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April 8, 2011
A humorous but incisive analysis of most famous Buddhist monk in the world. You can find more about Mark Giordano at his website: http://www.markgio.com/ and more about the Dalai Lama throughout the pages of this site. Enjoy.
The Dalai Lama Cables: An Instrument of US Foreign Policy
April 5, 2011
Dalai Lama History Japan
In the previous release from the Dalai Lama Cables, we revealed that the US government had considered deploying the Dalai Lama in Vietnam as a means to split the Buddhist community there and further the US anti-communist agenda. It is clear from those discussions that the US viewed the Dalai Lama as an asset, an instrument to be used to further their foreign policy objectives. Given that he had accepted CIA funding for himself (to the tune of $180,000 annually) and his activities (some years well in excess of $1 million annually), it is quite understandable that they’d want to get their money’s worth.
Although the Dalai Lama didn’t visit Vietnam, he did visit Thailand and Japan in 1967 – two countries supposedly directly affected by the Vietnam war according to Domino theory.
We trawled through the cables to see what information we could find on these trips.
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A telegram from the US Embassy in Tokyo dated 1 April 1965 describes an early stage in the planning of the Dalai Lama’s trip to Japan.
What is immediately clear from the telegram is that, behind the scenes, it is the US Secretary of State who is organising this trip.
The Ambassador in Tokyo explains that there are a number of hurdles involved:
- The ‘Japanese themselves feel no particular affinity for Tibetans and Japanese Buddhists regard Tibetan Buddhists as only distantly related.’
- Although the Government of Japan will not prevent the visit they are ‘unlikely to regard such trip with much enthusiasm’.
- ‘It may be difficult to find significant japanese Buddhist group which would wish to involve itself sufficiently to sponsor Dalai visit.’
Essentially it seems no one in japan particularly wants the Dalai Lama to come. Even the Buddhist clergy would only be ‘willing to meet with upon his request.’
However, the first and most important point of the telegram reads:
‘The Dalai Lama’s visit to Japan would be advantageous from our point of view in reminding Japanese of ChiCom attitudes’.
So, because the Dalai Lama’s visit serves a US foreign policy interest the Ambassador thinks ‘possibly we could stir up some support’.
Nonetheless, the ambassador assumes ‘if visit takes place US will not be overtly involved.’
The visit did take place, the US pulled the strings to make it happen. The US used the Dalai Lama and his teachings as an instrument of US foreign policy. A pattern that appears to have been repeated again and again.
There is something overwhelming sad about the precious teachings of Lord Buddha being used as a weapon of psychological warfare, a mere tool in cold war squabbles. By mixing religion and politics, the Dalai Lama allowed this sad situation to develop. Now is the time to completely free Buddhism from political pollution.
The Dalai Lama Cables: The US wanted to deploy the Dalai Lama in Vietnam
March 29, 2011
As is well documented elsewhere on this site, the Dalai Lama was on the CIA payroll from 1959 until at least 1974. He was provided with $180,000 per year as part of the US anti-communist propaganda efforts.
What recently declassified documents now reveal is that the US wanted to deploy the Dalai Lama in Vietnam as part of their anti-communist propaganda efforts there. On three separate occasions deploying the Dalai Lama is discussed at the highest level.
On 16 December 1964, General Maxwell D. Taylor suggests steps the Government of Vietnam might take, the first of these being:
‘1. Arrange for the Dalai Lama, his brother, or other Buddhist leaders from other countries to visit Vietnam to educate Vietnamese bonzes on the perils of Communism and their civil responsibilities.’
On 8 March 1965, Henry Cabot Lodge – the Presidential Consultant on Vietnam – gives 14 recommendations regarding Vietnam to President Johnson, recommendation number 10 is:
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‘The Dalai Lama should be brought to Saigon as an object lesson of the dreadful things Communism does to high ranking Buddhist clergy.’
On 4 April 1966, Jack Valenti – the President’s Special Assistant – gave the advice to President Johnson about what might be done about the desperate situation in Vietnam. Amongst his advice was to:
‘Split the Buddhist leadership:
This has possibilities. There is no durable cohesion in the Buddhist leadership. Can we pit some of the leaders against Tri Quang? Can we use the Dalai Lama and Buddhists outside Saigon, Hue and Da Nang to our advantage?’
One of the main reasons for the American involvement in Vietnam was that successive President’s subscribed to the ‘Domino Theory’ which argued that if one country fell to communist forces, then all of the surrounding countries would follow. It was, and is still, commonly hypothesized that it applied to Vietnam. Whilst still a U.S. senator, John F. Kennedy said in a speech to the American Friends of Vietnam:
‘Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam.’
The Dalai Lama didn’t visit Vietnam, but in November 1967 he visited both Japan and Thailand, two countries affected by the ‘Domino Theory’. These were his first trips outside of India since leaving Tibet in 1959, and he didn’t make another trip outside of India until 1972.
We know little about who he met and who he spoke to, what messages he passed on and for whom. In his autobiography ‘Freedom in Exile’, he says very little about these trips but does mention that they were at the height of the Vietnam war and that on the way into Thailand he flew alongside a B-52 bomber.
