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese.' In June 2000, Kristin Gustafson wrote in the Minneapolis Star Tribune of 'the 1.2 million Tibetans who have died during the Chinese occupation of Tibet'; Teresa Watanabe wrote in the Los Angeles Times that 'about 1.2million Tibetans have perished under Chinese rule'; Michael Hoffman wrote in the Mainichi Daily News that: 'In 1979, Tibet's government-in-exile in Dharamshala, India, estimated that 1.2 million Tibetans died resisting China's systematic destruction of Tibetan Buddhism. In the twenty years since then, the death toll is believed to have reached 1.5 million.'" 9 See also French, p. 279 10 See also French, p. 279-280 – The official figure presented by a Commission of the Exile Government incredibly differs (only) in the hundreds: it was exactly 1,207,387! See also French, p. 279 11 See also. Barry Sautman, "'Demographic Annihilation' and Tibet", In Sautman/Dreyer, Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development, and Society in a Disputed Region, Armonk/New York and London, M. E. Sharpe, 2006, p. 237, table 11.1; see also Desimpelaere/Martens, Tibet: Au-delà de l´illusion, p. 126, and the very similar, absurdly precise figure in Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, p. 158 12 French: Tibet Tibet, p. 278 13 French, ibid., p. 280 14 Ibid., p. 281 15 French, ibid., p. 280 16 Ibid., p. 281 17 Ibid., p. 281-282. – Incidentally: Anyone who discusses mortality rates and traces all deaths back to the actions of the government or the prevailing ideological-political-economic system, must ask themselves who is responsible for the extremely high child mortality rates, victims of smallpox epidemics and the generally very low life expectancy in old Tibet. Furthermore, it is undeniable that violence and counterviolence create victims. However, were the victims of the armed Khampa uprising, the unrest in Lhasa and the continued terrorist attacks managed from Mustang always only on the side of the rebels loyal to the Dalai Lama? Are the Tibetans killed by the rebels added to the figures for Tibetan "victims of Communism?" And is the Chinese government – even solely – responsible for the Khampa uprising and civil war with parts of the Tibetan elite? 18 Sautman is a political scientist at Columbia University and "associate professor in the Division of Social Sciences" at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 19 Sautman, Demographic Annihilation, p. 232 20 Sautman, ibid., p. 245 21 The figures fluctuate significantly between the official 413,151, the 343,000 claimed in a publication from the Tibetan Young Buddhist Association and the 200,000 quoted by the Dalai Lama. See also Sautman, Demographic Annihilation... p. 237-238 22 In terms of the consequences of the "Great Leap Forward" in Tibet, Tsering Shakya (The Dragon... p. 268) finds that the "Tibetan economy did not suffer the same setbacks as China." 23 Quote and information from Sautman, Demographic Annihilation... p. 242 24 Quoted from Sautman, p. 243 25 Sautman, ibid., p. 243 – TGIE means "Tibetan government in exile". 26 It was not until during the Cultural Revolution that he was suspected by ultra-left zealots of being an American spy, and had to suffer years of humiliation and imprisonment before being fully rehabilitated. 27 Quoted from Sautman, ibid., p. 231 28 Sautman, ibid. 29 Interesting in this regard is also the following information from Wikipedia: "In 1900, 37,000 people still spoke Hawaiian as their mother tongue. This figure has now fallen to 1,000 native speakers; yet half of them are aged over seventy." (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiische_Sprache, accessed on 20.08.2013) Would we not have to describe that as "cultural genocide?" 30 All information per Sautman, p. 233-235 31 Sautman, ibid., p. 243 32 Ibid., p. 231-232 33 Domenico Losurdo, Freiheit als Privileg: Eine Gegengeschichte des Liberalismus, With an epilogue from Oskar Lafontaine. Translated from the Italian by Hermann Kopp, Cologne, Papyrossa Verlag, 2nd reviewed and extended edition 2011, p. 290 34 Ibid., p. 291 35 Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, quoted from Losurdo, p. 291 36 Quoted from Losurdo, p. 301 37 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerien#Franz.C3.B6sische Kolonialherrschaft, accessed on 15th October 2013. – Without this distinction between first-class French citizens and the "beurs" with virtually no rights, it would be very difficult to explain the events of 17th October 1961 when French police, under the command of a prominent former Nazi collaborator, killed around two hundred Algerian demonstrators in the heart of Paris. 38 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 66 39 http://www.tibet-initiative.de/de/tibet/menschenrechte/, accessed on 27.08.2013 40 Alt et al., p. 7 41 Ibid., p. 40-41 42 Sautman, Demographic Annihilation, p. 232, comment p. 278 43 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 308, comment 278 44 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 66 45 Ibid., p. 40 46 Ibid., p. 67 – The German "sich breitmachen" (to spread) used here has a strong negative connotation. 47 Franz Alt in conversation with the Dalai Lama, In Alt et al., p. 9 48 Hoppe: Tibet heute, p. 58 and 59 49 See also: http://www.migazin.de/2013/02/11/berlin-auslanderanteil-steigt-tuerken/ 50 See also: http://www.wiwo.de/politik/ausland/london-babylondon/5344460.html 51 See also: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris#Immigration, accessed on 13th September 2013 52 See also: http://www.luxembourg.public.lu/fr/actualites/2011/02/16-vdl/
24 ...and how a "cultural genocide" triggered a cultural blossoming
As with writing, Tibetan art is all religious.
If the Tibetans are not being eradicated, driven out by foreign immigrants or thrown into prison en masse, is it not at least generally known that the Chinese are doing everything to destroy the Tibetan language and culture? "Tibetan is a separate language but the official language in Tibet is Chinese." The public German broadcaster WDR, for example, claimed this in a radio programme for children (!), along with the assertion that many Tibetan children would flee to the Dalai Lama in India because "Tibetan children have hardly any chance of receiving a good school education in their own country."2 How can these unabashed claims be reconciled with the reality as described, for example, by Uli Franz, the "Buddhist" author of a Tibet travel guide? Advertising boards, neon letters in facades and road crossing signs are "dually labelled everywhere" in Tibetan and Chinese.3 As such, the Tibetan language and writing is omnipresent in Tibet and is in no way suppressed; this is in contrast, for example, with Kurdish in Turkey, a Nato state and EU candidate, where a few sentences in Kurdish are punished with several years in prison and the Kurds have officially long been known only as "mountain Turks." So far, it has not occurred to anyone in China to call the Tibetans "mountain Chinese."
Dancing Monpa women in traditional costume. (Photo: rajkumar1220) The Monpa are one of the ethnic minorities in the ART. Most of them live in the administrative district of Nyingchi.
In 1987, the People's Congress of the Autonomous Region of Tibet committed to the principle that the Tibetan and Chinese written languages are to be ascribed the same importance in all areas, and adopted provisions related to studying, using and developing the written Tibetan language, which were to be implemented on a trial basis. At the same time, a commission was launched that was to focus on the use and development of the written Tibetan language. In October 1988, the people's government of Tibet issued rules on implementing these regulations. These rules made it unequivocally clear that, for example, all regional government conferences and all official documents should be in two languages and that all mass media (e.g. newspapers, radio and television) should use both languages. Furthermore, schools should gradually develop an education system centred on Tibetan teaching; the judicial authorities must ensure that Tibetan citizens could exert their right to proceedings in their own language.4 However, the plan of teaching all subjects in secondary schools and higher technical schools in Tibetan by 1997 could clearly not be implemented. Two researchers from Cambridge/Massachusetts commented on the issue of Tibetan as a teaching language: "Here the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government face the same difficulty: the Tibetan language has not enough vocabulary and terms to carry numerous concepts of science and technology. The Dalai Lama himself studied English hard. English has been used to teach mathematics and science in the Tibetan schools of India. Should the Dalai Lama be denounced as the primary person diminishing the Tibetan language?"5 However, we must note that "Tibetan is currently the language of teaching in primary schools in the Autonomous Region of Tibet (ART)."6 Uli Franz reports that the children there are also "taught Tibetan in lower secondary school;" but later on Chinese is dominant. In addition, around "10,000 young Tibetans attend secondary schools or universities in China."7 Also "outside the ART" Tibetan is "the main language (...) in some so-called institutes for national minorities located in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan."8 The "teaching material is also in Tibetan" there.9
Moreover, the state and party repeatedly encouraged and urged the Han Chinese functionaries, technicians, teachers etc. who went to Tibet to learn the Tibetan language.
In terms of the treatment of Tibetan and other minority languages, China does not need to shy away from the comparison with western states, who supposedly have a monopoly of respecting "human rights." Quite the opposite. France, for example, does not promote minority languages, but rather strongly discriminated against them for a long time. For example, to date "the Basque school system is not publicly supported. There are 23 private schools under the control of the Ikastolak school association; it laments the lack of state help."10 In Alsace the "French linguistic policy between 1918 and 1940 (...) was strongly targeted against the German language and Alsatian dialect. The French language was introduced as an obligatory official language and school language. In schools and administrations only French was permitted, and it was sometimes a punishable offence to speak in German or in the dialect." In addition, "After the Second World War, French became the common language, official language and teaching language. Knowledge of the autochthonous Alemannic or Franconia dialects (summarised under the term "Alsatian") or of standard German has been strongly on the decline ever since and primarily limited to the older generation and rural regions. The French linguistic policy of the pre-war area has been continued in principle."11 A recent study showed that "only 34.4% of the pupils questioned (...) could speak Alsatian." "Less than 10% speak their dialect when talking to friends."12 The situation is even worse in Great Britain, for example, in terms of "Scottish Gaelic". After it had "been driven out (...) of the southern and eastern regions of Scotland (...) in the 17th and 18th century, Anglicisation was introduced into the western highlands in the 19th and 20th century" and "reinforced after the introduction of general compulsory schooling in 1872 with sole use of the English language (use of Gaelic in lessons or on school property was often even punished)."13
In 1994, there were in China already seven newspapers and eleven magazines published in Tibetan. In the same year, 231 books were published in Tibetan; furthermore, 25 films were produced in Tibetan.14 In the meantime, young Tibetans are now developing Tibetan software at Lhasa University. Radio and television stations have long been broadcasting in Tibetan.15 A trilingual dictionary (Tibetan-Chinese-English) created by Tashi Tsering was not published in Lhasa, but rather in Beijing. As a German expert testified a few years ago (2008), Tibetan culture, which is in no way restricted to religion, was enjoying an unprecedented heyday. The German ethnologist and sinologist Nentwig summarises: "China produces a gigantic number of books, newspapers and magazines in the Tibetan language. There are countless Tibetan publishing houses not only in Tibet, but also in the neighbouring provinces and even in Peking – Tibetologists are not even in the position to appreciate all of it. Tibetan authors write in Tibetan and Chinese. You can buy not only Tibetan literature but also Tibetan translations of, for example, works by Shakespeare, Hugo and Balzac. (...) There can be no talk of anything such as 'cultural genocide.'"16 However, if people believe, like the Dalai Lama does, that "the Tibetans" should in no way, for example, forego "the practice of astrology" because it is "very important from the point of view of Tibetan culture,"17 then every attempt to introduce young Tibetans to natural sciences and a rational scientific view of the world is automatically a malicious attack on Tibetan "culture." As we know, even a biology lesson based on Darwin's Theory of Evolution is considered to be "un-American" in the American bible belt states...
Even an author such as Françoise Robin, who is not well disposed at all towards China, writes in her book Clichés tibétains about the propaganda fairy tale on the "cultural genocide" of the Tibetans, "This accusatory discourse (...) has reached its limits since the arrival of a second wave of refugees in India and Nepal. After an absence of more than twenty years, the first refugees were surprised to encounter apparently sinicised Tibetans, who spoke and wrote their language well, often even better than the exiles themselves, and who were continuing a strong regional popular culture: traditional costumes, dialects, songs, dances, celebrations and a farming or pastoral way of life, which had got lost in exile." However, they also brought with them something that had probably tempted them to leave their homeland: they were filled with "strong religious fervour," in contrast with the Tibetans born in exile among whom "callings are rare."18 Isn't the "true" and "genuine Tibet" possibly not in Dharamshala, as some people would have us believe, but rather in China? Even though, or better because, most Tibetans in China do not want to live in a museum or reserve, but rather claim their right to development and modernity? "It must also be emphasised that, in Tibet, there is a more active artistic and intellectual life and creativity (literature, music, painting, sculpture and recently film production) than in exile," writes Robin. Compared with this, the Tibetan exiles had "forced upon themselves the official ideal of keeping their culture clean" and, therefore, viewed "every 'modern' creation as betrayal and sinicisation." In Tibet itself, however, "cultural and artistic forms that originate from tradition and are also anchored in the present are blossoming."19
But people are fleeing from Tibet!? Aren't Tibetans, even children and the elderly, risking their lives to flee from Chinese Tibet, which is a giant prison, and go to the Dalai Lama in India? Colin Goldner examined in more detail the moving and exciting stories that people in the West are so willing to read and hear. His final verdict was as follows: "The widespread horror stories in the West about Tibetans, who marched by foot under inhuman strain for several months to Nepal or Bhutan (...), are, at least in terms of the conditions since the mid-1990s, definitely untrue."20 The ARD magazine TTT exposed, for example, the "touching story of flight from the rooftop of the world," which Dieter Glogowski presents in his book Tibet: Flucht vom Dach der Welt and a multimedia show of the same name, as a "complete staging."21 People are willing to believe the stories as they fit so well with the clichés and prejudices of a manipulated western public and are therefore hardly ever questioned. According to Goldner, "every Tibetan" could easily "get a passport from the Chinese authorities for a trip overseas. It is simple to travel by bus from Lhasa to Kathmandu/Nepal and from there to Dharamshala in northern India (or somewhere else)."22 And he cites a high-ranking Tibetan exile who told the taz in 1987: "Since 1979, the Tibetan exiles have been able to visit their relatives in Tibet and vice versa. During the past few years, many Tibetan exiles visited Tibet and many thousands of Tibetans came to India on pilgrimages."23
Gerald Lehner, who we have to thank for his excellent research into Harrer's Nazi past, worked in Nepal as a "development aid worker" on the border with China's Tibet in 1992 on behalf of the Austrian Foreign Ministry. He noted that there was "still" regular contact between the Buddhist minority living there and Tibet, beyond the high mountain passes that were regularly "crossed by merchants and mountain farmers." "On the 5,716 metre high Nangpa La, a pass to the west of Cho Oyu and Mount Everest, I met some Tibetan merchants who were in Nepal at the time. My conversations with these mountain-dwellers increased my scepticism of the clichés that were spread in the west by the Tibetan exile government and the Dalai Lama." In these accounts, Tibet "is still presented as a prison" and "in western newspapers and magazines" "stories about young Tibetans" who "had escaped the Communists via the icy Himalayas" were extremely popular. "In the mid-1990s" he himself went for the first time "illegally" from Nepal to Tibet. "When I was working in the Sherpa country of Khumbu it was said at the time that, on the Nangpa La, customs officers or border police only strayed there once every fifty years." China was now trying to monitor better the pass and the western mountaineers who wanted to climb Cho Oyu from the Tibetan side. In any case, Tibetan "merchants and mountaineers" came "often" via the "Nangpa La to Nepal." "The men, women and adolescents drive heavily laden yaks across the Himalayas. Every Saturday the large Sherpa market is held in Namche bazaar. The Tibetans here conduct their business with Sherpas and western tourists." Alongside tsampa, they primarily sell "thermos flasks, down jackets, other products from Chinese industry and hand-woven sheep wool blankets." The "Tibetans' old trading route" is "blocked for western foreigners" but not for locals "from both sides of the main crest."24
Lehner describes an encounter with a group of Tibetans on the Chinese side of the border. "I had in front of me traditional farmers, herdsmen and stock breeders, deeply religious Buddhists," some of whom were wearing "chains with very valuable Xi stones and turquoise." Among them was "a young, very proud mountain farmer" who spoke with Lehner via an interpreter: "The Tibetan in Chinese trainers, who had just crossed the glacier pass, was the antithesis of many clichés about Tibet circulating in the west. What were his views on the Dalai Lama? The man took – as expected – a yellowing photo of his "god-king" out from under his traditional parka. (...) The Dalai Lama is his happiness in life and protector, translated Tsering. The Tibetan kissed the photo and pressed it to his forehead. In Indian Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama's government, he and his people are seen by nobles and officials merely as dirty farmers, he said to Tsering. He was somewhat embarrassed when he translated." Lehner's comment on the encounter was as follows: "The mountain farmer and trader could have fled as a free man from Tibet to the Dalai Lama in India. Yet he never even dreamed of doing this but instead, after every Saturday market, went back from Namche Bazar to Tingri in Tibet and thus under the political rule of the Chinese."25 A Sherpa, an ethnic Tibetan of Nepalese nationality, confirmed to Lehner: "The Tibetans are free to move around everywhere. Earlier refugees have settled down here and sometimes go back to visit Tibet. And over there on the other side the natives do not confine anyone who wander about and trade."26
Uli Franz, the neo-Buddhist, confirms the freedom of the Tibetans to travel and move around, in contrast to the western clichés, when he presents his Tibetan guide "Nima" to the reader. Nima had acquired his "good English" in a "very unusual way": "When Nima reached school age his father sent him into Indian exile" and "to Dharamsala for his education." In 1995, his father then had to "order him back at the command of the Chinese." His foreign experience turned out to have been of little benefit. Due to his poor Chinese, "he fell behind his peers, who had studied in Chengdu or Beijing, even though he spoke better English than them and even spoke Hindi. It was difficult to progress in his career without any knowledge of Chinese."27 Yet his two sisters, who had remained in Lhasa, clearly fell victim to the Chinese discrimination and lack of Chinese educational opportunities: the older sister, according to Uli Franz, became a "gynaecologist" in a "people's hospital" and the younger sister a "secondary school teacher."28
Dictionaries, keyboard and road sign in Tibetan: concrete evidence that the Tibetan language is not suppressed but rather promoted.
Uli Franz' tour guide was certainly not the only Dharamshala Tibetan, who had travelled the route through the Himalayas in the opposite direction. Yet the successful western authors who, for financial reasons, are happy to swim on mainstream opinion like something unmentionable from the sewers, do not write any heart-rending stories about them. Goldner states: "That countless exiles actually return to Tibet is carefully hidden or even denied by the Dalai Lama's exile government and the international support scene. One of those who returned was Jainzain Oupei, former administrative officer of the Dalai Lama, who had gone with him into Indian exile in 1959."29 The Dalai Lama at least mentions in his autobiography the return to Lhasa ("for reasons unclear to me") of the abbess of Samding monastery.30
If neither a systematic physical nor cultural suppression of the Tibetans took place but rather, in contrast, a remarkable demographic, cultural and economic upswing, then there is still the allegation of discrimination against ethnic Tibetans at the political and administrative level. The encounter with a Tibetan called Wangdu, who had been offered an important position in a Chinese provincial administration, had given the Tibet activist Patrick French new insights. "According to the material put out by Western pro-Tibet groups, much of which I have read and some of which I had written, the authorities discriminated systematically against Tibetans. Words like apartheid, racism and genocide cropped up." Yet what he realised on the ground in western China was: "Although the top Party jobs were occupied by Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 per cent of China's population, the middle and lower ranks of the bureaucracy in these border regions included many Tibetans, Hui and other minorities. The official newspaper the People's Daily said that nearly three-quarters of the officials in the Tibet Autonomous Region were ethnically Tibetan."31 French does not question this last statement...
The efforts not to marginalise ethnic Tibetans, but rather to include them in the structures of the state and party, can be seen in the following figures: in June 1956, there were only seven Tibetans who were members of the Communist Party in China, by 1963 there were already around 3,000, and in 1989 approximately 40,000. Whereas the party secretaries of the Autonomous Region of Tibet, who are appointed centrally from Peking, were mainly belonging for a long time to other nationalities (Hu Jintao and Chen Kuiyuan were Han; Wu Jinghua, Party Secretary from 1985-1988, belonged to the Yi minority), a constant rise in the number of ethnic Tibetans in high official positions is to be noted. "A large number of ex-serfs and their children have taken up leading posts at various levels of government in Tibet, including chief leaders of the people's congresses, governments, courts, and procuratorates at various levels. In 1994, there were 37,000 Tibetan cadres, or 66.6 percent of the total number of cadres in the region. In September 1994, Tibetan cadres were reported to account for 71.7 percent of all cadres at the regional level, 69.9 percent at the prefectural level and 74.8 percent at the county level."32
After demanding Tibet's independence for decades, the Dalai Lama had now been demanding for some time a "genuine," an "actual" autonomy. This is naturally associated, regardless of the clear ulterior motive and political strategic calculation, with the assertion or insinuation that the autonomy of the "Autonomous Region of Tibet" was not at all real and "genuine." Many independent observers contradict this. We cannot simply claim that the Tibetan autonomy only exists on paper. This was the view, for example, held by the author of the already cited academic article on the issue, in which he refers to 72 particular laws and regulations that were issued by the autonomy's authorities33 and that, for example, ban the presence of uninvolved parties during the traditional "sky burial," since Tibetans had complained about being bothered by nosy tourists. A group of French senators who visited Tibet wrote, in their report from 17th October 2007, that the ART has the power to issue autonomous laws and regulations that take into account the special Tibetan characteristics in the fields of politics, business, culture and the education system, and gives the example of the statutory weekly working hours, which were limited to 35 hours in Tibet due to the special geographical situation, whereas they were 40 hours in the rest of China.34
Having said all that, one conclusion can be drawn, namely: Tibet and the other provinces of China (also) inhabited by Tibetans are clearly not the "hell on earth" often invoked by the Dalai Lama. Quite the opposite: the material and cultural developments are evident and China does a great deal for its most underdeveloped region. The Dalai Lama knows all that himself. French reports on a conversation with the "living Buddha" during which he described to him his impressions from a trip to Tibet: "Nothing I said surprised him and, unlike many exiles, he did not believe the Tibetophile propaganda that fills Dharamsala."35 What would you, dear reader, call someone who himself does not believe what he loudly proclaims and what others always declare in his name?
Notes
1 Thubten Jigme Norbu, Tibet: Its History... p. 309 2 http.//www.lilipuz.de/wissen/zeitkreisel/details/artikel/10031959-aufstand-in-tibet/ 3 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung für Tibet, p. 188 4 See also He Baogang, "The Dalai Lama´s Autonomy Proposal: A One-Sided Wish?" In Sautman/Dreyer (pub.): Contemporary Tibet, p. 78 5 Xu Mingxu/Yuan Feng, "The Tibet Question: A New Cold War", In Sautman/Dreyer, Contemporary Tibet, p. 314-315 6 Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 139 7 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 86 8 Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 141 9 Ibid., p. 143 10 http://www.raketa.at/baskische-sprache-und-schule-beidseits-der-pyrenaeen 11 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachen_und_Dialekte_im_Elsass 12 http://www.verdammi.org/geschichte.html 13 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schottisch-g%C3%A4lische_Sprache 14 See also He Baogang, "The Dalai Lama´s Autonomy Proposal"... in: Sautman/Teufel Dreyer, p. 78 15 I take from the Le Monde diplomatique magazine from October 2013, p. 20, that in China there are now more than 2,000 television channels. Including at least one in each minority language. 16 Dr. Ingo Nentwig, sinologist and ethnologist, formerly the East Asia curator at the Museum for Ethnology in Leipzig, in an interview from 18/ 04/ 2008 with german-foreign-policy.com 17 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 60-61 18 Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 126-127 19 Robin, ibid., p. 128 and p. 129 20 Goldner, Dalai Lama: Fall eines Gottkönigs, p. 498 21 See also Goldner, ibid., p. 499 22 Ibid., p. 499-500 23 Kelsang Gyaltsen in the Tageszeitung from 7/10/1987, quoted from Goldner, p. 500 24 Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya, p. 245-246 25 Lehner, ibid., p. 251 26 Lehner, ibid., p. 253 27 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 160 28 Franz, ibid., p. 163-164 29 Goldner, Dalai Lama... p. 498 – See also on the return of the Tibetan exiles and the opportunities for travelling from Tibet to Dharamsala and vice versa, Grunfeld, p. 215-216 30 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 75 31 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 42 32 He Baogang, "The Dalai Lama´s Autonomy Proposal: A One-Sided Wish?" In Sautman/Dreyer: Contemporary Tibet, p. 76 33 See also. He Baogang, ibid, p. 76-79 34 Rapport du groupe interparlementaire d´amitié du Sénat, 17 octobre 2007 – See also. Vivas, Dalaï-lama: Pas si ZEN, p. 68 35 French, p. 288
25 "Give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor!" – Religious freedom and its limits
Atrocities followed atrocities. Anyone who remained loyal to the King and the Catholic religion was reported, sentenced by the bloodthirsty rulers and executed. And in doing so, the brutes always had the words "freedom, equality and fraternity" in their mouths. The country of Luxembourg, which was always loyal to the church, was beleaguered during this terrible time. The priests who did not take the constitutional oath had to flee or were banished; many men and youths died in the battle for the throne and altar. (...)
In the meantime, the teaching of the revolution had spread to all sides. The Catholic Church was also persecuted in other European countries and its assets seized. In Germany, the church lost, through the so-called secularists, almost all the property it had rescued from the storm of the Reformation and the turmoil of the Thirty Years War.
The holiest obligation of parents is to educate their children well. But religion must be the foundation of education. After repeated decisions from the church, Catholic parents are not permitted to send their children to non-Catholic or non-religious schools.
By this point at the latest, I can hear the excited cries of the Tibet community: it cannot be denied that "atheist" China suppressed the Buddhist religion and denied the Tibetans their human right to religious freedom.
The International Campaign for Tibet alleges that, during the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" 6,000 monasteries were destroyed in Tibet. Interestingly, the figure did not emerge until the 1990s, twenty years after the "Cultural Revolution." The most renowned western Tibetologists assume that there were a maximum of 3,500 monasteries in all regions of China populated by Tibetans.3 This is clearly a further case of exaggeration and falsehoods. The fact remains that fanatical hotheads bullied monks and simple believers during the "Cultural Revolution" and robbed or even destroyed monasteries. However, during the riots at the time and the unlawful persecutions, very many people suffered throughout China who, in their overwhelming majority, did not have the slightest thing to do with Tibetan Buddhism or Tibet. The "Cultural Revolution" was not a movement that was particularly aimed at ethnic Tibetans or Lamaism.4 Its declared aim was rather to eliminate throughout China everything old – old ideas, old habits, old authorities – and everything that was "feudal," "bourgeois" and "revisionist." Furthermore, the destructions and persecutions in Tibet were the work of "Red Guards," the majority of whom at least were Tibetans.5 French spoke with a Tibetan woman named Pema, who had taken part "as a leader" in the persecutions of other people at the time. She and many other students had declared themselves part of the "Red Guards" in 1967 by making armlets and wearing Mao insignia. She reported that the Tibetans had been "more aggressive" than the Han Chinese during the so-called fighting or critical sessions but then felt more compassion. Interestingly, she remembers a particularly brutal episode when the victim, who had had a bag placed over his head, was hit with iron rods. The victim was a "Chinese boy" and she did not know whether or not he survived.6 The Red Guards, on the other hand, who "came to purge Lhasa's main Muslim quarter" and, in doing so, burned the Koran and other written historical documents were, according to French, all "Tibetan."7
One of the important monasteries, which was apparently destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and has since been rebuilt, is the Ganden Monastery. However, it is not clear who destroyed it originally: whether it was nearby "Tibetan farmers," as stated in a German Tibet travel guide, "the Red Guards," as another guide claims, or "artillery and dynamite," as an American pilgrim guide claims to know.8 From Lamu Monastery in the province of Gansu, Hoppe writes that "local Tibetan cadres" had ordered the population at the time to "destroy the temples and residential complexes of the monks." Since 1980 there have been new monasteries there with now (1995) 300 monks. Also in the province of Gansu (Labrang/Xiahe), the German sinologist visited a "new convent of the Gelugpa Order" in 1995 and reported: "The main work on the monastery is performed by Chinese tradesmen, including the artistic carving work."9 In this case the funds came in the form of donations.
It is true that, during the years of the "Cultural Revolution" and the rule of the radical "Gang of Four," there was little religious freedom in China and the Tibetan language and traditional culture had to endure difficult times. Under the disguise of ultra-left politics, chauvinistic attitudes, as per which everything Tibetan was automatically considered to be backward, came into their own. Yet at the time, particularly in the 1970s, nothing was heard about this in the West: US President Nixon tried to persuade China to form an alliance against the Soviet Union, which was considered to be the main enemy of the West. Nobody in Washington (and in Europe!?) was still interested in the Tibetans. That did not change until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic rise of China. Since then, the "Tibet question" has again been at the heart of a new Cold War against China and, despite all the improvements that have since been made, religious freedom is again a popular subject within the context of anti-Chinese sensationalist propaganda.
Old woman with prayer wheels, 2010 (Photo: Christopher Michel)
The "Tibet Initiative Deutschland" therefore alleges undaunted: "The freedom of beliefs and religion for the Tibetans is particularly strongly limited. Tibetan Buddhism is closely linked with the Tibetan identity. Exercising a religion, particularly in the form of traditional ceremonies, is strongly suppressed, often even banned, as the Chinese government linked it to Tibetan nationalism and separatism. Ownership of images of the Dalai Lama or proclamations such as 'long live the Dalai Lama' are punished with long prison sentences." And further, "The Chinese state also intervenes in the studies of Tibetan Buddhism. In the course of intensified religious policy, there are stricter official controls. Monks and nuns are forced to take part in campaigns against the Dalai Lama or in 'patriotic re-education campaigns.' These interventions in the teaching and practice of traditional Tibetan Buddhism destroy it from the bottom up."10
It is clearly just as difficult for the German Tibet fan to differentiate between religion and politics as for some Lamaist monks. If a measure from the political field, in this case the "patriotic re-education," breaches their opinion of religion, then the reverse shall also apply, i.e. that their religious understanding includes the political field and excludes a patriotic attitude. Theocracy, clericalism, patriotism, national unity, separatism – all these are ultimately political terms and have nothing to do with the modern understanding of freedom of belief and religion. What the "Tibet Initiative" describes as "tightened religious policy" is the state's reaction to intensified separatist activities, particularly among monks who are abetted and encouraged by the exile government. Apart from whether the measures discussed are meaningful and appropriate: other states probably react to similar efforts under the cloak of religion harder than China. For example, when in 1984 radical Sikhs in northern India proclaimed their own Sikh state called Khalistan, Indian troops stormed the separatists' centre and their most important sanctum, the "Golden Temple" of Amritsar ("Operation Blue Star") and killed, among others, the Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. In April 1986 and in May 1988 there were other military actions ("Operation Black Thunder" and "Operation Black Thunder II") against Sikh separatists there.11
Since the 1980s, which means for around thirty years, there has (again) been very extensive religious freedom in Tibet and in China in general. During the 2008 Olympic Games, the conservative Catholic daily newspaper, which I regularly read, alongside the articles about the unrest in Tibet and the apparent lack of religious freedom in China, informed potential western visitors to the Olympics about ...the order of service in the main Beijing churches.
In the Autonomous Region of Tibet there are today more than 46,000 Buddhist monks, who are even subsidised by the state. This amounts to 4 percent of the male population. That is a pretty remarkable figure! European countries come out rather poorly in comparison with the "atheist" governed Tibet. In Catholic France, which many often describe as "the eldest daughter of the church" there are today – in a population twenty times greater – "around 1,300 monks and 5,500 nuns."12 In Germany, the political elite is as religion-friendly as it is possible to be – a theologist as Federal President, a minister's daughter as Chancellor, the largest party and its Bavarian sister with the "capital C" in its name, crucifixes not only in Bavarian schools, a leading candidate in the green party who is head of the synod of the German Protestant Church (EKD) and has a more narrow-minded attitude towards euthanasia than the Vatican etc. Nevertheless, monks and nuns have become an endangered species. The Welt online writes: "The number of monastics in Germany is sinking dramatically, the traditional monastery tradition is on the verge of dying out" and gives a specific example: "Brother Paulus Terwitte is a Capuchin monk. His order in Germany has fallen from 590 members in 1975 to currently 150." The situation is even more dramatic than the mere member numbers suggest, as "84 percent of the female members of the order and around 60 percent of the male members are older than 65."13 Overall, there are still "approximately 4,700 monks" and "around 20,000 nuns" in Germany.14 And in Tibet? As can be seen in an academic article, the central Chinese government financed the rebuilding of 1,787 monasteries there and pays salaries to 46,380 monks and nuns, whose free medical care they also assume. The Lamaist theological schools are also financially supported by the government. Such state contributions to the clergy only exist in China for Tibet.15
Does that mean that, as regards the relationship between religious groups and the state, in China "in this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best" as Voltaire's Candide said? Certainly not, as there are conflicts between the state and some religious groups. Namely those who are not willing, or only reluctantly willing, to "give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor." Since the Dalai Lama, from exile and in the pay of a foreign power, guides and demands activities targeted against the unity and territorial integrity of China, the Chinese and local Tibetan authorities understandably do not like it when Tibetans publicly display or hang up his portrait. Even the monks at the important Tashilhunpo Monastery reject the politically motivated cult of the Dalai Lama, as Uli Franz had to discover. He advised the German traveller in Tibet to be careful when visiting the "magnificently" restored monastery in Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet, which is traditionally connected with the Panchen Lama: "Anyone walking through the monastery complex will encounter many English-speaking monks. While conversing with them he will quickly realise that they are incredibly true to the government. So be careful with Dalai Lama images!"16
Separatism has very little to do with religious convictions, even if Lamaism was never used to separating politics and religion. As a spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama was always welcome in China; it wasn't China that banned him and sentenced him to exile. However, he has long since ended for good his secular role as the political ruler of Tibet with the grace of God or Buddha.
The notion that religious life and politics must be separated is not only the opinion of the Chinese government. Religion is also largely a private matter from a modern western viewpoint. Religious freedom means that everyone is free to believe (or not to believe!), pray, make a pilgrimage, stay away from or attend worship services or other religious rituals with like-minded people and profess their beliefs orally and in writing. Yet religious freedom has limits. There are different opinions in Europe about the authorisation and permissibility of the expressions of religious belief in public. In some countries courts decided e.g. against crucifixes in state classrooms, or laws were enacted that restrict or ban wearing religious symbols in public (e.g. face and full-body veils for Muslims). There is at least agreement in Western Europe that freedom of religious faith ends where laws or the rights of others are breached. Both Germany and France were criticised by the USA for apparent violation of religious freedom every time that the "Scientology church" had to go to court for various legal breaches (such as "fraud"). Religious practices such as the kosher butchering or circumcision of minors are viewed as problematic by large parts of the population and occasionally also banned by the courts. State schools are not willing and also not authorised to adapt their teaching to religious taboos and bans. No European state wants to accept in its territory the legal system of the Koran known as Sharia or, for example, allow strict gender segregation such as during sports lessons in schools. So-called honour killings or fatwas from Muslim authorities, which call for the killing of authors or caricaturists, do not fall under the enlightened western understanding of religious freedom. Popular among certain groups of immigrants, religious and cultural practices such as female genital mutilation are strongly persecuted. In developed countries, the legislators and majority of the population have not been willing for a long time to have the law laid down for them by the Catholic Church and its spiritual leaders in Rome, for example in relation to abortion or euthanasia. In Belgium and Luxembourg, these questions even resulted in a constitutional crisis and, as a consequence, a curtailment in the powers of the relevant (strongly Catholic) monarchs.
One more point. People in the West who campaign for the lamas and their monasteries, out of concern for human rights and personal freedoms, must actually ask themselves how they feel about the freedom of those whose rights are trampled on by the lamas and their followers. Hoppe mentions that the Gelupga nuns he visited "have their problems with the celibate life that was often not freely chosen."17 In Lamu a 20-year old monk told him that his father had put "his two sons in the monastery (...) without them being able to decide on their fate themselves."18
Instead of getting excited in the West about the fact that the Chinese state is unwilling to hand over secular power in parts of its state territory to religious communities or a religious leader, they should rather stick to their own principles and remember their own past. Modern Italy, for example, was created in the battle against the secular power claims of the papacy; for a long time the Popes "acknowledged neither the statutory regulations for the Vatican nor the new Italy."19 For its part, France is known for its traditional policy of separating church and state – referred to as laïcité - which does not permit any government financing of the clergy or religious teaching in state schools.20 Recent German history also had times when the state tried to put the Catholic Church in particular in its place. Directly after the foundation of the German Empire, this broke out as a conflict known as "Kulturkampf." One state law after the next trimmed the privileges of the Catholic Church: the "pulpit paragraph" from 1871 forbade "the clergy when exercising its ministry from handling state matters 'in a manner that would jeopardise the public peace'." The Jesuit Law from 1872 drastically limited the activity of the Jesuit Order. At the same time, a Prussian law handed over administration of schools to the state. It was followed in 1873 by the "May Acts," which strengthened the state's supervisory legislation over the church by enacting a state exam for the clergy, which restricted the church's disciplinary power and foresaw the state's right of veto when appointing members of the clergy. Due to their opposition to these laws, "many bishops and members of the clergy were deposed" and "punished with financial penalties and prison sentences." This was followed by the "Bread Basket Act," which foresaw the cessation of all state payments to the Catholic Church, and the "Monastery Act," which dissolved all monastic communities in Prussia, except for those involved in the area of nursing care. The most important achievements in those years were the introduction of public schools and civil marriage.21
Back to China. The state there has certain problems with the Catholics who are loyal to the Pope and directly controlled from Rome, but not with the Catholic Church that is loyal to the state. We should perhaps remember in this regard that, in the past, the Christian missionaries were always hot on the heels of the western colonialists. This was also the case in China. The notion that Chinese citizens receive directives and orders directly from Rome could therefore not please the Chinese state leadership with a concern for independence. There are increasing numbers of conflicts with fundamentalist sects from the USA, who consider Jesus to be a fanatical anti-Communist. Like many other countries, China has problems with a politically focused or exploited Islam (which is referred to in the West as "Islamism" and "Islamic fundamentalism"). If groups, from their Western refuge, demand the creation of a Muslim caliphate "East Turkestan" and the secession of large parts of the Chinese territory and if, in the northwest of China, there are terrorist activities sponsored by the Pakistan secret service, the USA, the Saudis or Qatar, this has also nothing to do with freedom of religion and belief, but rather with separatism and foreign subversion. China ultimately has problems with the global Falun Gong sect, which it considers to be damaging and even anti-state. The concerns don't seem to have been plucked completely out of thin air. Also western critics, such as Raphaël Liogier from the Observatoire du religieux en France, consider the sect and its cult of personality to be totalitarian or draw parallels with the Moon sect. In Germany, the Higher Regional Court Dresden decided on 2th May 2005, in response to a lawsuit from the "Deutsche Falun Dafa e.V.," that it is permissible to describe Falun Gong "as a psycho-sect." Citation from the verdict: "As the assertion that Falun Gong is a psycho-sect is therefore true, the disputed assertion is not legally unlawful." The witch-hunt initiated by Falun Gong members in 2008 against employees of the Chinese language programmes of the Deutsche Welle, who had not been involved zealously enough in the anti-Chinese campaign at the time, also shows what kind of people the psycho sectarians are.
Notes
1 Issued on the order and with the approval of the Reverend Bishop Leo Lommel, Luxembourg. Printed and published by Sankt-Paulus-Druckerei, 1960, p. 190 2 In an announcement read in all parish churches of the Trier diocese, quoted from Chronik des Jahrhunderts, Volume I, February 1903, p. 44 3 See also Desimpelaere/Martens, Tibet: Au-delà de l´illusion, p. 73, who refer to Goldstein and Grunfeld 4 See also Goldstein/Siebenschuh/Tashi Tsering, Mon combat pour un Tibet moderne: Récit de vie de Tashi Tsering, Translated from the English by André Lacroix, Villeurbanne, Editions Golias, 2010, p. 145: "During the cultural revolution, it was not permitted to identify victims based on their ethnic origin." 5 See also ibid., p. 135: "Tibet was full of Tibetan Red Guards and revolutionary Tibetan activists and I was, if I'm honest, proud to be part of this movement." – There was even a particularly brutal faction of the "Red Guards," which was devoted to the Dalai Lama and led by the nun Trinle Chodron. She was publicly executed for her crimes in summer 1969. See also: Sam van Schaik, Tibet: A History, p. 248 6 French: Tibet Tibet, p. 190 7 Ibid., p. 156 8 See also. Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 153 9 Hoppe, ibid., p. 144-145. "Chinese" probably means Han Chinese. 10 http://www.tibet-initiative.de/de/tibet/menschenrechte/, accessed on 27/08/2013 – State interventions in the activities of the monasteries are (also) in China by no means an invention of the Communists. The Qing Emperors saw themselves forced to act against intractable monasteries and armed monks who hid "criminals in the lama temple," to limit the number of monks and regulate access to monasticism. See also. Shu-hui Wu, Die Eroberung von Qinghai unter Berücksichtigung von Tibet und Khams 1717-1727, Anhand der Throneingaben des Großfeldherrn Nian Gengyao, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995, p. 274 ff. 11 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmandir_Sahib 12 http://suite101.fr/article/moines-et-moniales-daujourdhui-qui-sont-ils—a28335, accessed on 1st September 2013 13 http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article108197033/Abschied-unter-Traenen-wenn-das-Klosterstirbt.html, accessed on 29th August 2013 14 http://www.orden.de/index.php?rubrik=3&seite=t1s&e2id=51, accessed on 29th August 2013 15 See also Xu Mingxu/Yuan Feng, "The Tibetan Question: A New Cold War", In Sautman/Dreyer, Contemporary Tibet, p. 312 16 Uli Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 120 17 Hoppe: Tibet heute, p. 146 18 Ibid., p. 145 and 146 – Our Catholics who stand up for the "freedom" of the fanatical lamas, should perhaps remember the Christians they pursued, e.g. "martyrs" such as Father Nussbaum, who was murdered on 17th September 1940 in behalf of the great lama of Karmda, or the "blessed" Father Maurice Tornay who, barely 40, fell victim on 11th August 1949 on the way to Lhasa to several "hangmen" hired by lamas. See also A. Bonet, Les chrétiens oubliés... p. 217 and. p. 233 19 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Römische_Frage 20 The principle has since become somewhat riddled with holes, partly through the public financing of private Catholic schools. 21 Information and quotes from the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie in 24 Bänden, Bd. 12, p. 586
26 The human rights to education and development
China's politicians say, we have brought progress to Tibet through roads, schools and machines. In truth, the Chinese occupiers in Tibet destroyed thousands of monastic schools in Tibet (...) The Chinese administration prides itself on having built more than 500 hospitals in Tibet. Tibetans often call these hospitals 'slaughterhouses.'.
They can no longer bear the fact that their children are forced to speak a foreign language at school. (...) They can no longer tolerate the fact that their traditional dwellings are systematically destroyed in the name of progress (...) They can no longer tolerate the fact that they are forced to send their children to study in China and, sooner or later, turn them into compliant tools of Communist policy in Tibet. (...) They can no longer tolerate the fact that their temples are in part being replaced with brothels.
Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had. And not just from us! From our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers. (...) And what have they ever given us in return?
(...) - (...) - (...)
Reg: All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
- Brought peace?
Reg: Peace. Shut up!
Even when measured against the standard impertinence and audacity within the Tibet scene, a further allegation against the Chinese sounds almost surreal. The German "Tibet Initiative" has the audacity to write on its website about the "human right to education" that the Tibetans are denied. They maintain that "very many Tibetans" are "not in a position to exercise this right." "Despite the enormous economic growth in China hardly any investment has been made in education in Tibet. Consequently, the number of illiterate people there is particularly high; it lies at around 50 percent."3
As always, the information is not correct. An academic from Deakin University in Australia states that the number of "illiterate and semi-literate people" (!) in Tibet in 1994 was 44 percent.4 This percentage has certainly fallen since then. The number of young Tibetans graduating from high school is also continually on the rise. But above all: friends of the Dalai Lama do not make the anti-educational and anti-science lamas, who constantly prevented (before 1950) or tried to prevent (after 1950) the foundation of modern schools, responsible for the ongoing Tibetan educational misery, but rather those who permanently introduced for the first time a modern school system in Tibet. It does not cross the authors' minds to mention that the illiteracy rate in the 1950s, when the lamas and aristocrats were still ruling, was higher than 90 percent. They think even less about what opposition to any form of secular education, starting from learning to read and write, may still exist among the population that has been educated for centuries in blind superstition, ignorance and subservience towards the clergy. As Norbu/Taktse, the brother of "His Holiness," wrote with rare frankness, "A secular education corresponds only to secular needs, and in Tibet these are minimal. [...] Reading and writing are virtually unnecessary for there is no such thing as secular literature in Tibet." A true Tibetan is therefore well advised to comply with his holy writings and his lama and reject secular education: "What intellectual development any layman wants he wants in terms of his knowledge and understanding of the scriptures, and this is always open to him. Further knowledge, to anyone with so clear a sense of direction, is meaningless."5 In Europe, commentators are happy to trace the lack of scholastic success in some districts of major cities back to "educationally alienated strata of society," whose children attend school here (or often stay away from it) and whose environment is hardly favourable. Can we imagine how "educationally alienated" some farmers or shepherds in remote Tibetan mountain villages could be?
Tashi Tsering founded around eighty schools in such Tibetan villages and was supported in doing so by the state taking over part of the construction costs, sending, and paying the necessary teachers.6 He reports on his bitter experience when founding the first school in his home village of Guchok, "My own brother, Lhapka Damdul, was a key opponent of the school construction." He was indignant and furious because Tashi Tsering wanted to use the money he had saved to build a school rather than giving it to his family, who could have made very good use of it. However, the other village residents were also not willing to help. "None of them had visited a school and, instead of being something valuable, it aroused in them nothing but suspicion and mistrust." He remembers that they also rejected the idea of a school because they were afraid that people would expect them to help with the construction without being paid for their work and they implied that he, Tashi Tsering, was egoistically striving for fame. He calls this rejection "one of the most painful experiences of my life."7 The Tibetan intellectual, who complained about the continued unsatisfactory education level of the ethnic Tibetans and their poor performance compared with their Han classmates, believed that the difficulties arising from the bilingual educational offering at the higher levels were primarily responsible for this.8 From his own experience, he knew about the anti-educational culture and tradition in Tibet: "The idea that someone from my social class had to learn something simply did not form part of the mindset of the old society, and this opinion was largely shared by the higher classes. (...) It is sad to say that this attitude actually still remains today in many aspects, so that many Tibetan parents, farmers and workers do not attach any particular significance to higher education."9 The same cannot be said about the Han Chinese cadre families in the larger Tibetan towns. This is also an explanation for the poorer performance of young Tibetans in the ART school system.
The German "Tibet Initiative" rightly laments that "Particularly in rural regions of Tibet there are too few schools. Due to the large distances, it is often not possible for Tibetan children to attend primary school." The Chinese can hardly be held responsible for the large distances. Furthermore, they were also the ones who introduced navigable roads and modern means of transport into Tibet and thus helped to reduce the distances. There is no evidence at all for the assertion from the "Tibet-Initiative" that the "high school fees" denied Tibetan children "access to a basic education."10 The argument is also fairly implausible as, in farming households, the loss of a worker through attending school to acquire "unnecessary knowledge" has a higher economic impact than any costs that might arise. The illiteracy rate in Tibet, which is still high, can hardly be due to a lack of financial support from the Chinese government. The Chinese state even spends twice as much on education in the Autonomous Region of Tibet than the national average, and the ratio of teachers to pupils is certainly comparable with ratios elsewhere.11 June Teufel Dreyer generally states that "the region received generous subsidies from the central government (...) more than any other province or autonomous region."12 The direct aid granted to Tibet by the central government last amounted to around 3 billion Euros per year, a considerable amount, almost half as much as the EU development aid for the whole of Africa.13 This seems not to include the enormous investments made by the central government in the infrastructure (road construction, railways, waterworks etc.).
Ultimately, the final education-related allegation from the "Tibet Initiative" that the "teaching plans" in state schools "are targeted towards the ideological interests of the CP" is particularly senseless.14 If that were the case, this "CP" would have to do everything to educate everyone right down to the last young Tibetan, which entirely contradicts the aforementioned allegation that not enough effort was made in this area. Furthermore, it would be somewhat daring to claim that teaching plans elsewhere, let's say in American, German, French, Israeli or Turkish schools, are not targeted towards "ideological interests."15 And let's not even mention Catholic or other confessional private schools and universities.