Could the Dalai Lama have been doing the bidding of his US pay masters? Or at least finding a way to combine their interests and his own?
Many people wonder if the Dalai Lama’s relationship with the US is the reason why he refuses to condemn the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that many ordinary people – not considered ‘the Buddha of Compassion’- find it easy to disagree with.
The Dalai Lama Cables: A Wolf in Monk’s Robes?
March 25, 2011
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The Communist Chinese regime regularly refer to the Dalai Lama as ‘a wolf in monk’s robes’. They claim that he is behind violent protests in Tibet, that his supposedly compassionate wish to help flood and earthquake victims in China and Tibet is just a political ploy, that his travels around the world giving teachings is part of a political strategy to attack China and that the he uses the monks and monasteries in Tibet to organize insurgency.
The Dalai Lama, himself, laughs at these claims, and the western media laugh with him. China is portrayed as almost hysterical in its demonizing of the Dalai Lama. But is there any truth to what they say?
The brutal suppression of the Tibetans who resist communist rule in Tibet is well documented, and we absolutely oppose injustice and oppression anywhere. However, the Dalai Lama is a political leader, and all political leaders must be held up to scrunity.
As Tibetologist Jens-Uwe Hartmann of the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin said:
‘The glorification of the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a political leader will not help the democratization process. A critical debate on his political statements must be possible and should not be suppressed by the argument that criticism only serves the Chinese.’
We have examined the declassified US State Department documents and we have found evidence that could support all three of the Chinese claims:
With respect to organizing protests, the Dalai Lama and his representatives refer to the protests as ‘spontaneous’. However, in a telegram from the New Delhi Embassy dated 30 March 1967, we can see that the Bureau of the Dalai Lama privately admit that they were involved in organizing these ‘spontaneous’ protests.
With respect to exploiting natural disasters - such as floods and earthquakes - for political gain, a telegram from the US Embassy in Calcutta, dated 8 January 1955, describes a ‘Tibetan Flood Relief Commitee’ set up by the Tibetans in exile. The telegram makes it clear that the benefits of supporting the relief effort are to win a propaganda coup over the Chinese communists and to support the resistence fighters positions. Furthermore, the telegram explicitly reveals that the ‘tibetan exiles conceived TFRC principally as a psychological tactic against Chinese communists.
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With respect to using teaching visits as a political strategy against China, a United States Government Office Memorandum dated 21 February 1952 contains fascinating information. The context of the memo is a discussion of how best to respond to the Dalai Lama’s request for US assistance against the Chinese Communists. The Dalai Lama’s request was brought by his brother Taktse Rimpche. In the memo a discussion between various interested parties, including the CIA, is referenced. The CIA went on to formulate and fund a strategy of anti-communist propaganda with the Dalai Lama that included sponsoring him personally, and well as establishing Tibet Houses on his behalf in various locations and encouraging him to teach widely. In the discussion mentioned in this memo, they describe organizing a teaching tour by distinguished Buddhist leaders as:
‘a major step towards utilizing certain elements of the Buddhist world in one aspect of psychological warfare’.
With respect to using uses the monks and monasteries in Tibet to organise insurgency, a telegram from the US Embassy in Calcutta to the Secretary of State in Washington, dated 11 September 1952, reveals:
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‘Gyalo and Shakabpa with Dalai Lama’s knowledge seriously considering forming secret organisation to infiltrate Tibet from India, and possibly Nepal, using Tibetan Monasteries as centers for anti-communist resistance; propaganda first, weapons later.’
We know from other documents that this plan was put into effect.
Of course these declassified documents are now revealing old facts, but also they reveal a modus operandi. In A Great Deception we traced the various events surrounding the violent uprising in Tibet before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 back to the Dalai Lama and his key representatives.
While the Chinese government clearly has blood on its hands, it would appear that the Dalai Lama is not so innocent after all.
The Dalai Lama Cables: Follow the Money – Addendum
February 28, 2011
In the aftermath of the Chinese invasion of Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan refugees were inundated with aid in the form of money, food, clothing, blankets, medicines, land, accommodation, livestock and so forth.
Many international charities, such as The Red Cross, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, The National Christian Council, the American Friends Service Committee, the American Emergency Committee for Tibetan Refugees and others, gave extensively.
Many national governments, such as the UK, France, Canada, New Zealand, the US and especially India gave generously to the Tibetan cause.
In the over fifty years since the Chinese invasion, the plight of the Tibetans rarely leaves media attention for long. It has become without doubt one of the most successful on-going fund-raising campaigns ever, drawing millions and millions of dollars in donations, merchandise and event-tickets each year.
Where has all the money gone? What has it been used for? When Australian journalist Michael Backman tried to discover the answer to these fundamental questions he found:
‘Details of the government-in-exile’s funding today are far from clear.’
‘It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama’s Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.’
‘Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.’