Yet the allegation of a Communist indoctrination of the Tibetans has settled down somewhat now that China no longer appears to be so "Communist." Some people are happy now to accuse the Middle Kingdom of having "capitalist" characteristics. What many Americans and Europeans reject and despise in all populations wanting to introduce it, excluding of course their own, is now seen as one of China's main sins. A modern "consumer society." At the end of the 1990s, Franz Alt railed against China as being a "materialistic major power" and strikingly named a chapter in his concoction on Tibet "Lhasa is becoming a supermarket." Guru Alt's terrifying vision: "By the year 2000, the most important religious place in Tibet should be converted into a Chinese shopping centre." The "holy city" is "currently being completely rebuilt so that Lhasa will look like a Chinese supermarket by the year 2000." For Mr. Alt Chinese supermarkets and shopping centres are unbearable "Chinese cultural barbarism."16 Strong words from the mouth of a German. I wonder whether Mr. Alt remembers that it certainly never occurred to the truly civilised people, of which he may include himself, at the time of their reign over different kinds of "subhumans," to torment them with modern shopping opportunities. Luckily, the Chinese "cultural barbarians" have not yet succeeded in implementing their dark plans. Otherwise Felix Lee, a China correspondent, whose seriousness and professional ethics repeatedly astonish, could not heat up the cold coffee for the umpteenth time and "report" around fifteen years after Franz Alt's prophecy: "China's authorities want to turn one of the most important pilgrim routes in the centre of Lhasa into a shopping mile." With reference to the blogger Tsering Woeser,17 he feigns outrage that a "gigantic shopping street" is planned in Lhasa, accompanied by a large underground car park "for more than one thousand cars." "China's commerce" is thus threatening to destroy the most important Tibetan sacred sites, in particular the Barkhor pilgrim route and the Jokhang Temple.18
As if the lamas would ever have seen a contradiction between commerce and religion, particularly if the proceeds flowed into their pockets. There has always been commercial activity around the Jokhang Temple. The Dalai Lama himself reports in his autobiography that from there as a young boy he "loved peeping down on the market stalls" and once sent a servant to buy "a small wooden model of a gun" for him.19 Ernst Schäfer describes his experience of the Bharkor street in the 1930s as follows: "It matches the practical sense of the Tibetans in Lhasa who, from the smallest cottager to the highest dignitary, see trade as the main goal of their earthly lives, that the holy street has been profaned into a commercial centre of the Holy City."20 As well as food, Chinese "brick tea", musk, clothes, household objects, iron goods, carpets, furs, medicinal herbs, daggers, jewellery, swords, soaps, whisky, Crème de Menthe, "mass-produced Japanese goods" and exported German "beer from the Schlüssel brewery in Bremen," "prayer wheels, rosaries, butter lamps" etc. are also sold. "The general haggling, the hours spent bargaining and negotiating prices (...) of course also apply to the religious objects and holy books, which are offered for sale in large volumes by the lamas of the individual monasteries on the pharkorstreet (sic)."21
In his travel guide from 2000, Uli Franz describes the "Chinese town" with its "generous but unchanging offerings" in shops, karaoke bars, restaurants, fast food outlets and "global shops", where you can even buy "Bordeaux wines and cognac" (enough to make you almost convulse with revulsion). Then follows the description of the tree-lined, concrete arterial roads of modern Lhasa with their crash barriers, zebra crossings and flower beds (the "town administration likes everything to be clean, tidy and even"). Finally comes the beautiful, old, genuinely Tibetan Lhasa, the heart of which is formed by the aforementioned Barkhor ("middle pilgrim route") and the Jokhang, the holiest of all temples, behind whose walls lived "150 Gelugpa monks and one Kagyüpa monk." "Nowhere else in Tibet are so many butter lamps sacrificed, nowhere are the Buddhas so holy, and nowhere is the ground so fatty as in this sacred place." He then describes the Tibetan pilgrim path that has not yet been destroyed by cultural barbarians, that is still genuinely Tibetan: "The circumambulating route (...) is much less a holy place than a profane one. Anyone entering the clockwise rotated Barkhor carousel must be careful not to let their head be turned by the goods on offer. Many of the silver-plated prayer wheels, bronze sound bowls, large and small bells, turquoise and coral prayer chains and decorative chains are made in Nepal, India or Taiwan. The unsuspecting tourists are unscrupulously assured: everything is original and very old. (...) Traders demand 500 Yuan for a prayer chain made in Nepal out of yak bones (which are brazenly claimed to be old Tibetan and ivory). After some hard bargaining, they ultimately change hands for 50 Yuan." In the evening, when the stalls are cleared away, the "bell tolls for the mobile traders: on plastic sheeting, they prepare low quality synthetic goods and devotional objects."22 If that isn't much more spiritual than "China's commerce" in the form of a materialistic, culturally barbaric shopping street with an underground car park! Let us pray together that it also doesn't at some point occur to the Chinese to scrub the wonderfully fatty floor of the Jokhang...
The author Colin Goldner, a critic of the Dalai Lama, conducted "extensive research"23 in Lhasa in March/April 1995 and reached conclusions that do not at all agree with the propaganda lies repeated in regular cycles for decades by the Tibet lobby and western media. The aforementioned assertion of Franz Alt is "utter nonsense," he writes: "The actual culturally and historically valuable buildings and constructions in Lhasa, such as the Oedepug residential area in the heart of the city or the ring road around the Barkhor, have been under an official preservation order since the start of the 1990s." Restoration work was supervised and performed with the help of German experts from the GTZ (German Society for Technical Collaboration) and executed via the internationally financed Tibet Heritage Funds. The renovation work, some of which was urgently required, was "defamed" by the exile government and its supporters as a destruction of the Tibetan culture and any equally careful and respectful handling of historical buildings was "maligned."24 It was, without exception, "far-fetched propaganda" and "horror stories and packs of lies."25 In reality, when constructing new buildings in place of buildings that are dilapidated or beyond repair, "a great deal of sensitivity is observed" to ensure that "they do not impair the historical city image." If possible, the "original facades" are retained; only if this is not possible are they "faithfully recreated using traditional construction materials."26 Goldner also rejects the allegation that, in place of the torn down historical buildings, the Chinese build "four-storeyed, thin-walled apartment blocks with concrete floors" in which the residents "wretchedly freeze.": "The fact that these buildings (regardless of the question as to whether their construction is really of such 'low quality' as the Tibet Information Network in London claims) are housing areas outside of the city centre" is concealed just as much as the fact that such residential settlements "can be found on the outskirts of almost every large city in the entire world." Moreover, people always forget to mention the "schools, hospitals and social facilities that have been built since the start of the 1960s" or the "enormous effort and expense involved in providing the city with a waste and sewage disposal system."27
Anti-modern resentment is omnipresent in publications from the Tibet scene, inseparably linked with the disdain of members of affluent western society about the development and consumption demands of people in the Third World. Tibet enthusiasts are outraged or critical of the renovation of the old city, the construction of modern apartments, gas works, hydroelectric power stations, dams, canal projects, industrialisation, supermarkets, tourism, modern road and railway connections, the increase in traffic etc. both in China in general and especially in Tibet. Mr. Lenoir, with whom the reader is now very familiar, even puts himself in Rousseau's footsteps and rediscovers the benefits of the simple life as well as the "good savage." The Chinese leaders are "drunk on the discovery of the consumer society," he blusters and asks, "Why do people want to make a freedom-loving nomad, who simply wants to live with his yak in the mountain, move to the city and become an official so that he can enjoy the conveniences of modern life?"28 Not only the cobbler should stick to his last but the nomad should also stay with his yak... Yet maybe the nomad would have nothing against a motorbike, surgery in the event of appendicitis or kidney stones, a hospital bed and medical care in the event of illness or old age, or receiving help from a vet if his beloved yak were to fall ill? Perhaps he even secretly wants his children or grandchildren to learn how to read, write and be numerate? And maybe they can hardly wait to finally leave behind Dad's or Grandpa's old yak for an apartment with running water, electrical light, central heating, toilet and bathroom? Maybe they foster even wilder dreams of a fridge and washing machine, Smartphone and internet, city trips and beach holidays...
The problems linked to China's rapid economic development are in no way being disputed here. Of course, the country is facing enormous challenges in terms of social equality, protecting the environment, preserving natural resources etc. In Germany, we should perhaps remember the price that people paid, and were willing to pay, in the 1950s and 1960s for the "economic miracle." At that time the sky over the Ruhr was not blue, the rivers were contaminated, the air was full of lead etc. It took decades and a large number of fulfilled consumption demands before there was a heightened environmental awareness in Europe. This seems to be happening much quicker in China, also and especially within the Chinese government, as can be seen by the rapid development of alternative energy sources, particularly wind energy and solar energy.
In Franz Alt's concoction from 1998, the photo of the name of a computer shop written in three languages illustrates the threat of Lhasa turning into a "supermarket". Picture caption: "Symbol of the new Lhasa: a Chinese computer shop under a Tibetan name."29 The shop can't be genuinely Tibetan because Tibet and modernity are known to be mutually exclusive, in perpetuity. Real Tibetans don't have a computer, but rather a yak and a prayer wheel. Under the heading "In the name of progress", Klemens Ludwig also laments the changes in modern Lhasa: "Despite the width, the road leaves hardly any space for the pilgrims. Motor traffic dominates the image, the cycle paths separated with fences create order, and the rows of houses in the background suggest an active business life. VW and Audi, Toyota and Mitsubishi have branches here, as revealed by the well-known emblems." Lhasa is becoming like "any Chinese city." Only the pilgrims, "rather shabby-looking men and women with prayer wheels and traditional sheepskin coats (...) don't really fit into the image" with their prostrations. The depicted scene should make clear what Ludwig finds so shocking: "For ideological reasons, but also for pragmatic economic reasons, there is no longer much space in the new Tibet for the religious traditions that are often defamed in Peking as superstition." Lhasa has been affected by "major and irreparable changes;" "entire rows of houses" have been knocked down to build new apartment blocks. To achieve this evil, Beijing provides "a few 100 million dollars" as part of a development plan.30
Young Tibetan girls, 2010 (Photo: Christopher Michel)
Mr Ludwig is no despicable materialist. He is instead firmly, even radically spiritual, at least when it's at the expense of others, in this case the residents of Lhasa. "The Chinese" should keep their Mammon and their development plans! He and his kind could easily forego modern frills such as computer shops, cars, clean roads and separate cycle paths. In Tibet, mind you. Yet on no account could they forego the picturesque view of "shabby-looking" pilgrims lying prostrate on their stomach who – it cannot be disputed – fitted better into the earlier image (!) and were much less pushed to the sidelines in the past. At the time when the "holy city" still stunk to high heaven.
Another example: the French author Robin has to admit that the ART is showing "double digit growth in the economy" but only to criticise, at the same time, that this is only "thanks to artificial support from the Chinese state. We can speak of an economy that is on a drip, largely kept going by subsidies from the government for 'developing' Tibet. Without them, the Tibetan economy would fall back to an extremely low level."31 In other words, the development (Robin uses quotation marks) of Tibet is not proper as it is only made possible through subsidies from the Chinese government. "Never look a gift horse in the mouth!" – Such old-fashioned rules of etiquette and behaviour no longer apply, and certainly not in relation to Tibet and the Chinese mainland. However, in view of what has been said, we must ask the question as to how the situation would be for the Tibetans on a purely "material" level if, instead of the constantly flowing aid from the Chinese mainland, they had to call upon aid from the "international community." From the USA, for instance, which is deeply in debt and faced with the constant threat of state bankruptcy, or from the EU where 46 million people are in need and reliant on soup kitchens...
Notes
1 „Tibet wird bald frei sein“, In F. Alt/K. Ludwig/H. Weyer, Tibet, p. 34 2 Lenoir, Tibet: 20 clés... p. 111-112; own translation 3 http://www.tibet-initiative.de/de/tibet/menschenrechte/, accessed on 14/08/2013 4 See also He Baogang: The Dalai Lama´s Autonomy Proposal, in: Sautman/Dreyer: Contemporary Tibet, p. 78 5 Norbu/Turnbull: Tibet. Its History, Religion and People, p. 335 and 336 6 In one of his "reportages," even the Dalai Lama enthusiast Klemens Ludwig wonders about the "benevolence of the authorities" in this regard and asks "why the Chinese administration tolerates such projects, which at the very least promote people's personal emancipation." Clearly, "at least some Tibetan party functionaries place value on the provision of education and healthcare in their area of responsibility." (Ludwig, „Hoffnungsschimmer in schweren Zeiten“, In Alt et al.: Tibet... p. 121) 7 Goldstein/Siebenschuh/Tsering: Mon combat... p. 225-226; own translation from the French 8 This is also one of the explanations that a western author presents in a very critical but differentiated article on the causes of dissatisfaction in parts of the Tibetan population: the quality of teaching was poor, as the best teachers would be very unwilling to accept a job in remote areas. Despite allegations to the contrary, the Chinese government made efforts to promote bilingual education. Yet this was a double-edged sword, as the extremely time-consuming and work-intensive Chinese lessons suffered under this, and the children who learnt Chinese late were barely able to catch up with their peers. See also. Ben Hillman, "Rethinking China's Tibet Policy", In Asia-Pacific Journal, 10th February 2009 9 Goldstein/Siebenschuh/Tsering, Mon combat... p. 219-220 10 In the 1950s, when children who attended the new schools in Lhasa were given money by the Chinese government instead of paying school fees, the reactionary monks criticised this as corruption and spread the rumour that the pupils could be bought... 11 See also Ben Hillman, "Rethinking China's Tibet Policy", In Asia-Pacific Journal, 10th February 2009 12 June Teufel Dreyer, "Economic Development in Tibet Under the People's Republic of China," In Sautman/ Dreyer, Contemporary Tibet, p. 130 13 See also Desimpelaere/Martens, Tibet: Au-delà de l´illusion, p. 102 14 It is well known that there is no such thing as Communist Tibetan, Chinese or English, nor Communist natural sciences or Communist mathematics. 15 See also the « Dossier Manuels scolaires, le soupçon » and the examples in « Changer de pays, changer d´histoire », in Le Monde diplomatique from September 2013, p. 17 ff. 16 Alt et alt., p. 18, p. 30-31 17 In many countries, where propaganda had previously been the task of CIA radio stations such as Radio Free Asia, so-called bloggers have largely taken over. The fact that they must be private individuals, who sacrifice their scarce resources and their free time for a good cause out of pure idealism, is very clear for example in the case of the Cuban "blogger" Yoani Sanchez. The lady, who lives in Havana (average income in Cuba per Spiegel online: around 17 dollars, as the cost of living there is extremely low), runs an internet blog that is translated into 20 languages – at whose cost? – and recently spent three months travelling in Brazil, Peru, the Czech Republic, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland (where she lived between 2002 and 2004, before voluntarily returning to Cuba), Italy, the USA and Germany. In Berlin, she spoke at an event that was organised by "Reporters without Borders." We shall return to this association. 18 Felix Lee, "Gigantische Einkaufsstraße für Lhasa", In Luxemburger Wort, 16/05/2013 19 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 48 20 Schäfer, Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 97 21 Schäfer, ibid., p. 97-98. Incidentally, shame on anyone who questions the aforementioned import goods from Japan and Germany... 22 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung für Tibet, p. 105-108 23 Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 666 24 Goldner, ibid., p. 35 25 Ibid., p. 36 26 Ibid., p. 33-34 27 Ibid., p. 34 28 Lenoir, Tibet: 20 questions... p. 113 – Donnet too laments the downfall of the Tibetan culture as he sees it. "Whereas the older Tibetans still turn their prayer wheels and, sunk in a world of unfathomable invocations, relentlessly recite their 'pujas,' the younger ones dream of a society without gods and Buddhas, who would have money, fashion and material well-being as a common denominator." (Pierre-Antoine Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, p. 29; own translation) 29 Alt et al., p. 31 30 Ludwig, „Im Namen des Fortschritts“, In Alt et al., Tibet, p. 106, p. 107 31 Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 65
27 "Tibetans aren't Chinese": the racial argument
Tibet had never been part of China. In fact, (...) Tibet has ancient claims to large parts of China. On top of which, our respective peoples are ethnically and racially distinct.
There is only one argument remaining that apparently speaks for Tibetan independence: Tibetans are not Han Chinese. The assertion is just as plain and superficial as indisputable. However, if we leave out the addition of "Han" then this assertion is no longer true as a Chinese person is someone who has Chinese citizenship. But the "racial" (!?) and cultural differences! Dalai Lama friendly authors from the West endeavour to downplay or downright deny everything that connects Tibet with the rest of China. On the other hand, differences are emphasised, generalised and made absolute. An excellent example for this is delivered by the Frenchman Lenoir, who does not shy away from primarily substantiating an essentially natural right of the Tibetans to independence from China from an ethnic perspective i.e. with apparent national-racial differences. He finds that the "Chinese and Tibetan peoples are very different"2 in their "morphology" and their national character. They do not have "the same physical features;" the Tibetans are of a "pronounced mongoloid type" and have "fairly dark skin," whereas the Chinese (he means the Han) are "generally less stout" and have "paler skin."3 Lenoir is particularly impressed with the apparent Tibetan national character. He derives this (just like the naturalists and social Darwinists of the 19th century), apart from the ethnicity (inheritance, "race," "blood"), from the Tibetan nature and environment, from the geography ("cadre naturel")4: the mountain surroundings of the Himalayas create "a mystical character directed towards the afterworld,"5 which connects the Tibetans more with the spiritually oriented Indians than the pragmatic Chinese. In contrast to the Chinese, the Tibetans are "very inclined to believe in all kinds of wonderful stories."6 A striking affinity in this regard between his "Tibetans" and Mr Lenoir himself cannot be denied. It is clearly no coincidence that he studied in the alpine country of Switzerland.
I wonder whether this "philosopher" has noted the differences between "the" Alsatians and "the" Corsicans, between "the" Basques and "the" Bretons or between the residents of Marseille or Nice and the "Ch'tis" in the north of his own country? Not to even mention the harkis (the Algerians loyal to France who were stranded in the "motherland" after the lost Algerian war), the many French people who come from Armenia, not to mention the descendants of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa or Indochina. Mr Lenoir probably doesn't want to claim that Bretons, Alsatians, people from Lorraine and Provence, Corsicans, Basques and Catalans cannot live together in one state for "ethnic" reasons. In a country such as France, with its long tradition of droit du sol (i.e. the territorial principle instead of the ethnic principle of descent in the question of citizenship), such statements are actually a scandal. Yet ultimately, France is also the country of Pétain, Laval and Le Pen.
We can find similar cultural and "ethnic" differences in all major countries. In Great Britain, for example, the findings from a broad survey commissioned a few years ago showed that there are still considerable genetic (i.e. "ethnic"?) differences between the ("Celtic") Welsh people and the ("Anglo-Saxon") English people today. Do they therefore have to follow separate political paths?
And what about the situation in Germany? As an exception, I am permitted to state a literary example of the cultural and linguistic differences. In his novel Buddenbrook, which was later awarded the Noble Prize for Literature, Thomas Mann, who grew up in the northern town of Lübeck, presented, at the start of the 20th century, his Bavarian compatriots (in the figure of Alois Permaneder) almost as indigenous people from another continent with strange customs, funny costumes, peculiar behaviour and a barely comprehensible language. The Bavarian Permaneder wears a "green Tyrolian hat, decorated with chamois hair" and on his jacket there is a whole "collection of appendages made of horns, bones, silver and coral." He talks "incredibly loudly and coarsely" in a "gruff" language "full of sudden contractions" but also with a "pleasantly singing and elongated intonation." The "servant girl" thus announces the foreign visitor in her Low German dialect, complaining that he does not speak German and does not stop babbling. His subsequent Bavarian expressions such as "Geltn S', da schaun S'!" are received "uncomprehendingly" by the consul's wife and with the question "I beg your pardon?" It is thus no wonder that the intermarriage between the Bavarian and Tony Buddenbrook ultimately breaks up because of cultural incompatibilities (including "sorrel with currants" and north German "fruit soups") and ends highly ingloriously with a hearty Bavarian "Saulud'r dreckats!"7
Cultural differences and different mentalities still exist today, as everyone knows, between the federal states in the east and west of Germany, the new and old federal states, the traditionally Catholic and Protestant regions. "Ethnic" and cultural differences are also normal within relatively small and homogenous nations. Yet the huge and populous China is officially, in contrast with France or Germany, a multi-ethnic state with 56 officially recognised and protected "nationalities."
Mr Lenoir should perhaps try to apply his ethnic logic to another comparably large and populous country. According to Wikipedia, China's neighbour India "is a multi-ethnic country whose ethnic diversity can readily be compared with the entire European continent." "72 percent of the population are Indoaric, 25 percent are Dravidian;" in addition, "8.2 percent" are from an indigenous "tribal population" ("more than 600 tribes" from the casteless "Adivasi") and 3 percent from "other population groups" ("Tibetan-Burmese, Munda and Mon-Khmer people"). Furthermore, "considerably more than 100 different languages are spoken in India, which belong to four different language families."8 If we include the dialects, we come to an almost unbelievable figure of "more than 1,600" different idioms. Only 30% of Indians speak the national language of Hindi. "The various ethnic groups differ strongly from one another in terms of origin, traditions and culture." The same applies to the religions.9 Does the parliamentary democracy of India have fewer or less violent ethnic conflicts and tensions than China? The opposite is true: there are "separatist movements of different populations – such as the mongoloid Naga, Mizo and Bodo, but also the Indo-Aryan Assamese," not to mention the religiously fuelled Kashmir conflict, which emanates throughout India. In 2002, for example, more than 1,000 Muslims were massacred by fanatical Hindus in Gujarat. Furthermore, the uprising of the so-called Naxalites received "strong support" among the Adivasi due to their specific "social discrimination."10 Do we hardly get to hear or read about this partly very bloody conflict? What a coincidence! Why don't people in the West demand the independence and "freedom" of the individual ethnic groups within India? Why are there no efforts made in the West to turn India (instead of China) into a type of Super Balkans and Mega-Ex-Yugoslavia? Perhaps for transparent geostrategic reasons? Isn't that called double standards and hypocrisy?
Mr. Lenoir's musings are clouded by very little expertise. In this absoluteness, namely as homogenous ethnic-cultural groups, there are neither Tibetans nor Han (and certainly no "Chinese."). For example, the Han in northern China are different from those in the south, and those in the eastern provinces from those in western provinces, in terms of their dialects, eating habits, regional and local customs and also, if we wish to generalise like Lenoir, in their "morphology" and "character."11 The differences between the different Chinese dialects (some talk of eight "languages" or "dialect bundles") are so great that they can only communicate via the Chinese cultural and written language of Putonghua or "Mandarin." Tibetans eat barley porridge (tsampa) and Chinese rice? Also a cliché that Lenoir doesn't forget12 and that overlooks the fact that people in China (and as far as Korea and Japan) like to eat noodles, steamed rolls, wheat flour pancakes and sometimes also barley or buckwheat, whereas the Tibetan elite have for centuries often spurned tsampa in favour of imported rice with corresponding (Chinese!) side dishes.13
What earlier applied to the elite today applies to major parts of the Tibetan population. Uli Franz explains: when "ivory chopsticks conquered the hearts of the Tibetan aristocracy centuries ago," this started a "culinary rivalry" in Tibet. "At that time people still ate with their fingers. For a long time, the Tibetans were content to eat the traditional foods of their fathers. But nowadays, as everyone wants to eat with disposable wooden chopsticks, lean Tibetan cooking is being threatened by lavish Chinese cuisine." Franz hopefully doesn't lament like many European "friends of Tibet," the times when people in Tibet still went hungry? He didn't actually ask whether the Tibetans on the "next table," whom he later describes, shared this regret and also felt threatened by Chinese cuisine. "Sitting at the next table are Tibetans enjoying their food: crispy Cantonese duck and three courses of glazed vegetables cooked in the wok."14 Unlike their predecessors, they no longer have to make do with meagre Tibetan "traditional cooking." Unlike them, their predecessors also never had any other choice.
On the question of a kind of permanent, national character of the Tibetans Han Suyin, whose family came from Sichuan, the neighbouring province of Tibet, wrote: "Even today, Tibet is far from homogeneous; there are five ethnic groups: the Tsang or Tibetan proper, the Memba, Loba, the Khampa (from the western area of Szechuan), and the Hui, or Islamic Tibetans, for there is a mosque in Lhasa. In features too, one can see variety: some Tibetans look almost Burmese; others Mongolian; yet others have Persian features, denoting an Afghan or Persian ancestry."15 That would explain why the Frenchwoman Alexandra David-Néel, who probably had no particularly "Mongolian" features, apparently did not stand out as a foreigner among the Tibetans with slightly blackened hair and a thick layer of dirt.16
Heinrich Harrer also describes, on the occasion of the "Tibetan" New Year festivities, the ethnic diversity of the population of Lhasa. He mentions the "Chinese, who like to marry Tibetan women and have model marriages here."17 They often wear European suits and glasses as they are "not as conservative as the Tibetans."18 The Nepalese are generally sedate merchants, "richly dressed and corpulent." Muslims from India are "completely blended with the Tibetans here;" Muslim men stand out "through their fezes and turbans," whereas with their head covering, the "veil of Islam," "women and girls from mixed marriages" keep "their Tibetan national costume." Harrer continues that the "population groups" in Lhasa included "Ladhakis, Bhutanese, Mongolians, Sikkimese, Kazaks and whatever the neighbouring tribes are called." There were also "Hui-Huis, Chinese Mohammedans from the Kuku Nor province" who owned the slaughterhouses. "Numerically, the Mohammedans form a considerable part of the city's population." Together they form, as "different as they may be in terms of religion, race and customs" the "people of Lhasa" – "a colourful mix."19
David-Néel notices a lot of diversity among the apparently pure rural Tibetan population she encounters as pilgrims "from different regions of Tibet." They wore "all conceivable traditional costumes and head coverings," particularly the women, and they spoke "all possible dialects."20 Goldstein notes: "Many Khamba dialects were, if not completely unintelligible to those who spoke the government's Lhasa dialect, at least nearly so."21 Consequentially, the "Free Tibet" activist French concedes that "A sense of Tibetan nationhood was created deliberately, in exile. The Lhasa dialect served as the basis of a shared refugee language; a regimental banner devised in the 1920s by a wandering Japanese man (...), became the Tibetan national flag; a song written by the Dalai Lama's tutor (...) was adopted as Tibet's national anthem" etc.22
A village leader from the Deng ethnic group in the southeast of the Autonomous Region of Tibet
Furthermore, the diversity within the rural regions of western China was not limited to the people considered to be Tibetans. The Khampa revolutionary Phünwang explains how he encountered different ethnic groups in southern Kham: members of the Lisu, who spoke neither Chinese nor Tibetan, and the Naxi. One local commander in the People's Liberation Army belonged to the Bai nationality.23
Yet let us stay with Tibetan for a while. "'Every master his teaching, every valley its language', says a Tibetan proverb" – Deshayes cites these words on the issue of a uniform Tibetan language and explains: "The remoteness of the valleys favoured the emergence of several regional dialects that are still pronounced differently today." Furthermore, "the language is declined everywhere based on respect and social hierarchy."24 The "literary language of religious origin" is for very many modern Tibetans incomprehensible, as "every syllable can refer to a group with intended words, so that each word can have one or more meanings."25
Winnington talks about the Tibetan language and writing in connection with the many difficulties that had to be overcome when issuing the first Tibetan newspaper. The old Tibet of the Dalai Lama had no newspapers, magazines or noteworthy non-religious literature;26 Harrer only mentions old Indian press products as sources of news from the odd high-ranking official. Alongside the illiteracy of the simple population, the lack of a modern printing press, qualified editors, typesetters and printers, the "archaic character of the Tibetan language" was one of the main obstacles to issuing a newspaper in Tibetan. Winnington confirms and adds to what Deshayes said, "Apart from the dialects there are, as well as three spoken languages, a written language that has nothing in common with any of them. In each of the spoken languages, the different social positions of masters and subjects are expressed, but the form of the written language is traditional and is not understood by many. In its written form, the colloquial language seems incorrect to an educated person. None of these language forms has an academic terminology, a political vocabulary, none of them can express everyday modern things."27 As examples, he states the lack of expressions for truck, tractor, locomotive, aeroplane, oxygen, atom, socialism etc. Winnington reports further: to remedy this, at that time a "committee of twelve members under the leadership of Dzazu Ngawang Lobsang was created," which translated everything consistently for the newspaper, created a "Dictionary of new Expressions" and resumed work on a complete Chinese-Tibetan dictionary.28 Winnington chatted with the former living Buddha, who presided over the Committee, about a reform of the written Tibetan language, particularly spelling, which is "one of the oldest in the world." For example, the Tibetan word for rice is written as "hrbas" but spoken as "de." The spelling of the word spoken as "tülku" is "sprul sku". The city of Ganze is written as "dkar mdzes", Shigatse as "gzhis kartse", a person's name like Wangye Phüntso as "dbang rgyal phun tshogs".29
Despite all the difficulties: on 4th May 1955 "the first newspaper printed in Tibet came off the press." It initially appeared three times a week in a modest print run of 3,000 copies. Winnington was delighted: "It is the first secular reading matter read by Lamaist monks, who previously only studied religious teaching texts."30 The Chinese Communist government, which is always accused by "Free Tibet" activists of wanting to destroy the Tibetan culture and language, as the driving force behind the development of Tibetan as a modern written language and behind the first newspaper printed in Tibetan – propaganda and reality could not be further removed from one another!
Notes
1 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 69 2 Lenoir, Tibet: 20 clés... p. 31; own translation 3 Ibid. – Incidentally, this clearly contradicts Harrer's description of the light-skinned 14th Dalai Lama. Does this possibly mean that he is not just because of his mother tongue and place of birth, but also "physically" a "Chinese?" 4 Lenoir, ibid., p. 32 5 Ibid., p. 33 6 Ibid., p. 32. – What about the Indian lowlands? 7 Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks, Frankfurt a. M., Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1979, p. 274 ff., p. 276-277, p. 334 8 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indien#Ethnische_Zusammensetzung, accessed on 23/01/2013 9 http//www.rastlos.com/indien/einwohner_und_religion/ 10 Wikipedia, as above 11 See also the statement from Uli Franz, p.168, "that the Chinese in the north differ significantly from those in the south in terms of their language, nature and external appearance." 12 As per Mr Lenoir's logic, Germany would have to share lengthwise the "veal sausage equator" and separate from France at least a "choucroute" zone in the north-east and a Bouillabaisse and Ratatouille zone in the Mediterranean. 13 Incidentally, the Khampa Phünwang explains how amazed he was by a central Tibetan who mixed his tsampa with beer instead of, as he knew it, with butter tea. 14 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 197. See also Goldstein et al.: A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 193 on Chinese cuisine in aristocratic families in Tibet. 15 Han Suyin, Lhasa: Open City, p. 24 16 See also David-Néel, Mein Weg durch Himmel und Höllen, p. 116: "as an old beggar-woman I could not look dirty enough." 17 Harrer, Sieben Jahre... p. 223 18 Ibid., p. 221-222 19 Ibid., p. 222-224 20 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 49 21 Goldstein, The Demise... comment p. 640 22 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 14-15 23 See also Goldstein et al., A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 108, 109, 123 24 Deshayes, Histoire du Tibet, p. 26; own translation 25 Ibid., p. 27 26 There was an oral tradition of popular literature, which is being promoted again nowadays. 27 Winnington, p. 263 28 Ibid. 29 See also Winnington, p. 264; Goldstein, A Tibetan Revolutionary, glossary, p. 351-357 30 Winnington, ibid., p. 264
28 The Dalai Lama's "Greater Tibet" – a call for racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, war, and genocide
The aim was to eradicate everything Tibetan. The Tibetan territory was also halved. On 9th September 1965, China created the so-called "Autonomous Region of Tibet," which only covered central and western Tibet. Eastern Tibet, the old provinces of Amdo and parts of Kham, were annexed to the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan, the old Tibetan administrative division was dissolved.
During Tibet's brief period of de facto independence between the First World War and 1950, the Tibetan government controlled territory roughly corresponding to the borders of today's Tibet Autonomous Region.
Political control over the eastern regions of the Tibetan settlement area, a mixed Tibetan-Mongolian settlement area, primarily in the north east, has not been in Lhasa's hands for many centuries, since 1720-1724.
60% of China's territory... is not Chinese.
The prevalent idiotic propagation of national self-determination for Tibet has – as elsewhere – nothing, simply nothing at all to do with the self-determination of the Tibetan people. On the contrary, it is hostile to it.
In his speech in Oslo after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama laid claim to that which he called "all of Tibet", "including the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo."6 The size of this Greater Tibet corresponds to "that of the European Union."7 He claimed, without objection, "A significant number of Chinese" had "settled in the eastern parts of Tibet," namely "in the Tibetan provinces of Amdo (Chinghai) and Kham, which were mainly affiliated to the neighbouring Chinese provinces."8 An "immense influx of Chinese" threatened "the survival of the Tibetan people."9 Moreover, the "Chinese government had, since 1983, encouraged an unprecedented number of Chinese to immigrate to all parts of Tibet, including central and western Tibet, which are described by the People's Republic as the Autonomous Region of Tibet."10
The political objective, which he subsequently formulated, without the public lulled by his sugar-sweet speech sitting up and taking notice, was quite something: "This trend can still be stopped and reversed."11 Reversing immigration means voluntary or, much more likely, forced emigration (i.e. expulsion and "ethnic cleansing"); reversing the "immense influx" can only mean that efforts will be made for an equally immense outflux of people from the provinces claimed by the Dalai Lama. In his autobiography, the former god-king does not mince his words. He writes: "For the Tibetans to survive as a people, it is imperative that (...) Chinese settlers be allowed to return to China."12
En route he wants to see his "five-point plan for peace" implemented. This contains demands such as the demilitarisation "of the entire Tibetan plateau" and its conversion "into the world's largest natural park or biosphere,"13 which sound so melodious to western ears. As always, the devil lays in the detail and the colourful, appealing shell contains a poisonous pill that would be not only bitter for China but also fatal. The "entire Tibetan plateau" is a geographical term that has no reference to the ethnic composition of the population there and to political or historical borders. The demand for its "demilitarisation" of course only means that China should withdraw its troops from a large part of its territory and its western borders. Greater Tibet would then become "a neutral buffer state", as the Dalai Lama writes elsewhere.14 That would have little to do with "genuine autonomy" within China. We may in any case question the "neutrality" of such a state in view of the constantly emphasised friendship with India, the reliance on US foreign policy for many decades and the continual demonisation of China. The demand for a gigantic "natural park," however nice it may sound to western ears, is simply ridiculous. Do the majority of Tibetans really want to live in a reserve like the remaining US Indians, or in a type of Bantu homeland like the one South Africa once set up for its black people? Where in the "Great Tibet nature reserve" would there be space for the modern accomplishments that the (increasing number of) people on the "Tibetan plateau" are equally as reluctant to go without as people elsewhere in the world: electricity, heated apartments, sewage systems, a rich and varied offering of foods, modern means of transport and communication etc.?
Nature reserve in the Bomê district, administrative district of Nyingchi in the ART (Photo: Gao, Beijing)
Solar power electricity in Tibet, near Shigatse (Xigatze)
"My notions of modern Tibet were initially shaped by the well-organised information instruments of the exile government," wrote the American National Geographic reporter Lewis M. Simons, who had visited Tibet many times: "Tibetans overseas are ignorant of almost every advancement in their home country and so I was prepared for a culture threatened with destruction. Meeting people like Norbu surprised me. They belong to a class of Tibetans that did not previously exist and about which people outside of Tibet know hardly anything. Yet the modern world exists there: monks with sunglasses on motorbikes, nomad tents with solar energy systems, clay brick houses with satellite dishes. Religion is also being celebrated in public life again. The major change in China is linked to the new economic freedom: people are becoming spiritually independent and the Tibetans are starting to follow, slowly and cautiously. It is not easy for them to become active because Buddhism taught them to be satisfied with their lot and wait for happiness in the next life."15 The article was written in 2002. Does anybody really believe that these Tibetans would want to swap their modern attainments for an existence in a "natural park," possibly as living exhibits in an anthropological museum or human zoos?
The Dalai Lama's visions for peace and nature protection are skilfully designed lures for pacifistic and (due to their own bad conscience?) "ecologically" oriented affluent western citizens. "For the reader or listener (...) they imply" namely "a very specific image of events and the situation in Tibet, which seem clearly based on the information situation in the West, but are by no means always so clear. They suggest that there had so far been no tendencies in the People's Republic of China, at least not in relation to some of these points, to work towards these goals. Let's take the ecological situation as an example: whereas the whole world assumes that China only has aspirations in terms of exploitation, limitations were legally anchored in Tibet's forestry policy, nature conservation areas were created" etc., comments Andreas Gruschke. "This means, that in my eyes, the vision suggests that – more or less – only the existing Chinese rule obstructs such a goal. It neglects the very important aspect that the chosen direction (designation of a large number of nature conservation areas in the Tibetan high plateau, environmental legislation, measures to contain excessive deforestation and overgrazing; an exceptionally slow but initiated 'juridification' of social life in the People's Republic of China) is not automatically accepted by the Tibetans. The 'visionary values' were never rooted in the Tibetan population in the manner suggested by the western image of Tibet – not in Tibet and also not among most of those in exile." Messages about environmental protection measures etc. in Tibet are "often suppressed in our media, instead of grappling in a new way with the changed perspective," complains Gruschke and comments: "In Dharamshala, I was able to personally convince myself that many of these changes are well-known, at least among some members of the leadership. Yet suppressing the message about this can only – as in our countries – serve short-term political goals and adjust the world public's view of the problems that, of course, still exist like before but are stored completely differently and thus require very different approaches." Thus an (otherwise completely illusory) acceptance of the Tibetan exiles' Five-Point Plan by Peking would "initially change little in the area of poaching, which Tibetans also pursue, overgrazing by Tibetan nomads, the economic development in a western sense (!) considered necessary by a young Tibetan population."16
Yet, for the Dalai Lama and his backers, was it really about the well-being of Tibetan nature and the people on the "Tibetan plateau"? This seems to be more than questionable. Primarily, the demand for a Greater Tibet, which is now mainly incorrectly described as "cultural" and "historical Tibet," is pointed in another direction. What is it about? "Free Tibet" dissident French explains: "Like the Balkans, Tibet's fringes have long been inhabited by a patchwork of different ethnic groups: a Han Chinese village, a Hui Muslim village, a Qiang village and a Tibetan village may sit side by side." In Qinghai, for example, where almost the entire territory is "under 'autonomous prefecture' designations," there are around 838,000 Tibetans and 619,000 Han in Tibetan districts and 141,000 Tibetans and 799,000 "Chinese" in non-Tibetan autonomous regions. "In Sichuan, a large province of eighty-five million people, there are 1.2 million Tibetans living in Tibetan prefectures, but the same areas also contain 780,000 non-Tibetans." French rightly concludes from this, "it is apparent that the different ethnic groups within them [these prefectures and counties] could never be easily disentangled."17 Notwithstanding this, the exile government lays "claim to all land inhabited by Tibetans, covering a total of 2.5 million square kilometres, more than twice the area of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Astonishingly, this territorial sleight has been swallowed and endorsed by most foreign supporters of the Tibetan cause, despite much of the land, especially in the north and east, never having been administered from Lhasa."18
Andreas Gruschke also sees a "massive information deficit" among Europeans and Americans in relation to the issue of "Chinese migration." A "large number of these Chinese" namely go "there on their own initiative and not because of government-controlled resettlement." Further, "under international law, enabling such residential mobility is called 'freedom of movement,' which is prescribed by the Human Rights Convention and should be present within a state. Therefore, limiting the influx of Chinese people to Lhasa would mean, at least for as long as Tibet forms part of the Chinese state, a demand to limit this human right. To put it bluntly, as if the relocation of Swiss Germans to Rhaeto-Romanic Grisons would be limited." The solutions "for such problems" are thus "not always as simple as they seem." The same "applies to the 'millions' of Chinese in the Tibetan highlands – a number that, in my opinion, only becomes so large through natural growth because 1. regions are included as part of Great Tibet that, apart from possibly during the 'Imperial Age' of Kings Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, more than one millenium ago, were not Tibetan settlement areas; 2. almost one dozen other national minorities (...) in and on the outskirts of the Tibetan highlands are classified as 'Chinese' (particularly the Muslim Huis and Salars, but also the Bao'ans, Dongxiangs, Yis and Qiangs, Tus, Kazachs and Mongolians, whereas my impression is that the Naxis, Pumis, Mosos and Lhopas are traditionally considered as Tibetans, yet their population figures are included under 'Chinese,' as in the Chinese statistics). None of them are Han, who we in the West refer to as 'the Chinese,' their settlement areas have for centuries been in the relevant regions of the Tibetan highlands, and, in many ways, they differ from both the Han and Tibetans in terms of their language, culture etc. Millions of people from these national minorities would live in the Greater Tibet that the Tibetan exiles are demanding and to which the Dalai Lama refers, but without mentioning these minorities. Nobody will address this 'minority problem' as long as the West does not distinguish between the entire Tibetan cultural region and the problems arising from its complexity (and not only politics). Tibet in the region that the Tibetan exiles are claiming would be – like the People's Republic of China – a multi-ethnic state, even without the migrated Han Chinese. That this is not understood arises from the contradiction between reality and the 'myth of Tibet,' to which the West adheres desperately and that is maintained by the Tibetan exiles –because it seems to serve their purpose."19
Map of "Greater Tibet" and the rest of China from a "Free Tibet" website
Yet what would be the fate of these people and the Han living there if Tibetan exiles such as Samdhong Rinpoche could determine it? In 2003, the holy lama condemned mixed mar-riages between Tibetans and other ethnicities and explained that protecting "a pure Tibetan race is also one of the challenges which the nation is facing."20 Sautman suggests that this statement from the Rinpoche puts him close to Heinrich Himmler and the "Nazi war criminal Bruno Beger." But the Dalai Lama had long been telling the female Tibetan exiles that "wherever possible they should marry Tibetan men so that the children they bore would be Tibetans too";21 the Dalai Lama also sees the presence of other ethnicities in his Greater Tibet as "the greatest threat to the continuation of Tibetans as a distinct race."22 What did he really mean when, during his speech in Stockholm, he talked about "reversing" the trend towards the invoked "foreign infiltration", and in relation to "all of Tibet?" Was the phrase merely a euphemism to replace harsher slogans such as "Greater Tibet!", "Tibet for the Tibetans!" and "foreigners out", with an eye to his distinguished audience at the time?
In relation to the regions with ethnically diverse populations outside of the Autonomous Region, and the Dalai Lama's claim that the territory of Tibet includes "the provinces of Kham and Amdo," even Thomas Hoppe takes a clear stand: "This statement is false. The independent Tibet from 1912-1951 did not include these regions outside of the Autonomous Region, and also during the Qing area these regions were not directly under the control of Lhasa, but were rather independent Tibetan sub-regions and principalities under Chinese sovereignty."23 They belonged "before and after 1951 only to its area of religious influence." So, similar to Italy, Spain, France or Mexico that belong to the "area of religious influence" of the Catholic Pope! Hoppe therefore also sees that the "constitutional, territorial claims, especially of the Tibetan exiles" could "not be sufficiently justified" and are "directed against the general context of the Chinese state."24 Consequently, the "long-term goals of the Tibetan exile community (and – possibly also – some of the Tibetans in China), as externally represented by the Dalai Lama," are "not 'profoundly peaceful' and unaggressive."25 Considering the territorial claims and "the Dalai Lama's vision of China in future,"26 which includes the break-up of the country based on the model of Yugoslavia, Beijing's allegation that the "Dalai Lama is trying 'in collaboration with external powers to divide the fatherland' (...), is at least understandable."27 Hoppe reminds us that minority regions constitute around 64% of the regions within the Chinese multi-ethnic state. "In the scenario typing rooms of foreign secret services, people know about these underlying weaknesses in the Chinese territorial state."28 The author therefore questions the view occasionally taken by some people that only the Communist government is preventing a solution to the "Tibet question" and that, after a "regime change," the exiles' requirements could be met. Would a "democratic-progressive China" as per western notions "engage in negotiations for creating such a Greater Tibet?", he asks and immediately gives a clear response: "These claims can only be implemented (...) with military violence and against a fading China – probably also only with the help of an external patronage power in favour of Greater Tibet – who else could this be but the USA."29
The Dalai Lama with Heinrich Harrer
Notes
1 Ludwig, "Zweitausend Jahre tibetische Geschichte", In Alt et al., Tibet, p. 76 – The falsification of history is repeatedly found in a similar manner in Dalai Lama-friendly literature, e.g. in Donnet, who claims that the west-Chinese "regions in which millions of Tibetans live" were annexed "in the 1950s and 1960s to the neighbouring Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai." (Pierre-Antoine Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, Paris, Gallimard, p. 26) 2 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 13 3 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 21 4 Lenoir, Tibet: 20 clés... p. 122 5 Jutta Ditfurth, Entspannt in die Barbarei: Esoterik, (Öko-)Faschismus und Biozentrismus, Hamburg, Konkret Literaturverlag, 1996, p. 116 6 „Die Rede des Dalai Lama anlässlich der Verleihung des Friedensnobelpreises in Oslo“, 10th December 1989, in: Alt et al., Tibet... p. 163 7 Ibid., p. 165 8 Ibid., p. 162 9 Ibid., p. 162, 163 10 He was even expressly contradicted by the American State Department in October 1987, when it called the claims from the Tibet Lobby "inaccurate, incomplete and misleading." See also Grunfeld, p. 233, who quotes the New York Times from 7th October 1987. 11 „Die Rede des Dalai Lama anlässlich der Verleihung des Friedensnobelpreises in Oslo“, 10th December 1989, in: Alt et al., Tibet... p. 162 12 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 277 13 Ibid., p. 274 14 Ibid., p. 274– That the Dalai Lama is no longer striving towards Tibet's complete independence from China, but rather only extensive autonomy, is a lie and transparent political move, as both Michael van Walt van Prag, advisor to the Dalai Lama, and Tenzin Choegyal, one of his brothers, acknowledged. "Let's achieve autonomy first. And then we'll throw out the Chinese!" (The words of Tenzin Choegyal to Donnet; Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, Paris 1990, 1992, p. 311; see also p. 319) 15 http://www.nationalgeographic.de/reportagen/topthemen/2002/tibet-ein-volk-sucht-seine-zukunft, accessed in August 2013 16 Andreas Gruschke on http://www.tibetinfopage.de/dalai.htm, accessed on 14. 09. 2013 17 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 13 18 Ibid., p. 14 19 Andreas Gruschke on http://www.tibetinfopage.de/dalai.htm, accessed on 14/ 09/ 2013 20 Quoted from Sautman, "Demographic Annihilation", In Contemporary Tibet, p. 237 21 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 188 22 Ibid., p. 276 23 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 39 24 Ibid., p. 35 25 Ibid., p. 26 26 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 29. That Tibetan separatists, despite the continually praised peaceableness and non-violence of the Dalai Lama, are willing to use extreme force to implement their goals can also be clearly seen in the unrest remotely controlled by Dharamsala in the 1980s. The French author Donnet, a Dalai Lama friend, confirms that, in October 1987 in Lhasa, Tibetan hooligans burnt cars, set a police station on fire, and killed six policemen; in March 1988, there were new unrest when "lamas threw stones from the roof of the Jokhang" onto police cars and a television team. Subsequently, "many policemen were beaten and lynched," "shops run by Chinese were looted and set on fire" and, with particular "wildness", the Tibetan representatives of the Chinese Buddhism Society were attacked. Summary on the side of the security forces: one police officer killed and 309 injured, of which 29 seriously. In March 1989, during serious unrest, "Chinese residents in Lhasa, including Muslims, were stoned and restaurants set on fire," which resulted in the imposition of a state of emergency. (Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, p. 191, 206, 216) 27 Hoppe, Tibet heute, p. 30 28 Ibid., p. 31 29 Ibid., p. 27-28
29 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the "Austrian mountaineer" Heinrich Harrer
I've always known about Harrer's membership of the SS and don't think that he should now be hanged for this. Who was not involved at that time? Yet what I don't understand: today, aged 85, he still exalts the ideals of yore. Why does he not question them? He still thinks that what the Nazis preached was right.
If Harrer was already in the SA in 1933, he was a hard Nazi. They were the worst of all.
... an interesting and sociable person... From him I was able to learn something about the outside world and especially about Europe and the recent war.
The rejection of mixed marriage, which threatens the "purity" or even the survival of the "race," the desire for the resettlement and evacuation of ethnically and/or culturally foreign people that are either hated or mistrusted, crazy territorial demands achievable only through a major war, and combined with the demand to unite all parts of the racially defined nation into one kingdom ("One People, One Nation, One Leader!"), plus the backward-looking utopia of a pre-industrial "blood and soil" society – perhaps this is the right time and the right place to focus in more detail on the Dalai Lama's "teacher." Not later than the revelations about the SA, SS and NSDAP membership of Heinrich Harrer – in conjunction with the filming of his Seven Years in Tibet by the French director Annaud – there has been major controversy about this central figure of western Tibet solidarity, the Nazi relationships of the 14th Dalai Lama and his attitude towards the III. Reich.4
Heinrich Harrer is, and remains, something like the father figure of German-speaking, if not international, Tibet enthusiasts. Even Uli Franz, who is not the least critical of the community, proudly adorns his small work on Tibet with a thank you from the prominent figure for "your excellent book."5 Pride? Or perhaps defiance? As a German-speaking author, he must have followed the discussion about Harrer's SS past and anticipated the memory of at least part of his readership. Heinrich Harrer, born in Austrian Corinthia in 1912, was a Nazi from the outset. An article in the Austrian Datum magazine called him a "racist nationalist" Austrian and attests to his "storybook national socialist career": after moving to Graz in 1927 he became a member of the Alpine Association and gymnastics club there. It is these associations "that acknowledge the Aryan paragraph in their articles or in their actual admission practices. The transition to NS ideology is communicated through these associations, almost all of whose members crossed over to the Nazis."6
The German and Austrian Alpine Association (DuÖAV) particularly excelled in this regard. "Straight after the end of the First World War" it "increasingly got into rough nationalistic and soon also anti-Semitic waters." A long time "before the NSDAP was elected to power, the mountain lovers reported that they were 'free of Jews'." The Vienna section incorporated the "Aryan paragraph" into its articles in 1907. Countless sections followed suit or were founded with the proviso that their members could demonstrate 'Aryan purity.'7 In 1921, Jewish members were excluded from the Austria section, one of the largest alpine associations. When they then formed their own Donauland section, they were thrown out of the entire association in 1924. It was soon said in Austria, "the Third Reich begins at over 1,000 metres."
"From 1933 to 1938, the illegal Austrian SA destabilised the Austro-fascist Austria through systematic bomb terror with hundreds of deaths, thousands of injured and the destruction of major material assets."8 "In those years, most of the Graz student body, dominated by German nationals, collectively joined" this terror troop, including Heinrich Harrer who, after leaving school, studied geography and "physical education" in Graz. On 1st January 1933, still weeks before the Nazis seized power in Germany, he became a member of the Austrian NS Lehrerbund, in October 1933 he also joined the SA and "thus declared himself to be an active supporter of the illegal NS movement on the frontline. Alpinist Fritz Moravec, the Viennese alpinist who died in 2001 and was the leader of the 1956 expedition during the first conquest of the Austrian Gasherbrum-II (8,035 metres), later reported on Harrer's fanatical commitment to the Nazis."9
"Two days before the 'annexation' of Austria, on 13th March 1938, Harrer applied for NSDAP-membership, which was approved on 1st May. On 1st April 1938, his request to become Oberscharführer in the SS was accepted"10 (SS number 73.896).11
"Hitler himself had little to do with mountaineering, but was aware of the enormous propaganda impact of sport, mountain sport and the mountains as symbols of power. On 16th March 1938, only four days after the 'annexation', SA men raised the swastika flag on the Großglockner, now the highest mountain in 'Greater Germany'."12 When, in summer 1938 a rope team of two "Ostmarks" (Fritz Kasparek and Heinrich Harrer) and two Bavarians from the "old Reich" (Andreas Heckmair and Ludwig Vörg) conquered the feared north face of the Eiger, the mountaineers became flagship sportsmen of the Nazis. Incidentally, Harrer was the only one in the group to have a flag with the swastika during the undertaking. For good reason, he later wanted, for more than half a century, to forget about "his first book Um die Eiger-Nordwand, published in 1938 by the NSDAP central publishing house. 'We climbed the north face of the Eiger and beyond the summit to our Führer!' he exuberantly thanked Hitler after the biggest success of his life. The 'wall of death,' which by then had claimed eight victims, had been conquered. Harrer recalls that Hitler celebrated the 'first ascent as testimony to the unyielding will to win of the German youth."13 He proclaimed the success as evidence of the superiority of the German master race and invited the four men to a photo opportunity. "Harrer acknowledges in his Eigerbuch contribution that Hitler's words in Breslau– 'Children, look what you've achieved!' – moved him to tears."14
"The most prestigious, alpine propaganda undertakings of the NS were the Himalaya expeditions. When, in 1934, the Nanga-Parbat expedition supported by the Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten failed, the photo of the mountaineer Alfred Drexel, who died during the expedition, covered with a flag bearing the swastika became a symbol for German bravery. In 1937, the next Nanga-Parbat expedition ended in an even bloodier fashion. Seven German mountaineers and nine local carriers perished. The Nanga-Parbat came to be known as the 'mountain of destiny for the Germans.'"15
In 1939, Harrer took part in a new German Nanga-Parbat expedition in British India at the personal request of Heinrich Himmler.16 In Seven Years in Tibet he briefly writes that he was "summoned" to do it; the reader does not get any more detailed information. The "German Himalaya Foundation," which had sent out the team of mountaineers, had been founded in 1936. It had "as well as elitist mountaineering goals and 'ideals' from 'race research,' strong connections to the national socialist popular sport" and exercised an "enormous impact on the population in the interactions between publishing houses, media and broadcasting."17
However, before leaving Germany Harrer was to marry. The chosen one was called "Lotte Wegener and was the 18 year old daughter of the famous German polar researcher Alfred Wegener", who "taught at Graz University."18 She had been active in the "Deutsche Freischar" since 1930 and since "1936 illegally in the BDM."19 As Himmler placed the highest "racial hygienic" and political demands not only on his SS warriors themselves, but also on the women with whom they should bear racially perfect offspring, the procedure to be followed before an SS marriage was long and complicated. In Harrer's case, it was completed as quickly as possible. SS Oberführer Schoene sent a telegraph on 19/ 12/1938 from Graz to the "Leader of the Rasse und Siedlungs-Hauptamt SS in Berlin": "A request is made for the approval of the marriage of SS Oberscharführer Heinrich Harrer. Harrer is the first person to conquer the north face of the Eigernord and intends to marry on 24/12/1938 at the express request of the SS Reichsführer." Witnesses confirmed to the bride in writing that she "had always supported the national socialist movement" and comes from a politically reliable family. "Her sister Käthe is the Jungmädel commissioner for Obergau Steiermark." Another guarantor, an SS Standartenführer, emphasised that Lotte Wegener had "worked for the party with great enthusiasm during the entire prohibition period. Illegal meetings were often held in the family."20
Harrer wore his SS uniform to the wedding on 24th December 1938. As was to be expected from an SS man, the couple did not have a church ceremony. Incidentally, through the marriage Harrer became the brother-in-law of Siegfried Uiberreither, who later became Gauleiter of Styria. He "turned into one of the most brutal provincial rulers in the Third Reich and was wanted for war crimes after 1945."21 He avoided his just punishment by escaping from British captivity, "probably with the help of the US secret service and the Catholic Church, and going to Argentina."22
Harrer, who was still in British India with his greater German mountaineering colleagues when the war broke out, was placed in a prison camp there as a hostile foreigner. After several unsuccessful attempts, he finally managed to escape along with his comrade Peter Aufschnaiter (NSDAP member no. 1.605.636). He actually wanted to make his way to the Japanese lines in Burma or China, which proves his unbroken Nazi disposition, and had learned some Japanese for this purpose.23 Once this was no longer a possibility, because the war had already been lost, he remained in Tibet as one of only a few foreigners who were allowed to stay in the highly reclusive lama kingdom.24
The fact that he was able to become friends with the Dalai Lama and his "Holy Family" is certainly due to the pro-German stance of the Lhasa government. The Tibetan revolutionary Phünwang reports on a discussion during the 2nd World War with the influential Kashag minister Surkhang, whom he knew well. Surkhang told him that the Lhasa government strongly believed in a victory for Germany and Japan and placed their hopes on this: "'The Germans have taken most of Russia', he said. 'Over half of China is now occupied by Japan. If Germany and Japan win, the Council of Ministers feels that we don't have to worry much. The British will eventually have to withdraw from India, and their power will no longer be a direct threat to Tibet. And when Japan conquers China, they will leave Tibet alone. They are a Buddhist country, and we are far away. They don't simply want to extend themselves this far.'"25 In 1945 the Council of Ministers was still waiting to see how the war would end and, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany, they still placed their hopes on Japan.26
Lhasa clearly had very good relationships with militarist and fascist Japan. Elisabeth Martens reports, with reference to Chinese Tibetologists, on contact between high-ranking Tibetan government representatives and the Japanese secret service. According to Alexandra David-Néel, the Japanese secret service was already active in Tibet in the first decades of the 20th century. She noted in 1920 that the Japanese there created "secretive plots." Despite the large distances and the Indian-Tibetan border being hermetically sealed by the British, their agents penetrated Tibet by travelling through the northern steppes in China. The interest of the Japanese in Tibet was more understandable due to their open interest in Mongolia and some of them were already talking about creating a great empire under "a Japanese protectorate," in which all people of "Lamaist belief" would be united.27 The Americans Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan were told in 1943 in Lhasa that, since 1940, there were no longer any monks in Tibet. Yet American secret service sources mention the presence of at least eight of them in 1943.28
On the Tibetan side, the "Rinpoche" Tenpa Taktra from the famous YongHeGong monastery in Peking had close contacts with the Japanese. On the Japanese side these were via a Zen master. The aforementioned Tenpa Taktra made the following statements on internal Buddhist solidarity: "The Japanese, Manchu, Mongolians and Tibetans belong to the same race. They have believed in Buddhism since ancient times. Japan, the modern major power in East Asia, can be seen as the protector of all Buddhist countries and the most reliable leader of the Buddhist alliance. (...) Japan explained that it intended to throw the English and Americans out of Asia and create a new world order. Tibet hopes to benefit from this future joint prosperity."29 The quote comes from 1942, at a time when the Japanese were occupying large parts of China, from Manchuria to the Burmese border, after an extremely brutal war of conquest.30 Sabine Wienand therefore writes in her biography of the Dalai Lama that it is no coincidence that the (very) young 14th Dalai Lama had "been on the side of the Germans during the Second World War", also because "National Socialist Germany" was "quite attached" to Tibet.31 The Dalai Lama himself wrote that he had learnt a lot "about Europe and the recent war" from Harrer.32 The SS man and Nazi was certainly an excellent, because completely objective and unbiased, source on issues such as the 3rd Reich, Bolshevism, war guilt, racism, human and civil rights etc. ...
A few experiences incidentally explained by Harrer confirm the Tibetan leadership's support for Nazi Germany. He mentions the "enthusiasm" shown by the kashag-Minister Surkhang's brother, a general in the "Tibetan army", for Hitler's field marshal Rommel. The high-ranking Tibetan was "desperately anxious to learn everything possible about Rommel," the subject was "close to his heart" and "enthusiastically" explained that "he had read everything available about him in the newspapers."33
The discussion around Harrer, which flared up in conjunction with the filming of his book and Gerald Lehner's research, of course also made its way to France, because it was a prominent French filmmaker who had filmed the material. Thus, in his unspeakable treatise on Tibet, Lenoir, the French admirer of the Dalai Lama,34 talks about Harrer right at the beginning. He gives the appearance of "objectively" investigating the Tibet question and criticising the falsifications and misinformation coming from one side or the other.35
In doing so, he feels compelled to protect the Dalai Lama against the allegations from critics that he had friendly contact with the Nazis. Someone had alleged on 25th April 2008 in the Libération newspaper that, for sixty years, the Dalai Lama had doggedly "remained silent about the Tibet mission with which Hitler and Himmler had instructed his teacher (Harrer is meant) in 1938, and about the mystical, racist and strategic reasons for this mission." Lenoir has easy pickings here and he naturally takes the opportunity to find a superficially informed journalist on the opposite side and educate him in public: the issue, according to a triumphant Lenoir, was the confusion between two different events (which is true) that had absolutely nothing to do with one another (which is certainly not true). One was the expedition of the zoologist Ernst Schäfer, organised by Himmler, who arrived in Lhasa on 19th January 1939, was welcomed by the former regent and stayed there for two months. "The second event is another expedition, this time of a sporting nature, that was initiated by Heinrich Harrer. This famous Austrian mountaineer joined the Nazi Party in 1938 and was photographed together with Hitler and other sportsmen. The following year, he set off on a mountaineering expedition into the region that is now Pakistan. After he was captured by the English following the outbreak of war, along with all his companions, he managed to escape in 1944. To escape from the British soldiers, he fled to Tibet. In January 1946, he made it to Lhasa."36
The young Dalai Lama, Lenoir continues, then used the presence of Harrer to find out about "western customs and traditions." Of course, nobody could have known about Harrer's membership of the SS, even in the decades after the war. (The fact that prominent Germans and Austrians could have been involved in the crimes of the Third Reich was apparently a very absurd presumption right up until the 1990s.) Yet it was poor oversight that Harrer had remained silent about this "brief" membership for so long. People thus only found out about it due to Annaud's film, which naturally also applies to the Dalai Lama.37
As we can see, Lenoir is an expert in the field of half-truths and glossing over facts. A somewhat more critical review of Harrer's biography and his main work shows us that he was definitely no unpolitical and, based on his own understanding, no "Austrian" mountaineer. In his recollections of Tibet, he repeatedly describes himself, even after the end of the war and the resurrection of Austria, as "German."38 His Himalaya expedition (like himself) definitely had something to do with the Reichsführer-SS Himmler, as we have seen. His membership of the three most important Nazi organisations (SA, SS and NSDAP) was also not particularly "brief," because he was a full-blood Nazi from the outset and his SA, SS and Party memberships lasted virtually as long as the "Dritte Reich" itself.39 Moreover, the apparent ignorance of the Dalai Lama and those around him was not limited to Harrer's views and past. It also covered the person and activities of the Auschwitz race researcher Bruno Beger, who appeared in the world's press on the occasion of his war criminal process, and with whom "His Holiness" had untiring good contact. Moreover, how do we explain the enthusiastic questions about the Nazi war hero Rommel with which, by his own account, Harrer was assailed "in the Dalai Lama's court?" Mere ignorance? Finally, how are we to understand the downplayed statements from the "ocean of wisdom" who, when asked about his friendship with Harrer in a Playboy interview (!), replied: "Of course I knew that Harrer was of German (sic) origin – and at a time when the Germans were global scapegoats due to the Second World War. But we Tibetans have traditionally always supported the underdogs and therefore believed that the Germans had been humiliated enough by the Allies at the end of the 1940s."40 Is that again merely the unfathomable "ignorance" of an "enlightened one," whose previous incarnations at least claimed "omniscience" for themselves?41
That people dared to associate the "yellow Pope" with the Nazis (that he himself had repeatedly done of his own accord), also outraged Helmut Clemens, an ARD employee (died in 2005), who wrote a long apology about it. He initially conceded (like Lenoir), something that can anyhow no longer be denied, namely the Nazi past of both Aufschnaiter and Harrer: "They were in fact Nazis – one an NSDAP member, the other an SS Unterführer – yet their membership of the organisation had nothing to do with their stay in Tibet. They did not have any kind of assignment there. They also were no fanatics. The fact that they later gave up their initial plan of successfully escaping from the British concentration camp in India and making their way to the Japanese to get their help in returning to Greater Germany, and instead defected to Tibet, can rather be ascribed to the start of a political change of thought. Because from an NS point of view they had escaped from compulsory military service, and that was considered desertion during wartime. Later, we never heard a fascist statement from either of them."42
Is Harrer therefore a reformed Nazi? Was he – due to his escape from the British camp – even a deserter, a defector who would have been shot in Germany by fanatical Nazis until even shortly after the capitulation? Was the fact that he finally abandoned the plan (in 1945) to make his way to the Japanese really the result and evidence of such a "rethink?"43 This "rethink" must have been reflected in Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet and could be demonstrated there in black and white. Would that not imply a confrontation with his own Nazi biography? Would Harrer's autobiographical book – written years after the end of the Nazi nightmare – not have to include a dissociation from the Nazi ideology, at least in terms of its approach? And no "fascist statements" at all.
In any case, the ORF journalist Gerald Lehner, who focused on Harrer in particular detail, comes to the verdict: "In Harrer's bestsellers and his autobiography there is no sentence to express any compassion for the millions of murder victims and victims of war that Hitler and his accomplices have on their conscience."44 However, there is also and especially in his most famous book evidence of a continued Nazi attitude. Helmut Clemens may not have noticed this evidence (why would he?), yet it cannot be overlooked by any reader who is slightly attentive and has elementary historical knowledge.
Let us therefore look at Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet in more detail. What can we see there, in the mid-1950s, about Harrer's alleged "rethink?" The book begins with the outbreak of the Second World War. However, Harrer's report contains no mention of Hitler's attack on Poland. Instead, the second major global blight starts like a natural event, namely "the war-clouds were growing ever denser" (that is typically turgid, enveloping Nazi rhetoric that reminds us of Goebbels' "storm break loose!"), and then England declared war. A clear statement such as "after completing its war preparations, Hitler's Germany invaded Poland and thus started a world war" is nowhere to be found in the book, which was published ten years after the war.
Harrer typically considers himself the victim of both fate and the British. "Although Germany and the British Commonwealth were not yet at war," "fate overtook" him and his comrades in the form of capture by British troops, and "two days later England did declare war on Germany!"45 Whereby the question of war guilt was answered for him...
SS Tibet expedition, reception for Tibetan dignitaries (Lhasa). Left: Beger; head end: Tsarong Dzasa, Schäfer (Federal Archive, image 135-KA-10-072 / CC-BY-SA)
The Führer with Heinrich Harrer (2nd from left)
He quickly began to devise escape plans with the help of "like-minded companions."46 He did this although life in a British prison camp was comparatively comfortable and the British camp leaders even favoured the Nazis, whom they relied on to maintain discipline, and gave them "incredibly free rein."47 Nevertheless, the "babel of conflicting opinions and excited talk" among the other camp residents48 (including some Nazi opponents) was not to his taste. The Nazis called that "party bickering." The daughter of Fritz Kolb, an anti-fascist who died in 1983, told Lehner and the Viennese historian Amstädter about her father's experience of his fellow prisoner Harrer in the camp. "My father described him to me as being one of the most diehard National Socialists, who even after the reversal in Hitler's fortunes of war in 1941/1942 never changed sides – while other Nazis in India were already afraid of returning to Austria."49 Gerald Lehner also saw an unpublished, machine-written eye witness report from Fritz Kolbs, in which he reports on the "omnipresent physical threat to Hitler's opponents through the vast majority of the camp Nazis," including Aufschnaiter and Harrer.50
The escape plans of Harrer and his Nazi comrades were initially therefore only deferred because "we all believed that the war would soon be over"51 naturally (unspoken) due to the victories of the German Armed Forces in Poland, France and (initially) in the Soviet Union. As the "final victory" was a long time in coming, the plans become current again. Not merely because the detention camp was "no life for freedom-loving (!) men"52 from the SS. Rather: "How attractive to a mountaineer was the thought of winning through to Tibet over the passes. As a final goal one thought of the Japanese lines in Burma or China."53 So in no way, as Clemens alleged, to Tibet instead of to the Japanese, but rather to the Japanese via Tibet! The Japanese lines, that meant reaching the sphere of influence of the most important (and ultimately also the last) allies of Nazi Germany. What Harrer and his comrades, who wanted to go with him "to the Burma front,"54 really wanted was not simply their personal freedom but rather to continue the battle for the still hoped for "final victory." Harrer only gave up this battle once it was finally and irrevocably lost. Yet there was initially no thought of returning to Europe, due to the denazification taking place there. After three years in Tibet, in 1948, he felt: "The news from Europe was not encouraging. In fact, it strengthened our desire to remain where we were and make a permanent home in Lhasa!"55
Although Harrer makes efforts in his book to avoid anything delicate or awkward, he nevertheless repeatedly involuntarily reveals what kind of person he is. Even through the vocabulary, as he was particularly taken by a favourite word of the "Führer": "Providence had decided for us,"56 he writes, or: "That was a sign of providence!"57 Yet providence did not initially mean particularly well for him and Aufschnaiter, nor for the "Reich." They were still in flight when a Tibetan showed him "English illustrated newspapers" with "details about the end of the war" and "discouraging news" from "our world": "They were shattering moments for us."58 What Harrer found to be shocking and discouraging filled millions of other people, including many Austrians and Germans, with joy and hope.
But Harrer remained unteachable. In his book, he continues to see the world through the eyes of a "member of the Aryan master race": he divides, often even explicitly, populations, classes, and individual people into groups of higher or lower racial value. In doing so, the mix of "races" is a particular atrocity for him; dark skin and "slit eyes" are characteristics of those with "lower" racial value. He reports that the "dark, dirty hands" of an Indian farmer selling butter to the refugees triggered such "disgust" in him and his companion that they both "nearly vomited."59 Light-skinned fingers, even dirty ones, clearly triggered fewer feelings of revulsion in him, otherwise it would make no sense to mention the skin colour. On the way to Lhasa the refugees then went through an area whose population "was typical neither for Tibet nor for India." "In parts, it is very racially mixed."60 Elsewhere, he again states, this time even more clearly, with a negative assessment and Nazi diction: "The population is strongly mixed, there are lots of Katsara, as the Tibetan-Nepalese breed is called. These Katsara were not nearly such pleasant and friendly people as the pure Tibetans, and they were not really respected by either of the races."61 Mind you: Harrer is talking about people, not dogs! Sometimes he also makes racial distinctions among the Tibetans themselves that are in line with race theoretical guidelines from within Himmler's circles, which wanted to see Aryan racial features in the Tibetan aristocracy, whereas further elements of the Tibetan population (the lower classes!) are degenerated by mixing with foreign, lower value races: "The Tibetans living here cannot be compared with those living in the heartland of the country, whom we got to know later. The trade with India and the active caravan traffic in summer had ruined them. They were dirty and dark-skinned, their slit eyes wandered around erratically."62 Yet again: dirt, connected with dark skin and, this time, "slit eyes!" On another occasion, he is bothered by "the butter-smeared Mongol faces" of normal Tibetans.63 Darker or simply "yellow" skin and "slit eyes" are, for the Nazis, characteristics of racial inferiority and sub-humanity. In relation to the differences between (Han) Chinese and Tibetans it then sounds like this: "The Chinese in Lhasa are easily distinguishable from the Tibetans though they belong to the same racial family.64 The Tibetans are not markedly slit-eyed; they have pleasant, refined faces and red cheeks."65 In reverse and in plain text this means: the Chinese have pronounced slit eyes and ugly faces.66
After all that, it is not surprising that the young 14th Dalai Lama immediately made a "good impression" on Harrer, not least through "his appearance" and due to the following features, which match the racial ideal of the Nazis. "He was tall for his age,"67 his "complexion was much lighter than that of the average Tibetan and even a few shades lighter than that of the Lhasa aristocracy" and his "eyes hardly narrower than those of most Europeans."68 The Dalai Lama as a shining light and with an outstanding racial leadership nature, identifiable from his tall build and his "light" skin colour. It is therefore not difficult to imagine what Harrer would have made of a small, dark-skinned Dalai Lama with pronounced slit eyes.
In relation to himself and his comrade Aufschnaiter, he speaks consequently of the "European superiority" of which, however, there was "no longer any sign" in the ragged and run-down state in which they reached Lhasa.69
Looking beyond the repellent racism that had become second nature to Harrer: what idea of mankind and what values system are reflected in Harrer's admiration for the "touching faith" and the "rocklike faith" of the Tibetans or for their "pious enthusiasm"70 and "intense devotion"?71
What should we therefore think about the aforementioned statements from Helmut Clemens, who was unable to find anything "fascistic" about Harrer after the war? Who attests to the ultra-Nazi (despite his better knowledge?) a "rethink" and is willing to give him a denazification certificate? Did he read Harrer so superficially? Does he not recognise clear Nazi statements as such? Is he relying on the ignorance and prejudices of his readership when he follows the motto: "talking is silver, silence is gold?"
Notes
1 Heinrich Harrer and the SS, In ALPIN, September 1997, quoted from Gerald Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya: Die Gedächtnislücken des Heinrich Harrer, Vienna, Czernin Verlag, 2007, p. 25 2 Quoted from Lehner, ibid., p. 145 3 Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 41-42 4 See also the excellently researched book from Lehner who, with his follow-up research in the US archives, which at the time contained the only central NSDAP file, set the ball rolling. 5 Franz, Gebrauchsanweisung... p. 6 6 Quoted from: http://www.datum.at/artikel/der-schmale-grat-der-erinnerung/, accessed on 9th March 2013 7 http://schlamassel.blogsport.de/2010/08/14/der-alpenverein-und-die-juden/, accessed on 9th March 2013 8 http://www.datum.at/artikel/der-schmale-grat-der-erinnerung/, accessed on 9th March 2013 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 Harrer continued to deny until recently that he had joined the Nazi party or SS on his own initiative. 12 http://www.profil.at/articles/1141/560/309412/nationalsozialismus-berg-heil, accessed on 9th March 2013 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 http://www.profil.at/articles/1141/560/309412/nationalsozialismus-berg-heil, accessed on 9th March 2013 16 See the evidence gathered together by Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya, p. 47-48 17 Lehner, ibid., p. 46 18 Ibid., p. 100 19 According to her handwritten CV, see also Lehner, ibid., p. 105 – BDM means "League of German Girls;" it was the girls' wing of the Hitler Youth. 20 Lehner, ibid., p. 104 and 105 21 Ibid., p. 141 22 Ibid., p. 47 23 See below for details and quotes. 24 Can be read in detail in the excellent book from the ORF journalist Gerald Lehner. 25 Goldstein/Dawei Sherap/Siebenschuh, A Tibetan Revolutionary, p. 77-78 26 See also ibid., p. 88. – The apparently so unpartisan and well-informed F. Robin categorically denies any sympathies of the Tibetan elite for Nazi Germany; she does not even ask about sympathies towards Japanese Buddhist militarism. See also Robin, Clichés tibétains, p. 45 27 David-Néel, En Asie la question du Tibet, in Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 1120-1121. Interestingly, the Japanese Imperialists also tried to harness the Muslims in China for their expansionist purposes. They formed a "Federation of Chinese Muslims" under their wing, financially supported Muslims from the satellite state of Manchuria on their pilgrimages to Hajj and sent Muslims as agents and propagandists of a Muslim state on Chinese soil to Sinkiang and Qinghai. See also David-Néel, A l´ouest barbare de la vaste Chine, In Grand Tibet et vaste Chine, p. 952 28 See also Grunfeld, p. 84, on spying through Japanese monks; see also Victoria, Zen at War, p. 65, and Hisao Kimura, Japanese Agent in Tibet, London, 1990 29 China Tibetology, March 2006; quoted from Elisabeth Martens, Histoire du Bouddhisme tibétain. La Compassion des Puissants. Paris: L'Harmattan 2007 (Recherches Asiatiques), p. 156; own translation 30 See also the chronology in the autobiography of Tenzin Choedral, issued by Gilles van Grasdorff and with a preface from the Dalai Lama, which states: "1939-1945: Tibetan neutrality in the 2nd World War. Lhasa doesn't let Indian replenishments through to China." (Tenzin Choedrak, Der Palast... p. 314) The Japanese allies of the "Führer" will have been happy. A propos Hitler: the "chronology" author makes a striking linguistic-terminological error when he writes about a sentencing of Chinese "breaches of human rights" by the "People's Court (Volksgerichtshof, a Nazi term) in Strasbourg." 31 Wienand: Dalai Lama XIV., p. 43 32 Dalai Lama: Freedom in Exile, p. 59 33 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 119 – The information that he was Surkhang's brother (Sieben Jahre... p. 170) is missing in the English edition. 34 The son of a former State Secretary under Giscard d´Estaing and special advisor to Chirac is one of the most prominent Catholics in France. He was allowed, for example, to comment live on the election of the Pope in 2013 for the state TV channel France 2 and is generally a frequent and popular guest in the French media. Even as a student Lenoir, also the author of a biography of Mother Teresa, was a member of the Congrégation Saint-Jean that was criticised by cult protection organisations due to its sectarian alignment. 35 See also Lenoir, Tibet: 20 clés... – How objective the author is can quickly be seen in his assertions. For example, he celebrates the great "apostles of Tibetan Buddhism in the West," sings songs of praise to the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II., boasts about his many meetings with them and reports on his first pilgrimage to Dharamsala, as a twenty-year old and under the impressions of the trashy novel The Third Eye. 36 Lenoir, p. 19; own translation. – The author naturally fails to mention Harrer's much earlier membership in the Austrian SA, considered illegal and terrorist at the time, the original destination of Harrer's flight etc. 37 The "more serious" F. Robin too implies that it was the Chinese who had fired up the Harrer issue, and refers to an article in the Beijing Review with the title "Nazi Author's Seven Years in Tibet." No word on Lehner's research in the US archives, the resulting Stern article and the global echo in all major newspapers and magazines! See also Robin: Clichés tibétains, p. 44 ff. 38 Harrer, p. 41: "We said that we were fugitive Germans." Also p. 114: "...saying we were Germans." – Annaud's untruthful propaganda film explicitly locates the film's opening scenes in "Austria 1939," even though "Austria" no longer existed in 1939, but only the "Ostmark" as part of "Greater Germany." He lets the film Harrer grumpily respond to an anonymous Nazi, who calls him "a great German hero", with the words: "Thank you, but I'm Austrian!" Brazen historical misrepresentations throughout! How can that be reconciled with the fact that, as "Harrer's" voice explains shortly afterwards, the Nanga Parbat is called in Germany "unser Berg - our mountain," and the "entire nation" (Austria?) is obsessed with conquering the Nanga Parbat, as it is "a matter of German pride" for us? Thus, possibly after all "Berg Heil!" and "Sieg Heil!" and "Großdeutschland!"? 39 If not much longer – up to the end of his life, as we do not know of any formal resignation from the party either from him or other old Nazis. For comparison: the Austrian Nazi leader Seyß-Inquart, condemned in the Nuremberg Process against major war criminals, also joined the NSDAP and the SS in 1938, like Harrer. Harrer had the fortune of having been "impeded" during the war years unlike, for example, his brother-in-law, Beger, who had returned home from Tibet, or Seyß-Inquart. 40 Playboy interview with the Dalai Lama, German edition 3/1998, quoted from Gerald Lehner, Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya, p. 188 41 See also the striking start of the proclamation from 1913, which is seen by many as a Tibetan "declaration of independence": "I, the Dalai Lama, most omniscient possessor of the Buddhist faith, whose title was conferred by the Lord Buddha's command from the glorious land of India, speaks to you as follows..." Quoted from: Goldstein: The Demise... p. 60 42 Helmut Clemens, „Ist der Dalai Lama ein Nazifreund? Die Protokolle der Weisen von München“, TIBET-Forum Nr. 2/2000 43 Annaud's untruthful film is based on this version: in light of the depicted brutality of Chinese soldiers, Brad Pit embarrassedly says that he also used to be so intolerant. The untruthfulness of the film is shown from not only a political and historical aspect, but also regarding Harrer's personal life. The film consciously avoids any reference to Harrer's Nazi wife, Lotte Wegener. Instead, Annaud gives her the nice German name "Ingrid." In the film, Harrer is suffering from the separation from his young son, whereas in Harrer's book neither a son nor an (ex-?) wife is mentioned; there is not even a reference to him having a family in his "home country." Harrer explains, on the contrary, that "neither of us had very close ties with our old homes" (p. 193) and affects a bachelor status when he writes: "I would have been happy to bring out a wife from home"! See also Harrer: Seven Years in Tibet, p. 194 44 Lehner, Zwischen Hitler... p. 160 45 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 1 46 Ibid., p. 2 47 Lehner, p. 67 48 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 2 49 See also Lehner, p. 53-55 50 See also Lehner, p. 54 51 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 2 52 Ibid. 53 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 3-4 54 Ibid., 20 55 Ibid., p. 193 56 Ibid., p. 85 57 Harrer, Sieben Jahre, p. 116. This sentence is missing in the English edition. 58 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 79-80 59 Ibid., p. 9 60 Harrer, Sieben Jahre, p. 60. This section is missing in the English edition (p. 39). In the German original edition, Harrer glorifies one of the "greatest German alpinists" killed while escaping from a British camp and writes about a local population of "mixed race." 61 Harrer, Sieben Jahre, p. 88. This section is missing in the English edition (p. 58). 62 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 27 63 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 107 64 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 155 65 Ibid. 66 In Frédéric Lenoir we read, in relation to the ethnic differences between Tibetans and Han, that the Tibetans are more like Mongolians and the "Chinese" have lighter skin. We must find our way among the confused racist and ethnic ideas! 67 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 252 68 Ibid. Some of the original German text has been purged from the English edition: "seine kaum geschlitzten Augen" ("his barely slit-eyes") and "nichts von dem lauernden Blick vieler Mongolen" ("nothing of the lurking gaze of many Mongolians"). 69 Ibid., p. 46 70 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 239 71 Harrer, Seven Years, p. 202
30 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the "race researcher" and war criminal Bruno Beger
This interview was a very unsettling experience for me. He was never wil-ling to accept the truth and its consequences – for what he did in Auschwitz and Natzweiler. I think he is a terrible man.
(...)
It was a terrible experience to encounter this person up close.
On 13th September 1994, "the former SS men Bruno Beger and Heinrich Harrer were among a total of eight guests of the Dalai Lama to provide evidence of Tibet's former independence in front of the world's public." The photograph taken, which was initially published "in the November/December edition 1994" of the official Tibetan Bulletin from the Tibetan exiles, was displayed by "the Tibetan exile government on its official website for more than ten years on the internet, to underpin its political struggle against China's Communists."2 The 14th "ocean of wisdom" clearly had just as minor a problem with his friend Beger as with his friend and "teacher" Harrer. Yet "Hugh Richardson, former British resident in Lhasa during the Schäfer expedition" did: he sent his apologies for not joining the "1994 meeting in London."3
Who is this Bruno Beger, who published a "lovingly designed small book"4 in 1986 with the title "My Encounters with the Ocean of Knowledge"? Who was "invited"5 to meet with the Dalai Lama several times in the 1990s. Who "also had good contact" to the "biological brother" of the 14th Dalai Lama, Norbu, and to the "family of the 11th Dalai Lama, living in exile in Switzerland."6 Who had designed the "Tibet exhibition in the Salzburg 'House of Nature' since 1943" with the "impressive Tibet dioramas", which a passionate Dalai Lama visited with his friend Harrer in 1992.7
The anthropologist and "race researcher" Beger, SS man since 1935,8 was the deputy leader of the five-man Tibet expedition that left Germany on 19th April 1938 to travel to Tibet via British India and the small kingdom of Sikkim. The undertaking was under the patronage of Himmler and the NS "Ahnenerbe" and was to serve the purpose of "biological research overseas."9 During the trip, the zoologist and ornithologist Ernst Schäfer, who was leading the expedition, was promoted via radio to SS Hauptsturmführer.10 Back home, the undertaking was exploited for propaganda purposes: "In Germany's media there appeared reports with strip maps teeming with swastika flags and SS banners over Tibetan landscapes."11 The group reached Lhasa on 19th January 1939, where they stayed for three months12 and met many dignitaries, including the regent with whom they exchanged pleasantries and gifts. There was no Dalai Lama there: the "reincarnation" of number 13 who died in 1934 was four years old at the time and still living in a remote Chinese province.
The Dalai Lama with Bruno Beger
According to Beger himself, one task of the SS expedition was to "establish good contact with the Tibetan government."13 Himmler seemingly dreamed of getting Tibet onto Germany's side and, one day, marching from there into British India. There were also similarly crazy plans "for Persia and parts of modern Pakistan. And from Burma and Vietnam, Germany's allies in Japan were to get their claws into the British Empire."14 However, the "race researcher" Beger was primarily interested in something else: he had designed "in 1937, one year before his departure to Asia, an 'anthropological research programme for eastern Tibet.'" In the programme, he recommended a "targeted 'search for fossilised human remains and skeletal remains of earlier Nordic immigrants and capture of current race research conditions'. In doing so, Beger adopted the theory of a 'Nordic race' in central Asia and Tibet from the 'race researcher' H. F. Günther. He had published a very popular book in the Dritten Reich on which Beger also collaborated: 'The Nordic Race in Indo-Germanic Asia.' The German anthropologist suspected an 'interim position' among the Tibetans – between the Mongolian and European 'race'. The 'Caucasian race element' is primarily reflected in the Tibetan aristocracy, according to Beger. He therefore demands the 'total racial recording' of Tibet."15
German Tibet expedition 1938: Schäfer, Ernst Dr.: SS-Sturmbannführer, Head of the Sven Hedin Institute; Beger, Bruno Dr.: SS-Hauptsturmführer, Department Head at the Sven Hedin Institute; Krause, Ernst: employee at the Sven Hedin Institute, Germany (Federal Archive, Image 135-KA-01-001 / CC-BY-SA)
Standing in the middle: Schäfer, on the far right Bruno Beger
Beger boasted in an interview in 199716 that, during the Schäfer expedition, he "anthropologically measured more than 400 Tibetans and prepared 1,000 images." In his book about the Dalai Lama's Nazi friends, Gerald Lehner summarises the things that Beger was less happy to talk about as follows: "After his return" Beger then dedicated himself in "1943 in Auschwitz to similar questions and biological-anthropological comparisons." "He helped August Hirt, the Strasbourg anatomist and SS officer, to select Jews in Auschwitz. 86 men and women were later murdered in the Natzweiler-Struth of concentration camp for the purposes of Hirt's study. Furthermore, Beger conducted his own investigations on Soviet prisoners of war who came from central Asia."17
In a letter to his superior, Ernst Schäfer, from 24th June 1943 he reports after a visit to Auschwitz on his own "hobby," namely these private scientific studies into Soviet prisoners of war: "We also measured and moulded two Uzbeks, an Usbeki-Tajik hybrid and a Chuvash from the Kazan region. They were very good types, transition elements from central and eastern Asia. One of the Uzbeks, a large healthy outdoor type, could have been a Tibetan. (...) In my opinion, the Chuvash is more of a Chinese type."18 The historian Michael Kater harbours the terrible suspicion, based on circumstantial evidence, that Beger was "one of the most dangerous Nazi researchers"19 and arranged for prisoners of war in Auschwitz to be murdered and skeletonised: "Highly suspicious is the list of utensils that Schäfer requested for his anthropologist Beger. Why were 20 scalpels in different sizes and six strong scalpels necessary for measuring the skulls of living people? Were they ordered for handling corpses? Why were five large 'meat machines' mentioned in Schäfer's list? Were these 'defleshing machines' of the kind that Hirt20 used in Strasbourg?"21 As an SS anthropologist, Beger had also conducted research into "close tribal connections between the minor Hottentott race and the Jews" and gained ground-breaking scientific knowledge e.g. "Jewish women possess, among other things, very strongly developed buttocks, which can possibly be traced back to the same adipose-forming genes found in Hottentotts and Bushmen. In Judaism, there are, apart from the base races (oriental and near oriental), also elements of African races."22 The Nazi professor August Hirt therefore turned to a competent young colleague when he asked Bruno Beger for Jewish objects of study and exhibits for his research. As the Canadian historian Michael Kater and his colleague from Tübingen researched, Beger and his comrade Hans Fleischhacker originally wanted to select 150 "male and female Jews" but, out of fear of being infected with the typhus that was rife in Auschwitz, ultimately limited the number to 86.23
19 women and 26 men came from Greece, 23 men and three women were from Germany, six women came from Belgium, four men were from Poland, two from the Netherlands, two from France and one from Norway.24 They left Auschwitz on 30th July 1943 and were gassed on 11th, 13th, 17th and 19th August 1943 in Struthof, approximately 60 kilometres southwest of Strasbourg. "Beforehand, the SS took X-rays of their 86 skulls and identified their blood groups."25 The murders took place under the responsibility of the commander of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and on the order of the Strasbourg anatomy professor August Hirt, "who was managing the plan on behalf of the 'Ahnenerbe.' The young scientists and SS officers Beger and Fleischhacker acted as helpers; also when preparing the skeletons and skulls."26 What was it about for the parties involved in one of "the most gruesome scientific crimes of the Dritten Reich"?27 They wanted to study "characteristic skull and skeleton forms" that seemed "to them to be confirmation of their racial fanaticism. The anatomist Hirt also planned a type of 'panopticon' and museum for 'ethnogeny' with bones and skulls."28
August Hirt was sentenced to death for mass murder on 23rd December 1953 in Metz but in his absence. It later transpired that he had already shot himself in 1945 in the Black Forest. The leader of the 'Ahnenerbe', SS officer Wolfram Sievers, was sentenced to death in the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial and executed on 2nd June 1948. And Bruno Beger?
He fell into the clutches of American troops in April 1945. After spending time in several prisoner-of-war and detainment camps, he was classified in 1948 by a German "denazification committee" as "less charged." Even people like him, who had been part of "Himmler's direct environment," "easily escaped closer judicial investigations in these years of collective forgetfulness," writes Gerald Lehner. "It wasn't until twelve years later that investigators showed an interest in the native Heidelberger." In 1960, he was put into custody for four months but then released, even though the investigations were still ongoing. The process against Beger and his former employee Fleischhacker finally started in October 1970. The defendants rigorously denied any involvement in the murders of which they were accused. "Witnesses and documents from the SS' 'Ahnenerbe' told a different story: Beger had already discussed creating a collection of skeletons and skulls of Jewish prisoners with his SS boss Sievers in 1941. That is also clear from Siever's diaries. And his former secretary claimed that Beger had written the main part of a letter propagating and recommending a collection of 'Jewish-Bolshevist human heads' in the 'Ahnenerbe.'"29
Like so many Nazi criminals, Bruno Beger found a lenient and understanding judge in Germany. He was not sentenced due to murder or aiding and abetting, but rather was only given three years' imprisonment due to "complicity." His time in custody was taken into account. In 2002, the 90-year old told his visitor, Heather Pringle, with a broad smile that his "judge in Frankfurt am Main was the son of a German official who had taken part in the Wannsee Conference in 1942, during which the implementation of the so-called 'final solution' was planned in detail – the destruction of the European Jews."30
Over the years, the Dali Lama also turned out to be particularly lenient and understanding, as Beger's past did not bother him in the least, nor did that of his friend Harrer. Were "the Germans" not treated enough as "scapegoats" and "humiliated"?
Harrer was somewhat cleverer than the "ocean of wisdom." In 1997, he still continued to deny "vehemently" any personal relationship with Bruno Beger, Ernst Schäfer and the other members of the SS expedition to Tibet, well in the knowledge that bad company and questionable friendships are not favourable for a person's reputation. It was not until 2002 that he confessed, in his autobiography My Life, "after his return from Tibet he visited in 1952 the photographer and cameraman Ernst Krause in Munich," who was one of the five members of the expedition. Krause was not mentioned "in any of Harrer's earlier books."31
Dr. Bruno Beger, SS-Hauptsturmführer and "race researcher," performing anthropometric investigations on Tibetans (Federal Archive, Image 135-KB-15-089 / Krause, Ernst / CC-BY-SA)
Krause was also a member of the SS. In October 1941, the former Tibet researchers Schäfer and Krause were "drafted to the Dachau concentration camp in Upper Bavaria," where "medical-biological experiments on humans" were performed on Himmler's order. Upon their arrival, they were able to marvel at the prepared and conserved brains of concentration camp detainees in spirit glasses. The men had been exposed "in a special low-pressure chamber to a simulation of extreme altitude for a long period of time."32 Krause and Schäfer were now to "secretly film other human experiments" on "pitiful decaying detainees in the low-pressure chamber"...33
For his part, Bruno Beger responded to Gerald Lehner's question in 1997 as to whether he knew Heinrich Harrer, "Yes, of course. We have been good friends for a long time." Furthermore, "Our first meeting was in 1952, shortly after Harrer's return from Tibet. He visited me in Munich, it was one of his first meetings in Europe."34 Harrer, the "Austrian," who only returned to his home country after the "denazification" had come to a premature end (for the old fighters were being used again against "Bolshevism" in the "Cold War") and who immediately visited two SS criminals in Germany who, like him, had been in Tibet – does that not smell strongly of solidarity between "old comrades"? And doesn't the decades-long friendship between these people and the Dalai Lama cast a dark-brown shadow at least on the beginnings of the German and Austrian "Tibet solidarity" and on the Tibetan "god-king" himself?
Notes
1 Quote from private correspondence, see also Gerald Lehner: Zwischen Hitler und Himalaya, p. 197 and 198 – Heather Pringle is the author of The Masterplan – Himmler´s Scholars and the Holocaust, London, 2006. 2 Lehner, Zwischen Hitler... p. 201 3 Lehner., ibid. p. 187 4 Ibid., p. 177 5 See also the Hörfunk interview for ORF from 24th August 1997, In Lehner, p. 181 ff. 6 Ibid. 7 Lehner, p. 205-206 – On the question as to whether the Dalai Lama knew about the Nazi background of his German friends, the author and friend van Grasdorff states that "The Dalai Lama knew everything." (van Grasdorff, Opération Shambala, Presses du Châtelet, 2012, p. 397) 8 See also his own statement in the Hörfunk interview from 24th August 1997, In: Lehner, p. 182 9 See also Lehner, p. 170 10 In accounts from Dalai Lama sympathisers, Schäfer is often whitewashed and presented as an unpolitical academic, for example by F. Robin: Schäfer is presented as a "zoologist;" there is no mention of his SS membership, in contrast: Himmler provided him (the pure, respectable academic?) with the evil Nazi race researcher Beger. Schäfer rejected this but had to "make some concessions to the client." See also Robin: Clichés tibétains, p. 42-43 11 Lehner, p. 173 12 Not two, as Lenoir writes! They left Lhasa for Gyantse and Shigatse in March, but then returned to Lhasa; they left the Tibetan capital to return to Germany as late as August 1939. 13 Lehner, p. 174 14 Lehner, ibid., p. 175 15 Lehner, ibid., p. 171 – See also Reinhard Greve, „Das Tibet-Bild der Nationalsozialisten“, In: Mythos Tibet: Wahrnehmungen, Projektionen, Phantasien, p. 104-113 16 Lehner, p. 183 17 Lehner, ibid., p. 171 18 Kater, Michael, Das 'Ahnenerbe'...; cited from Lehner, p. 193 19 Lehner, ibid., p. 194 20 It is the anthropology professor, who is mentioned below. 21 Kater, Michael, Das 'Ahnenerbe'...; cited from Lehner, p. 194 22 Kater, Michael, Das 'Ahnenerbe'...; cited from Lehner, p. 192 23 See also Michael Kater, Das 'Ahnenerbe' der SS, 1935-1945: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturpolitik des Dritten Reiches, Munich, 1997; and Lang, Hans-Joachim, Die Namen der Nummern, Verlag Hoffmann und Campe, 2004, and: Skelette für Straßburg, In Die Zeit, Nr. 35, 19th August 2004. All information from Lehner. 24 See also Lehner, p. 191 25 Lehner, p. 188 26 Lehner, ibid. 27 Lang, „Skelette für Straßburg“, quoted from Lehner, ibid. 28 Lehner, ibid., p. 189-190 29 Ibid., p. 199 30 Ibid., p. 199; Lehner refers to an e-mail sent to him by Heather Pringle on 21st August 2006. 31 Lehner, p. 200 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., p. 176-177 34 Ibid., p. 181
31 Nazi friends of the Dalai Lama: the right-wing scene
The Tibetan does not know that tragically innocent guilt, which rests on the belief in progress. He has always kept open the old deep wells, which feed the subconscious. (...) The self-love through to the denial of God is foreign to him. (...) Maybe the Tibetan takes a deeper look into the existence of things, as the exploration of extra-sensory skills up to the union with God are more important to him than any control over nature.
In Tibet, man had not yet completely vanished: its roots still went back deep into the collective subconscious, which knows no difference between past and present. (...) I prefer a personal Lord in whose hand I feel hopelessly enslaved, to an abstraction called state, democracy or anything else.
Helmut Clemens made it somewhat too easy for himself when he limited his efforts to remove all of the brown stains from the Dalai Lama and his journeymen to more or less suggestive rhetorical questions. "What can the Tibetans and their religion do about the fact that occultists and esoterics used the disposition of some influential brown ideologues towards the irrational! What does the old Tibetan legend of Shambha-La have to do with the Nazis' Shambha-La nonsense?"– he asks indignantly. The fact that "the Tibetans with their religion" clearly have the power to attract irrational, often very right-wing cranks, and that this could have something to do with the content and practices of Tibetan Buddhism, evidently doesn't cross his mind. Or it cannot be what must not be. If particularly unappetising substances have an irresistible appeal to blowflies then that has to do with the blowflies and their preferences, but also with the nature and properties of the said substances. Could it not be that the Tibetan exiles with their religion and ideological-political message – irrationalism, fanatical beliefs and subservience, veneration of infallible leadership and holy figures, notions of karma that justify the social status of every person as a natural and fair consequence of previous transgressions or accomplishments, idealisation and romanticising of pre-industrial and pre-democratic times and conditions compared with modern-day "decadence" or "materialism," expectation of a beneficial major war that will create a new ideal kingdom and above all: the battle against migration and "foreign infiltration", for racial "purity", traditional "national" culture and an "ethnically" defined "freedom", the battle against "materialism", "atheism" and the "red danger" – could it not be that all of these things are irresistibly appealing to the brown blowflies?
Clemens himself seemed not to be so happy with a large part of the Tibet scene, to be secretly ashamed of it. He regrets that the entirely irrational and esoteric "nonsense," which had shaped the image of Tibet from the early 20th century, "outlasted the Third Reich." "From Thule via the Black Sun to Shambha-La everything billows further and swamps the esoteric book market. Who is surprised by that, in a country where, in order to speak with Zuckmeyer (sic), the group of those who have their abdomen full of metaphysics and their brain full of intestinal gases was always bigger than elsewhere. Esoterics and occultists, they actually exist among the neo-fascists."3
The intestinal gas he talks about does not only rise in German heads, and by no means all prominent Tibet enthusiasts consider it to be damaging or are ashamed of it. For example, Lenoir, the French friend of the Dalai Lama, ascribes a considerable part of the success of the Free Tibet movement in the West to the myth of Tibet i.e. to the pipe dreams and metaphysics that rumble in the bowels and cloud the brains. And the long-time Chairman of the Tibet Initiative Deutschland, Klemens Ludwig, in no way shies away from publishing in an appropriate "specialist magazine" such as Esotera.4 Furthermore, he fittingly "also works as an astrologist."5
Clemens is, of course, right when he emphasises that "most of the harmless esoterics and New-Age believers" should not be "stigmatised as neo-fascists." They simply made Tibet "the projection screen for their own search for meaning" and are "willing to take everything at face value, if it comes with merely a Tibetan veneer or is proclaimed by red gurus," he writes. Further, "A young author from Tübingen recently characterised it with the punch line: 'If Santa Claus were a Tibetan, they would believe in him again' (Marcus Hammerschmitt, Instant Nirvana, Berlin 1999). Yet as they have not yet met Santa Claus, even in a Tibetan form, they stick to the real Dalai Lama. He is a cult figure for them." When he's right...
Not only is the Dalai Lama not responsible for his admirers, the "Tibet support groups" could also not "subject those wanting to join to any rationality test," Clemens continues. A somewhat damning indictment that he issues to a large number of his combatants!
After the harmless fantasists, he finally talks about the "Tibet sympathisers among the neo-Nazis" and admits: "They also exist and not only among the Shambha-La nutcases, but even among representatives of political right-wing extremism. They see Tibet under a Nationalist-Anti-Communist grid. For example, in 1998 stickers were distributed at events with the Dalai Lama in Osnabrück and Schneverdingen on which, next to a picture of the Tibetan leader, the words 'Democracy for China – Freedom for Tibet' were written in large bold letters and underneath, in somewhat smaller print: Die Deutschen Konservativen e.V. including P.O. box address. The Dalai Lama, used by right-wing rat catchers to attract attention! For which simple conservative, who possibly just wants information, suspects that this is an arch-reactionary association that was classified in 1995 as right-wing extreme by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and whose leaders are Joachim Siegerist, the rabble-rouser legally sentenced for racist denigration, and Heinrich Lummer, the CDU southpaw and former Berlin Interior Senator."6
So the connections to the right-wing extreme and neo-Nazi scene did not completely escape the eloquent apologist of the Dalai Lama. Slogans such as "Germany for the Germans! Foreigners out!" and "Tibet for the Tibetans! Chinese out!" then sound possibly too similar. However, he deliberately plays down implied connections. For example, by not digging deeper. Otherwise he could certainly have found further cases of Dalai Lama supporters from right-wing circles. A more recent example is Claus Cremer, the vice-president of the National Party in North Rhine Westphalia with a previous conviction for rabble rousing who, on the "internet site of the Bochum NPD," proudly reports after a local appearance from "His Holiness": "I used today and today's event to pay the Dalai Lama a visit, also on behalf of the NPD. It is admirable how this man has been battling for years for the freedom and independence of his people and his country. The national resistance here in Germany is also battling against suppression and the ongoing occupation."7
Above all, Clemens would be more credible if he had made less effort to whitewash Heinrich Harrer, who was such a key figure in the Tibet scene. The friend of the Dalai Lama, who had died in 2006, was namely so "reformed", that he still maintained "contact with young right-wing extremists into old age": "There is a photo in the archive of the internet site of the extreme right-wing Wattenscheid 'Zeitreisen-Verlag.' The photo shows the SS Oberscharführer Heinrich Harrer and the publisher Marc Meier zu Hartum sitting next to one another. Marc Meier zu Hartum was the head of the neo-Nazi 'Volkswille' group and appeared before the Dortmund State Security Chamber in the 1990s accused of creating a criminal association."8 The criminal proceedings from April 1995 against the "Volkswille" group related to allegations such as violent attacks, damage to property, destructions, military sport, building bombs and murder threats. According to his own information on the internet, Marc Meier zu Hartum founded the "Zeitreisen-Verlag" in 1997 together with Stuart Russell; they produced several dozen documentaries and worked in an advisory capacity for ZDF, SWR and the BBC. "The company logo" was a "recreation of the BDM 'belief and beauty' logo," according to an anti-fascist website, and zu Hartum seemed to have "excellent access to living National Socialists and witnesses of the 3rd Reich." He can "also offer a large image, photo and film archive," it continues: the private photographic legacy of the SS man and 'Berghof' property manager Herbert Döhring, for example, and of Dr. Jutta Rüdiger, the advisor of the League of German Girls. Moreover, there is a second photo with Marc Meier zu Hartum in the online "Zeitreisen-Verlag" archive. This time with the SS Brigadeführer Otto Kumm. The same Marc Meier zu Hartum organises (pilgrim) journeys to the former SS Order's castle Wevelsburg, it continues.9
Publishing houses such as the Verlag Silberschnur10 or Aquamarin Verlag, specialised in esoteric and Buddhist literature, build a bridge between the German "Tibet" enthusiasts with "intestinal gas on the brain" and the brown brood. The Silberschnur Verlag belongs "in part to the Berlin 'reincarnation therapist' Tom Hockemeyer," known under his pseudonym Trutz Hardo, who was "sentenced to pay a heavy fine in April 1998 due to rabble-rousing and denigrating the memory of the deceased." In one of his novels he had described the Holocaust, among other things, as the "best possible thing" that could have happened to the Jews, as it promoted their "emotional-spiritual growth."11 Racist and fascist bodies of thought can also be found in the Munich Aquamarin-Verlag, which belongs to the Dalai Lama's friend Peter Michel and who has come under criticism many times for his "brown esotericism" and his "aura of racism."12
For the rest, the Dalai Lama and his exile government never avoided closeness to extreme right politicians and personalities or objected strongly to such supporters and friends. Quite the opposite. His Holiness, for example, had absolutely no qualms in repeatedly (1960 and 1984 in India, June 1992 in Chile) meeting with Miguel Serrano, the Hitler admirer and leader of the Chilean Nazi Party, who was unchallenged when telling reporters that he had been friends with the Dalai Lama for a long time. The Dalai Lama broke the international visitor boycott against Kurt Waldheim, the Austrian President, who was criticised for his Nazi past and, in particular, his suspected involvement in war crimes during the occupation of Yugoslavia.13 Together with Thatcher he stood up for a slaughterer and dictator such as General Pinochet. He let himself be flattered by right-wing politicians such as Jörg Haider with strong connections to Nazi circles or by a hater of "niggers" and homosexuals such as the notorious US senator Jesse Helms, who once accused the civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King and his followers of "Communism, socialism and sexual perversion."14
Whether friends such as the "war president" George W. Bush and his followers, who were responsible for the Iraq war and the torture facilities in Guantanamo and Abu-Ghuraib, are more of a credit to him remains to be seen.
The fact that also people without suspicious right-wing attitudes support the Dalai Lama is not a valid argument against the allegation that, across the decades, he had carefree friendships with Nazis and war criminals and never distanced himself from them or apologised for this. He must therefore acknowledge at least an alarming lack of "compassion" towards the victims and of political sensitivity and historical understanding.
Notes
1 Schäfer, Das Fest der weißen Schleier, p. 173 2 Cited from Peter Kværne, Die Tibetbilder der Tibetforscher, In Mythos Tibet, p. 58 and 59 3 Helmut Clemens, „Ist der Dalai Lama ein Nazifreund? Die Protokolle der Weisen von München“, In Tibet Forum Nr. 2/2000 4 In the internet portal http://www.fachzeitungen.de/seite/p/titel/titelid/1018255279 it is listed under the specialist areas "esoterics-spirituality-metaphysics-mysticism" (16/04/2013) 5 See also Goldner, Dalai Lama... p. 405 6 Helmut Clemens, „Ist der Dalai Lama ein Nazifreund?“ 7 Quoted from: http://www.trend.infopartisan.net/trd0508/t330508.html. Accessed on 15th April 2013 8 Ibid. 9 All information ibid. 10 From this publishing house comes a small book such as Lama Jigmela Rinpoche, Der tibetische Buddhismus: Schlüsselwörter von A bis Z 11 Goldner, Dalai Lama, p. 342 12 See also: Schröm, Oliver, „Rechter Wahn. Braune Esoterik auf dem Vormarsch“, In Die Zeit from 28/5/1998; Gugenberger, E./Schweidlenka, R., „Aquamarin und die Aura des Rassismus“, In: Mutter Erde, Magie und Politik: Zwischen Faschismus und Neuer Gesellschaft, Vienna 1987. Further information on the publishing houses named in Goldner, p. 341-342 and p. 392-398 13 See also Grunfeld, The Making... p. 232 and 302 14 http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/07/conservatives-a.html
32 ICT, NED, RwB: continuation of the CIA war with other means
A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.
When we hear the name "Reporters without Borders," we should not act as though we have never heard of political misinformation, secret accounts, bribed colleagues, advertising offices financed by secret service sources and their influence on public opinion.
Overall, I see no benefit in the recent unrest.
What is confusingly called "Tibet solidarity" internationally achieved its spectacular peak in 2008 with a masterfully orchestrated, global campaign. Almost entirely syn-chronously bloody unrest broke out in Lhasa, while the Olympic torchbearers were obstructed, physically assaulted or stopped by activists in almost every country they passed through. The initiators of the incidents were sure of the undivided attention of the mainstream media both here and there. People were very happy to block out and forget the hunger revolts and demonstrations, which had been taking place in many countries at the same time as a response to the strong rise in food prices, in favour of reports on China and its Tibetan region that were both sensational and untrue.
The German online news agency german-foreign-policy.com reported against the current. In an article from 08/04/2008 entitled "The torch relay campaign" they reported that the "anti-Chinese Tibet campaign" has started unfolding "in full since the unrest in the west of the People's Republic of China, which started a few days after the start of the torch relay. While the German media was primarily reporting on the brutal attacks launched by the Chinese security forces, events were presented somewhat differently in witness reports. The British journalist James Miles (The Economist), who was in Lhasa from 12th to 19th March, describes pogrom-like attacks by Tibetan bands on non-Tibetan parts of the population in the city, including the Muslim minority. According to Miles, shops owned by Tibetan merchants were marked and left undamaged; all other businesses were looted, destroyed, or set on fire. In just one building that had been set on fire five textiles saleswomen lost their lives. As well as Miles, western tourists also describe brutal attacks on non-Tibetans. A Canadian observed how several Tibetans were hitting a Han Chinese motorcyclist and 'mercilessly' mistreating him with stones. 'They then threw him to the ground, hit him on the head with stones until he lost consciousness. I think that the young man was killed,' reported the tourist." Under the sub-heading "manipulation" the article continues: "While Miles describes in a CNN interview the cautious reactions of the Chinese security forces, the unrest was used by the German media as a foil for presenting brutal Chinese repression. Facts clearly play a secondary role. Television stations and daily newspapers have since had to admit to manipulating images: film sequences with fighting Nepalese policemen were sold as documentation of apparent Chinese police brutality. The rescue of a young boy from the clutches of attacking Tibetans by security forces was confusingly labelled as a violent arrest.4 Even Miles' reports were edited in such a way that the Chinese repression took centre stage."
German-foreign-policy.com later documented the English wording of the interview that the British eyewitness gave to the American channel CNN and compared it with the extremely manipulative account reported in the Frankfurter Rundschau from 18/03/2008 ("E-mail from the city without witnesses"). The example shows what we are to make of the subsequent assertion from western journalists, that the leaked falsifications and manipulation attempts were simply "individual errors," which are in no way "evidence of an apparently distorted overall image."5 Or from the feigned outrage of the editor in chief of the Berliner Morgenpost, Carsten Erdmann, who alleged that it was "grotesque" to accuse the western media of there being "malicious intent or manipulation" behind such "inaccuracies."6
German-foreign-policy-com did not refer to a particularly crude falsi-fication in the cited article, which is why we're adding it here: a photo was disseminated via the internet, among another channels, which apparently showed that the violent excesses in Lhasa were not the work of fanatical Dalai Lama supporters and Tibetan hooligans, but rather were committed by Chinese soldiers. They had apparently acted as provocateurs on behalf of the Chinese government. The photo shows soldiers in their summer uniform who are putting on monks' robes. It soon became clear that the image had already been used once: it first appeared in 2003 on the last page of the annual report of an NGO (TCHRD) that supports the Dalai Lama and was then taken over by a Buddhist website. Even at that time the photo of PLA soldiers was exposed as being of false monks and thus apparent attempts at manipulation by the Chinese. Yet it was easy to establish that the photo could not be from 2008: both the PLA uniforms, which have displayed badges of rank since the start of 2006, and the cab of a Lhasa bicycle taxi, which changed colour in 2004 from light blue to green with blue and red stripes, clearly show that it is an older photo. It comes from the shooting of the 2002 film The Touch from the Hong Kong director Peter Pau, where soldiers were involved as extras.
The international torch relay campaign from 2008 had been planned and was directed by a full-time force in a Washington head office. One year before, from 11th to 14th May 2007, the fifth International Tibet Support Conference was held in Brussels and, like the previous conferences in Dharamsala (1990), Bonn (1996), Berlin (2000) and Prague (2003), aimed to "coordinate" the "work of the international Tibet groups" and strengthen their "connections" to the Tibetan "exile government." Germans had a significant involvement in the conference: The Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, with links to the FDP and an "upfront organisation of the Foreign Office," had already started the preparations "in March 2005 and agreed their approach with the Dalai Lama in the location of the self-titled Tibetan exile government in Dharamsala (India). Ultimately, more than 300 people from 56 countries took part, 36 Tibetan associations and 145 Tibet support groups were represented." The "exile government" sent its "Prime Minister" Samdong Rinpoche. A "prominent politician from the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, which borders the People's Republic of China" travelled with them. Dharamsala is located here and from there not only tourists or pilgrims can travel easily to Tibet. Even more importantly: "In particular, Paula Dobriansky, Undersecretary of State in the US Foreign Ministry and Special Coordinator for Tibet, also attended the Brussels conference. She had already worked under President Ronald Reagan in the National Security Council, continued her career in the State Department during President George Bush senior's time in office and has been working there again since 2001. Ms. Dobriansky is included in the inner circle of neo-conservatives in the Bush government and is considered to be an assertive hardliner."7
The USA has long been the centre of political lobbying for the Dalai Lama government and the control room for the worldwide "Tibet solidarity." In the 1960s the Tibetan exiles received USD 1.7 million from the CIA every year.8 In the meantime, the financial sources and protagonists have become more varied; yet there have fundamentally been few changes.
So much is the man seemingly worth to the US authorities...(Author: US Federal Reserve Bank)
In the "Tibet year" 1990, an American headquarters was founded in New York in the form of "Tibet House" with Elsie Walker, a cousin of George Bush and granddaughter of George Herbert Walker, as President and the actor Richard Gere as figurehead and most important procurer of donations.9 In the USA but also in Canada, Western Europe and a few Asian countries there are now a range of organisations that give the "Tibetan exile government" political and financial support, spread their propaganda or promote Tibetan Buddhism according to the Dalai Lama. In an interview in 2008 Andreas Gruschke, a German expert for Tibet, said that this "Tibetan lobby scene" is very "confusing," especially in Germany where "most of the city groups are summarised under the umbrella organisation of the Tibet Initiative Germany." "In the USA, the most significant Support Group is the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), founded in 1988, which has an enormous propaganda effect around the world due to the hidden financing from financial means provided by the US government."10
The American ICT coordinates actions and propaganda campaigns around the world, such as the ones that took place in 2008 on the Olympic Games in Beijing, and leads them. In the background, an organisation called the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is pulling the strings. Its founding dates back to an idea from former President Reagan who, during a visit to Great Britain in 1982, suggested a global initiative for promoting "democracy" based on the American model.11 The NED was subsequently founded in 1983 and supports pro-American opposition groups around the world, primarily with financing and logistics. It played an important role during the "velvet revolutions" in Eastern Europe and Georgia, which served the geopolitical and economic interests of the USA. The German Wikipedia therefore calls it a "semi-governmental arm" of American "foreign policy" and explains: "Despite the public financing" the NED seems, purely from a "legal perspective," to be a "private, non-profit organisation." The benefit: "That enables the state to transfer budget funds to overseas organisations via a third party."12 In fact, every year "half of NED's funding is awarded annually to hundreds of non-governmental organizations based abroad which apply for support." "In the financial year to the end of September 2009 NED had an income of $135.5 million, nearly all of which came from U.S Government agencies."13
Bill Berkowitz, from the Working for Change initiative, describes the approach of the CIA cover organisation as follows: "NED operates like a complete infrastructure service. It delivers money, technical support, media know-how, contemporary facilities and helps with public relations work for selected political groups, civil organisations, unions, dissident movements, student groups, publishing companies, newspapers and other media. Its goal is to destabilise progressive movements, particularly those with socialist or democratic-socialist tendencies."14
Of the 28 Asian organisations financed by the NED, 18 are related to China according to the English Wikipedia. They deal with "democracy" and "human rights" (e. g. Human Rights in China, the China Strategic Institute, and the Laogai Research Foundation) or, as "in the case of Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet" with "local interests" that are "against China" or in favour of "independence from China." The NED also campaigns for the renegade Taiwan ("Republic of China") as a "model of democratisation."
Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, is even clearer when he writes, "There is a division of tasks between the CIA and the NED. While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel groups and terrorist organisations, the NED finances 'civilian' political parties and non-governmental organizations with a view to instating American 'democracy' around the world."15 The NED, for example, contributed quite a lot to the "civic organisations" that were involved in the failed putsch attempt against President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. The same applies to opposition groups in Haiti who, with their armed revolt, triggered the fall of President Aristide in February 2004.
The "extremely anti-democratic"16 NED thus finances a range of pro-Dalai Lama organisations both in China and overseas. The aforementioned International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), with branches in Washington, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels has, according to Professor Chossudovsky, a particularly "close, cosy and 'overlapping' relationship with the NED and the U.S. State Department."17 This is ensured by the ICT board of directors, which includes "Bette Bao Lord (who is the chair of Freedom House and a director of Freedom Forum), Gare A. Smith (who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan issues, has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and CEO of Inter-Action), and finally Mark Handelman (who is also a director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, an organisation whose work is ideologically linked to the NED's longstanding interventions in Haiti)."18 The ICT's board of advisors also "presents two individuals who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang Xiao (who is the former executive director of the NED-funded Human Rights in China)." Other notable names on the list of this international Coalition of the Willing are, for example, Fang Lizhi, board member of Human Rights in China, Vaclav Havel, Kerry Kennedy (who is a director of the NED-financed China Information Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who is an international patron of the British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson Society) and Jeane J. Kirkpatrick who, up until her death a few years ago, was the "midwife of the neo-conservatives" in the USA.19
The Tibet Information Network (TIN), which operated from London, received "strong NED support" every year from 1999 to 2004 before it was closed in 2005 due to insufficient funds and its director, the Tibetologist Thierry Dodin, moved to TibetInfoNet. The co-founder of TIN, Nicholas Howen, was later named as secretary general of the well-known "International Commission of Jurists."
The list of organisations financed by NED funds also includes the Students for a Free Tibet (SFT), founded in 1994, who proclaimed from America the start of a "Tibetan popular uprising," and the Tibet Multimedia Center in Dharamsala. The list is far from being exhausted.20
When "Tibetan activists" aggressively disrupted in 2008 the ceremony in Greece during which the Olympic torch was ignited, the event was sponsored by an organisation that, in terms of its name and direct objectives, is not necessarily connected with sport, the Tibetan region or China: the "Reporters without Borders." The choice of name for the association, which was founded in Marseille in 1985 by Robert Ménard, was no coincidence. On the contrary, it was the clever and shameless attempt to sail in the channels of the well-known "Doctors without Borders" and to benefit from their popularity and the reputation they have acquired through their humanitarian missions. It is not only in this respect that Mr Ménard's NGO is travelling under a false flag. It claims to be a type of in-ternational union of journalists, who are protecting their profes-sion against danger, attacks, limitations, and hindrances. Yet when identifying and choosing the colleagues to be protected and the "enemy of journalistic freedom" it is conspicuously selective. The dangers posed to freedom of the press and opinions from powerful national and international media companies (Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi come to mind) are, in any case, not an issue for "Reporters without Borders." Nor are the mass dismissals of journalists in their own countries. As Ménard himself said to the weekly newspaper Marianne: "We have decided to denounce the breaches of press freedom in Bosnia and Gabon and the ambivalent situation of the Algeria or Tunisian media... but not to worry about the undesirable developments in France."21 If you receive generous donations from various French ministries, the European Union, the most important French companies and from press empires such as the Spanish Zeta group (13 daily newspapers, two weekly newspapers and 13 monthly newspapers) then you know how to behave...
Particularly often, with strong words and even spectacular actions, Reporters without Borders pilloried a few countries by, with complete overconfidence and in striking agreement with the US government's agenda, avowedly wanting to bring about a regime change: Cuba, Venezuela, and China. In an article about RwB published online, Volker Bräutigam, former editor of the ARD "Tagesschau," remembers: "'Reporters with their trousers down' was the title of a report on ZNet from Carolina Cositore on anti-Cuban machinations within the RwB. Thomas Immanuel Steinberg (www.SteinbergRecherche.com) describes the association as 'Reporters without shame Borders.' These, and many other critics, accuse the Reporters Sans Frontières of one-eyed reporting on the persecution of journalists. The selection of countries is based on the Black List of the US-State Department: Iran, Syria, North Korea, Vietnam, China, Cuba, but avoids any reporting on activities against journalists in the USA or countries connected with the USA. Thus, RwB did not report on media personal killed in the Philippines, even though the number of journalists murdered there is the second highest in the world. Even in the case of the Miami Five, sentenced to 'life' in prison in the USA, and the journalist and Amnesty International supporter Mumia Abu Jamal, sentenced to death, there has been no reporting from RwB."22
The press releases, with which RwB filled the media, are seldom about information to help journalists affected by dismissal, persecution, or a restriction in their freedom of opinion and information. RwB is more concerned with circulating cheap political sentiment, propaganda, and misinformation. Volker Bräutigam establishes this from a typical "RwB report," whose information he calls "grossly misleading due to its incompleteness" and that, in his eyes, is "a classic contribution towards promoting political prejudices."
Maxime Vivas, a French journalist and author of an excellent monography on the ugly face hidden behind the mask of "Reporters without Borders,"23 also documents in detail how much the apparent lobby of the journalists held back when the US army selectively murdered reporters, who were not embedded.24 The Serbian journalists who lost their lives in the Kosovo War during the NATO attacks on their station, and the Chinese colleagues who died after an "accidental" hit on their Belgrade embassy, were of no interest to Ménard's RwB.
Who is then surprised that RwB has, for many years, been receiving financial support from CIA cover organisations such as the NED, the USAID-financed Center for a Free Cuba, the International Republican Institute (IRI) or the Open Society Institute of the US multi-billionaire and stock exchange speculator Soros?25
The notably strong enthusiasm of the "Reporters without Borders" alongside the Olympics troublemakers in 2008 had very little to do with the right to free (or even honest and in line with the facts) reporting, but rather much more to do with the intensely aggressive, subversive China policy of the western "leading power." In this light, Andreas Gruschke also saw the true goals of "Tibet solidarity" at the time and the riots and lynchings orchestrated in Tibet. When asked about the actual benefits of this, he answered in the aforementioned interview that "the Tibetans in Tibet" had "no benefit under the given circumstances, quite the opposite. The direct neighbouring countries also had just as little benefit. The benefit for the Tibetan exiles amounted only to moral and – to a lesser extent – financial support. Yet their declared political goals of true autonomy and politics oriented more strongly towards western human rights" were pushed "further in the distance through the rifts that were becoming ever more insurmountable."
If the "activists" imagined that the "unrest would instigate a collapse in China and thus a possible return to Tibet," then they were under "an illusion." It was therefore necessary to "differentiate" between the "superficial and sublime goals" of the apparent Tibet solidarity: "superficially" it was about "supporting the demands of the Tibetan exile government, whose notions were equated with those of the Dalai Lama." Most Tibet initiatives can certainly be assumed to have "fundamentally noble motives" e.g. advocating human rights. However, and this applies to the "more sublime" goals, of which most Tibet enthusiasts are not even aware: "Following their non-questioned assumption of exile Tibetan positions, combined with romanticised images of Tibet created 100 years ago," they would actually achieve "the opposite" and, in a "naive way," let themselves be "abused as tools of Tibetan exile propaganda,"26 behind which lies other interests and goals. Particularly the USA would welcome "a weakened China." The most financially strong "lobby groups," who can call upon "financing from the US national budget," therefore strived to "damage the image of the People's Republic of China." The USA saw its economic rise as a threat and thus tried to "prevent" China's growing political influence in the world.27 The interests of the western hegemonic power are not the same as those of other countries: "I think it is clear to the other nations in the world that an uneasy Tibet and thus instable China would be unpredictable. I do not venture to suggest whether they would also welcome a weakening, primarily from an economic perspective."28
Holding hands with Senator McCain
The Dalai Lama at the neo-conservative and ultra-liberal economic US think-tank American Enterprise Institute
Notes
1 Washington Post, 21. September 1991, quoted from Michael Barker: "'Democratic Imperialism.' Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy," In Global Research, 13th August 2007 2 http://www.rundfunkfreiheit.de/meldung_volltext.php3?si=45b8c616552aa&id=445cacbfad690&akt=brancheninfos_medienpolitik&view=&lang=1 3 Interview with Hans Wagner, http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=20080506 4 The Berliner Morgenpost, for example, had published the photo, inadvertently with the wording that it shows a "rioter" being taken away by security authorities. 5 So, for example, the line of defence adopted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. – Western media intentionally ignored the reports and videos from independent eye witnesses. The French consul in Chengdu, Serge Koenig, confirms: "As per Chengdu, foreigners who fled provided eye witness reports, which were fairly far removed from what the western media reported." (S. Koenig, Alpiniste et diplomate: J'entends battre le coeur de la Chine, Grenoble, Éditions Glénat, 2013, p. 47; own translation.) The French-language website tibetdoc.eu lists, as well as the aforementioned James Miles, the German journalist Georg Blume, the Slovenian aid worker Urusula Rechback, and the tourists John Kenwood from Canada and Michael Smith from Australia. He filmed impressive videos. The website also refers to further videos. See also http://www.tibetdoc.eu/spip/spip.php?article261 6 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/westmedien-hetze-in-china-ich-hatte-ihnen-geglaubt-1.266323 – We must not forget to mention here the politically motivated dismissals among the Chinese-speaking editorial team at the "Deutsche Welle," which show that censorship, notwithstanding the provisions of the constitution, is in place and the spirit of Senator Joseph McCarthy lives on in Germany... 7 Quotes and information from: "Die Fackellauf-Kampagne," report from 08/04/2008 on german-foreign-policy. com 8 See also: Martens, Histoire du boudhisme tibétain, p. 167, which refers to Conboy/Morrison, The CIA´s Secret War in Tibet, Kansas 2002. 9 See also Grunfeld: The Making... p. 233 10 http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=20080506 11 See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy 12 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy 13 See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy 14 http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy 15 Michel Chossudovsky: "China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp," In Global Research, 13th April 2008 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/china-and-america-the-tibet-human-rights-psyop) 16 Michael Barker: "'Democratic Imperialism': Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy," In Global Research, 13. August 2007 17 Michel Chossudovsky: "China and America"... 18 Michael Barker, "Democratic Imperialism" 19 Information and quotes ibid. 20 See also ibid. 21 Quoted from Vivas, La face cachée de Reporters sans frontières: De la CIA aux faucons du Pentagone, Brussels, Les éditions Aden, p. 20; own translation 22 http://www.rundfunkfreiheit.de/meldung_volltext.php3?si=45b8c616552aa&id=445cacbfad690&akt=brancheninfos_medienpolitik&view=&lang=1 23 Maxime Vivas, La face cachée de Reporters sans frontières. – Mr. Ménard has since found a suitable political home, namely with the right-wing radical Front National. 24 On 8th April 2003, Taras Protsyuk, who worked for the British agency Reuters and José Couso, who worked for a Spanish TV channel, died "inadvertently" in the Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, the former office of the international press. In October 2003, the Reuters cameraman, Mazin Dana, was shot by US soldiers while filming outside the Abu Ghraib torture prison. On 1st November 2004, the same thing happened to the Reuters cameraman Najim... The International Association of Journalists spoke of sixty-two journalists killed since the start of the US intervention in Iraq. The Spanish-Syrian Al-Jazira reporter Tayssir Alouni accused the US Army of "eliminating witnesses" in a targeted manner. See also Vivas, La face cachée... p. 65-77 25 See also Vivas, La face cachée... p. 29-42; See also: Diana Barahona, "Reporters Without Borders Unmasked: Its Secret Deal with Otto Reich to Wreck Cuba´s Economy", http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/05/17/reporterswithout-borders-unmasked/ 26 Andreas Gruschke in an interview with Hans Wagner, http://www.eurasischesmagazin.de/artikel/?artikelID=20080506) 27 Ibid. – Gruschke does not spare his criticism of the way in which the Chinese authorities react to protests from Tibetans. They should "sit around a table" with the dissatisfied Tibetans in China and search "for solutions," instead of placing "the Tibetans under general suspicion after each larger demonstration," he means, and suggests that in Peking people rely too much on "the old Tibetan cadre-guard in Lhasa." On the other hand, he also acknowledges the good will of the authorities and stresses "that in China there are serious and well thought out approaches for solving the Tibetans' economic problems and promote their culture." 28 Ibid.
33 Burning for the Dalai Lama?
If a child of Buddha kills, or if someone incites another person to kill, or equips them with the means to kill or suggests this, or whoever praises the act of killing, or whoever sees a person committing this act and then endorses what this person did (...) shall be expelled from the (Buddhist) community.
Earthly existence is of little worth in Tibet and death has no terrors. Men know that they will be born again and hope for a higher form of existence in the next life, earned by pious conduct in this one.
The planned Miss World competition was met with increasingly heavy protests in India. The most recent climax: a 24-year old man (...) set himself on fire outside a bus stop on Thursday in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. In the weeks beforehand, radical organisations had repeatedly threatened self-immolations if the government didn't stop the beauty spectacle.
Awave of twelve suicides within only three days, all of which followed the same pattern – that was reported in the daily newspapers after the Pentecost weekend in 2012. But not, as one might think, in Tibet, and therefore also not in major headlines and on the front pages but rather, if at all, as an unremarkable short report. The story originated from a statement from the French railway company SNCF and related to an unusual cluster of suicide cases on the tracks of the French nail network, apparently triggered by the "severity of the economic crisis." On average, there is "only" one suicide per day on the French railway network, which would therefore mean around 350 per year in a more or less normal economic situation... The people who, due to world-weariness or desperation, turn on the gas tap, take an overdose of medication, cut their veins or jump from a bridge or out of a window are, of course, not included in the statistics of the French railway company. It is only occasionally that figures even make their way into the public domain. France 24, the television channel, reported on 10th October 2013, almost as an aside and as an uncommented brief statement, that more than 500 farmers had committed suicide in France in the previous three years.
For the media in France, and a fortiori in the rest of Europe, even a spectacular case of suicide such as that on 8th August 2012, when an approximately 50-year-old man set fire to himself in the social welfare office in the small French town of Mantes-la-Jolie, is at best worthy of a note in the local section. Following a further reported case of self-immolation on 13th February 2013 involving a 43-year-old unemployed man, the newly elected French President Hollande, who was on a state visit to India, at least felt compelled to respond with a few words of sympathy. Since then there has been a wave of self-immolation attempts in France: e.g. in March 2013 a 45-year-old immigrant from Algeria set fire to himself outside the police headquarters in Toulon; on 6th August, a young Tunisian man, who had been refused a permanent residence permit, tried to burn himself in Draguignan. The Var-matin4 local newspaper later reported that he had been sent to "a psychiatric hospital."
"Why look so far afield when the good is so near?" – this is in no case the slogan of the "serious" French newspaper Le Monde. French suicides are clearly not exotic, picturesque or spiritual enough for a major lead story and whole-page reports with pictures on the opening pages. However, the paper did not feel it was beneath it to dedicate, over the Christmas period in 2012, one position (with an eye-catching photo) on the first page plus the entire following double page to the Tibetan suicide victims (the International Campaign for Tibet counted in December 2012 95 since 2009). Alongside its own reporting from the Chinese province of Gansu (and not from Tibet itself, even though it was confusingly entitled "Journey through pursued Tibet, on the road of the sacrificed")5 the edition also contained a correspondent's report on the meeting between around 30 Chinese dissidents in Peking under the slogan "A prayer for dignity and free life." It wasn't exactly a mass movement, but sometimes you have to take what you're given...
The following was also merely a short message from 2012: "Suicide rate rising drastically in Athens, Greece. The economic crisis in Greece is driving more and more people to suicide. The police recorded 677 suicides and suicide attempts in 2009; these numbers were 830 in 2010 and 927 in 2011. This is taken from a response from the responsible minister, Nikos Dendias, to a parliamentary enquiry. The number will also rise this year: the police had recorded 690 cases by 23rd August."6 In Greece, people are holding not only their own corrupt political class responsible for the economic impoverishment of large parts of the population, but also the German government and Chancellor Merkel. No reason, therefore, for the German media to broadcast suicides in Greece. They also do not cover suicides in Germany unless perhaps a "star" is involved.
But wait! Maybe the interest shown in Tibetan self-immolations by the western media is simply due to the particularly horrible and painful type of death that the perpetrators/victims have chosen. Then their agony must be much greater, for example, than that of their fellow Bulgarian or Algerian sufferers. In Algeria between January and May 2012 alone (i.e. within only four months), there were around 50 attempted or fatal self-immolations that drew absolutely no headlines and no long commentaries in the western media. (The French news channel France 24 at least issued a newsflash on 6th May 2012). Yet the number significantly exceeded the self-immolations of Tibetans, which had affected 34 monks by the end of May 2012, of whom 20 lost their life. They all took place outside of actual Tibet, in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu.7 The series did not reach Lhasa until the end of May 2012. But also there the two very young suicide victims had come from provinces far away: one was a 23-year-old from Xiahe, around 2,000 km northeast of Lhasa. The other, a 19-year-old novice, came from Aba in the province of Sichuan. The first person in the series of suicides, an 18-year-old monk, also came from there. According to information from Tibetan exiles, more than 120 Tibetans have since set themselves on fire.
Were the human torches in Algeria possibly fanatical Islamists, which could explain why they are treated so shabbily in our news and commentaries? Understandably, people have no sympathy for them since 9/11 (unless they are ruling in Saudi Arabia or fighting in Libya and Syria against governments that are not devout enough). Is that why we do not shed any tears for them? The Tibetan suicide victims are no zealous followers of Allah, his prophet and jihad; in contrast, they are representatives of the wisdom, spirituality, and tolerance of Asia. Is it therefore any wonder that they are met with sympathy and that their suffering and plight receives particular attention?
Yet how can it then be, we must ask, that every suicide in Tibet causes a murmur of consternation in our press whereas, the suicides not of hundreds, nor of thousands, not even of tens of thousands but rather, believe it or not, 150,000 – 200,000 Indian farmers in the past ten years hardly even triggers a breeze among the treetops of Western public opinion? 17,000 – in words seventeen thousand – desperate and hopelessly indebted Indian farmers took their lives in the, thanks to British colonisation, "largest democracy in earth" in 2009 alone, when the weakest monsoon for 37 years threatened the harvests,8 often in a horrible manner, by drinking poisonous or caustic chemicals or even set themselves on fire.
There is therefore no doubt: for the Western public, particularly for the media, suicide is not just suicide and life is not equal to life. In any case, suicides out of economic and social distress only interest few people in a world that understands financial markets and raw materials prices as unalterable natural events. In addition, the fact that the life and health of a western European or American are worth more than the life and health of an Iraqi, Afghan, Congolese or Indian, is shown by common western jurisdiction when it determines the amount of compensation payments to be made to the victims of accidents or war crimes and to their surviving dependants.
Yet not every violent death or suicide of an American triggers international headlines. Can we conclude from this that Tibetans stand even higher on the price scale of human life, which is as macabre as it is outrageous, than US citizens? Hardly. The reason for the particular attention that our media gives to burning Tibetans lies in the fact that it can be well used to turn public opinion against China. And the fact that a rapidly developing China could threaten the global hegemony of the USA and its allies in the long term. Reason enough to realign the strategy of the greatest military power in world history towards the Pacific and East Asia. Reason enough also to deploy, alongside the military muscle play and sabre-rattling, the entire American-Atlantic "soft power" to weaken the competitors. By damaging its reputation in Western public opinion, by isolating it internationally and, who knows, even by endangering its internal order and unity.
"Tibet is burning and the world is watching" was the title of an article on the self-immolations. That is not quite true. Tibet is in no way burning, even if there are powers who repeatedly play with fire (with moderate success). The world is watching? But of course, people in the West watch every spark struck in China like a hawk, whereas when there are major fires elsewhere (Kashmir, Turkish Kurdistan, Mindanao...) they have, in part, made efforts to look away for years. And some people lament that, nowadays, we can no longer restore law and order in China ourselves, as used to be the case in the opium wars or the military campaign against the "Boxers," or as more recently elsewhere in ex-Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya.
In recent times, it is true that Tibetans, mainly young monks9 and usually outside of Tibet, have repeatedly chosen the gruesome and spectacular method of self-immolation for their protest. Most people probably ask why a person would put an end to their life, and in such a horrific way, by pouring petrol on themselves and burning. Doesn't this show that they are genuinely suffering from a form of oppression that has become unbearable?10
In the media reports and statements from the "Free Tibet" organisations (reporting in our media is generally fully aligned with these statements), the main things stated as reasons for the suicides are generally "Chinese oppression," control and harassment from the Chinese authorities and the unsatisfied demand for the Dalai Lama's return. There is generally a complete lack of more specific information about the "suppression." The aforementioned long report from Le Monde also states as a reason for the discontentment "modernisation at a forced march tempo" in the form of a motorway and an airport planned in the region. Yet that seems somewhat poor as a motive for a wave of suicides. In Stuttgart, Berlin, or French Nantes (with the Notre Dame-des-Landes airport project), neither priests nor laypersons set themselves on fire in protest against new train stations or airports. Even the apparent attempts of the authorities in Gansu und Qinghai to replace Tibetan with Chinese as the teaching language in secondary schools11, which are also used as an explanation, are probably only ostensible reasons for the spectacular suicides.12 Ironically, the depiction by the International Campaign for Tibet quoted in the paper almost seems to be more honest. It states that the suicide victims wanted to protest in general "against the oppression of their religion and culture." The religious suppression must be dreadful, radical and relentless: the village of Amchok in the province of Gansu, from where the Le Monde special correspondent reports exclusively because it is a centre for the wave of suicides, has around ten houses and a monastery with 450 monks! The fact that the existence of such a monastery is not exactly to be seen as a sign of particularly brutal suppression of freedom of belief, does not seem to have occurred to the journalist. The article also does not reveal who is paying the maintenance for the monks and the monastery; the critical correspondent did not even ask this question during his basic research.
General discontentment due to economic marginalisation, the sense of being restricted and controlled, uneasiness about modernisation that is considered to be happening too quickly, concerns about the future significance of their minority language – these are all possible and probably frequently applicable reasons for human protests, not only from Tibetans, in China or elsewhere. However, they do not even come close to explaining the radicality and self-destructive violence of self-immolations. Where there is no extremely personal emergency (unemployment over many years, extremely high debts, homelessness etc.), there are not many possible explanations left. When people sacrifice themselves, or are sacrificed, whether as victims of fire or slaughter, when the highest good of human life or the life of one's own children no longer matters, then we find ourselves in the most innate field of religious fanaticism and political, religious extremism. As a symbol, orchestrated suicide, whether it is combined with murder or not, is most likely committed by otherwise mentally healthy people due to religious sectarian delusion, often combined with manipulation by a charismatic leader.13
There is no shortage of examples of such connections from the past. A particularly spectacular example occurred some decades ago: on 18th November 1978 in Jonestown in South American Guyana the followers of an American Christian sect committed collective suicide. A total of 923 people died. The reason: their guru, Jim Jones, felt that he was being politically repressed and persecuted by the American Congress because they wanted to investigate allegations of false imprisonment and sexual abuse. For this reason, the sect devotees had already left God's own country, even though the country is known to set the boundaries of religious freedom very wide.
Even the (mainly Saudi) attackers on 11th September 2001 did not kill themselves (and many others) out of despair and not because they were condemned to an unbearable life of hardship and misery. In contrast, they were privileged compared with most people in their home countries and around the world: students from good families, who were able to study in Europe, with a more or less secure professional future. They were incited and seduced to commit their act, and religious fanaticism played a very significant role.
As these examples are from Christian and Islamic cultural circles, some examples from Asian countries might be appropriate? The public Seppuku suicide of the right-wing radical Japanese author Yukio Mishima is such an example, and also particularly appropriate, as inexplicable, delusional political motives, particularly his backward-looking and fanatical nationalism, played a critical role.14 Incidentally, the actual founders of the suicide attacks mainly associated with Islam were the Tamil Tigers, the fanatical Hindu separatists in Sri Lanka.
It is therefore not absurd to suppose that Tibetan monks and laypersons who are devoted to their guru, the Dalai Lama, to the point of self-sacrifice, and whose main demand is his return to his former home, commit their self-destructive act of madness at the suggestion of Dharamsala and in expectation of a reward post mortem. David-Néel reports that the lamas taught, for example, that those who died during a pilgrimage "could expect rebirth in the abode of Tschenresi" in "the realms of Western Paradise." If "thousands of years of peace and bliss" beckon pilgrims who die through an accident, exhaustion or illness,15 then this certainly applies to martyrs, who sacrifice themselves for their highest lama. For the young Tibetan mothers, who set fire to themselves without any consideration for the feelings and further fate of their children, religious delusion and extreme political and religious fanaticism seem to be the only plausible explanations.
Their serial nature and the media attention given to the self-immolations suggest a centrally orchestrated campaign and cynical puppet masters. This is indirectly confirmed by Patrick French. He starts his Tibet Tibet book by describing the first self-immolation of a Tibetan, the monastery cook and ex-soldier Thubten Ngodup, on 27th April 1998 in New Delhi. Six other Tibetan exiles were protesting there with a media-effective hunger strike, which guaranteed them "frequent visits from the world's press."16 French cites in a footnote the BBC journalist Daniel Lak, who reported in the Indian newspaper Biblio in June 2003 receiving a call on the morning of the day that Ngodup set fire to himself: "The voice on the line was German, speaking English with a heavy accent. The tone was frantic. Get down here to Jantar Mantar, the woman said, someone is threatening to set themselves on fire ... A pause, then ... Oh God, he's going to do it, he's going to do it... She sounded hysterical, already in tears. Still sleepy, but knowing perfectly well what my caller was talking about, I started shouting. If you know someone is going to kill themselves then stop them, don't expect me to put their death on television because I won't. You disgust me. I hung up. A few minutes later ... Thubten Ngodub doused himself in petrol then struck a match ... I am still angry at the foreigners who colluded in the self-immolation of an ordinary Tibetan exile. I felt there was more than one element of cynicism in the phone call I received before Ngodup's death." French himself comments on the situation: "It was news to me that Ngodup's death was foreshadowed in this way; I found the idea of such collusion deeply disturbing."17
The Dalai Lama himself steered clear of publicly calling for suicide campaigns. But he did not put a stop to them! His lukewarm distancing was in line with the tactic he always followed in such cases: he distanced himself just as carefully from the calls to boycott the Olympic Games in Peking and the attacks on the Olympic torchbearers as from the lynching and arson attacks in the 1980s and in 2008 in Lhasa. He also never publicly acknowledged the armed terror of the 1950s and 1960s. He was always careful to blame all violence, even the Tibetan violence, on the evil Chinese and to play himself the role of the prince of peace and the preacher of non-violence. Unlike his younger brother, Tenzin Choegyal. He openly acknowledged terrorism at the end of the 1980s, also against Chinese civilians: "We must let blood flow."18 As did the "General Secretary" of the "Tibetan youth congress," Tashi Namgyal, or Phuntsog Wangyal, the Dalai Lama's long-term representative in Great Britain and Scandinavia.19
But let's return to the self-immolations. I must admit: burning monks could initially count on a certain sympathy from me, and I can still remember well the self-immolations of Vietnamese monks in the late 1960s. At that time, they turned to this extreme method to protest against the murderous war that the USA was waging on their country. However, the extreme form of protest does not vouch for its justification and the fairness of the issue in question. What many people don't know, for example, is that self-immolations have a long history in India, the country in which the Dalai Lama's "exile government" was so warmly received. For example, in 1990 and 1992 there were major student demonstrations there, accompanied by riots and orgies of violence. Shops were destroyed and buses set on fire. The peak of the protests were the self-immolations: several students covered themselves in petrol, set themselves on fire and died a gruesome death.
A human "sacrificial lamp" for the Dalai Lama. Reporters take photos, the demonstrating Tibetan exiles gawp.
The Hindu BJP party, which Salman Rushdie and others describe as fascist, initiated and organised the protests. The BJP reminded the Frenchman Boulet of the Front National in his home country: "Christian and Celtic France, Hindu and Aryan India." The BJP's political demands include defending against the "invasion" of immigrants from Bangladesh and abolishing English in primary schools in favour of the native Hindi. The long-term objective is the creation of a Hindu theocracy. Yet against what were the students who responded to the BJP's calls for demonstrations and violent protests protesting? They were all members of higher castes. What makes young Indians from these circles decide to die as living torches? The demonstrators, rioters and suicide victims wanted to prevent a law on the "positive discrimination" of the lower castes and the casteless (the "untouchables"). They were Hindu fanatics, just like the murderer of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of Indian independence. Boulet, the young Frenchman, who had put himself in the skin of a casteless Indian and observed the protests from this perspective, commented the events as follows: "Good, if they set themselves on fire to demonstrate against us, instead of inflicting violence on us, then all the better. I must admit that I would not waste a single bucket of water on them. Everything I touch is impure for them anyway. Let them die a miserable death, and then good riddance to them!"20
Our media reached the peak of cynicism when they, together with the Tibetan exiles, pilloried the Chinese authorities because they intervened in some cases to extinguish a monk who had turned into a living torch, and because they punished those who aided and instigated suicide. Furthermore, they accused the Chinese authorities of wanting to prevent further self-immolations through a stronger police presence and greater monitoring of certain monasteries. Don't even try to imagine what journalists would write in the West if the Chinese authorities simply looked away. Or were even to react like the aforementioned Marc Boulet.
Notes
1 Brahma Net Sutra, In Bernard Faure, Buddhism and Violence; quoted from: http://www.trimondi.de/Lamaismus/Krieg-4-Gewalt.htm 2 Harrer, Seven Years... p. 168-169 3 http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/mit-selbstverbrennung-gegen-indiens-untergang/5950.html, accessed on 31/10/2013 4 Edition from 7/ 8/ 2013, p. 14 5 « Voyage à travers le Tibet persécuté, sur la route des immolés », In Le Monde, 26th December 2012, p. 1, 2 and 3 6 Tageblatt (Luxembourg), 24 and 25/11/2012 7 A Tibetan "blogger" names the burning points, this time in the literal sense, as Ngaba, Labrang and Rebkong. See also Tsering Woeser, Immolations au Tibet. La honte du monde, Translated from the Chinese by Dekyid, Preface from Robert Badinter. (On Kindle as an e-book) 8 See also Tageblatt (Luxembourg), 18/ 01/ 2011 9 See also Tsering Woeser, who emphasises, "The monks were at the head of the wave of immolations..." 10 The Tibetan separatist Tsering Woeser expressly contradicts this, by concluding from the written legacies from the suicide victims, "3. The self-sacrifices are not predominantly borne out of despair." (Immolations au Tibet; own translation) 11 We note, what the journalist intentionally oversees, namely that at least in the primary and middle schools in these provinces partly inhabited by Tibetans, the language of teaching was Tibetan. The Turkish Kurds, for example, or the North American first nations or European Roma people can only dream of this. 12 Incidentally, why the reporter's duty of care did not induce him to seek a statement from the authorities there shall remain his secret. 13 It is no coincidence that the Dalai Lama's followers use the expression "sacrificial lamps" on the Chinese internet for the self-immolations, as Tsering Woeser reports. See also Immolations au Tibet 14 There was recently a copycat in France: the "right-wing national" publicist Dominique Venner shot himself on 21st May 2013 before the altar in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to shake up the French people. Marine Le Pen expressed her "respect" for him on Twitter. 15 David-Néel, Mein Weg... p. 84 16 French, Tibet Tibet, p. 5 17 Ibid., comment p. 7 18 Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, Paris, Gallimard, 1990, 1992, p. 310; own translation 19 See also Donnet, Tibet mort ou vif, p. 309, p. 313 20 Boulet, p. 194, 195; own translation. – Indian demonstrators even set themselves on fire, for example, in protest against Miss World contests, which they considered to be an attack on traditional culture.
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图书在版编目（CIP）数据
“西藏问题”国际纷争的背景、流变及视域：英文／（卢森堡）阿尔伯特·艾廷格著；德国WTS翻译机构译．--北京：五洲传播出版社，2018.4
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“西藏问题”国际纷争的背景、流变及视域
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0n 23rd May 1991, the US senate adopted for the first time a declaration in which they called Tibet "an occupied country."
If we remember that the imperial Chinese ambans (co-)ruled in Lhasa for more than half a century before the USA even came into existence,
and that a large part of the current territory of this USA was not annexed until much later, during a long process, and through conquests, war, deception, breach of contract and the genocide of native Americans, the presumptuousness and brazenness (or even ridiculousness) of such a declaration is all too apparent.
We should not forget that neither the League of Nations, nor the UN, nor individual countries such as the USA, Great Britain or India ever officially acknowledged Tibet as an independent state. Not even at a time when China was not yet (again) an important subject, but rather a largely powerless object in world history.
However, the following realisation is more important than legal considerations: the few decades of a Tibetan de facto "independence" were in no way a golden age of peace and freedom. They were rather an era of imperialist interference, political and social standstill, maladministration, aristocratic and clerical oppression, heightened exploitation and taxation, economic decline, continued obscurantism, blatant injustice, political intrigues, murders, war and civil war...