In part one of this series of articles we quoted from Tashi Tsering’s autobiography, before helping Gyalo Thondup transport the Dalai Lama’s treasure from Sikkim to Calcutta, whilst back in Lhasa before the Chinese invasion, he had worked in the treasury of the Tibetan government. He recounts his experiences there (p63 of the autobiography):
‘I was still disillusioned and angry about what I had seen going on in the treasury office in Lhasa. The ordinary people sent their taxes and tribute in the form of money and goods, and both monk and lay officials just took what they wanted. There were ledgers filled with accounts of tea bricks, butter, cloth, gold, and silver. I saw the records that showed that the more powerful monks, especially those from aristocratic families and the Dalai Lama’s household, “borrowed” any of these things they wished and never returned them. There was no overall record, no auditing. The officials and their friends and family could come in and take anything they fancied. I saw them doing so with my own eyes.’
Tashi Tsering was offered a position in the newly formed Tibetan-Government-in-Exile, but turned it down:
‘I felt that going to work for the exiled aristocrats and monks would have meant going to work to restore the same old system.’
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Could this be the answer to Michael Backman’s questions? Could this be where the money went? In his pursuit of answers, Backman, uncovered some more inconvenient truths:
‘Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.’
‘An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.’
‘A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile’s planning council and its Department of Health.’
‘A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile’s Department of Information and International Relations.’
‘Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.’
‘The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama’s family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.’
* See Also: Part 1 | Part 2 (below)
The Dalai Lama Cables: Follow the Money – Part 2
February 22, 2011
In part one, we showed how despite having tens of millions of dollars worth of gold stored in banks in Calcutta, the Dalai Lama successfully pleaded poverty to the United States government and secured a tax-free hand out of $180,000 per annum from 1959 onwards.
By the 60s, however, some in the US administration were questioning the wisdom of these payments to the Dalai Lama, and the on-going financial support of the Tibetan refugees.
One illustration of this is the response to a letter from the Dalai Lama to the US President in late 1966, where the Dalai Lama mentions his plan to resettle with 400 Tibetans in the United States… with the apparent assumption that the US government will foot the $425,000 bill for this.
The response is straight-forward: ‘No USG funds are available’.
Subsequent cables reveal an interesting development. In 1969, the Dalai Lama’s personal representative Lodi Gyari lets the Americans know that the Dalai Lama has been negotiating with the Soviets [at that time the sworn enemy of the United States] for financial assistance.
‘Lodi concluded by stating that the Dalai Lama and he would much prefer to take American financial assistance and he hoped I would give the matter close attention, for they had to get help from somewhere.’
An exquisite hustle by anyone’s standards.
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Furthermore, in his report to the State Department, the US Ambassador noted, with some alarm, how during a recent public lecture:
‘The Dalai Lama emphasized that he did not oppose communism, or for that matter any “isms” in particular. He declared that an independent Tibet could have a communist government or any other form supported by the majority of the people. What Tibetans opposed was foreign domination. In the current context, these remarks would appear to have been primarily directed towards Moscow.’
Imagine the horror back in Washington at the prospect of their trump card in the global propaganda war against communism switching sides – swapping the CIA for the KGB, and happily inviting communist rule in Tibet.
Needless to say, funding for the Dalai Lama was granted, and his CIA support renewed at the next review in 1971, and again in the following years. The US congress continues to financially support the Dalai Lama, and the CIA subsidy has been replaced by National Endowment for Democracy funding. As Professor Sautman reports:
The United States is at least the second-largest donor, after India, to the TGIE, providing $2 million in “humanitarian aid” annually and may be the largest donor.109 Since 2004 it has given the exiles $4 million annually and provided $5.25 million for “Tibetan community assistance” in 2008.110 The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) supplies additional funds.111 The group’s founding president, Allen Weinstein, has said, “A lot of what [the NED does] today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”112
Notes:
109. M. Kripalani, “World Watches India’s Response to Tibet,” Business Week (India), March 21, 2008. Most TGIE income is from Western state grants. In 2006–7, grants totaled US$17.5 million. “Rinpoche Defies China as Tibet’s Prime Minister Based in India,” Bloomberg, April 30, 2008. See also Roemer, Tibetan Government-in-Exile, 118–23, on the dependence of the TGIE and Tibetan exiles in India (three-fourths of whom do not work) on external financial support. The TGIE has said its annual budget is $700,000, leaving substantial funds for internationalization activities; Velloor, “Tibetan Exiles Keep the Fight Alive.”
110. Thomas Lam, “U.S.-Funded Assistance Programs in China,” Congressional Research Service RS22663 (January 28, 2008). An official Chinese news source has reported that the US Congress appropriated US$2.4 million for Tibetan exile organizations in 2009, up by 25 percent over 2008. Almost 89 percent of the TGIE’s 2005 revenues derived from foreign aid and it has annually spent 30–40 percent of its funds on projects related to the Tibet Question and representation abroad. Yi Duo, “Dalai Lama bianshen ‘yao qian shu’ Liancai zhi shu bei meiti baoguang (“The Dalai Lama has been changed into one ‘shaking the money tree’: techniques of accumulating wealth by unfair means exposed by media”), Huangqiu Shibao [Global Times], June 19, 2009.
The Dalai Lama Cables: Follow the Money – Part 1
February 13, 2011
Recently declassified US State Department cables reveal the workings of the Dalai Lama and his inner circle.
Throughout the 1950s the Dalai Lama negotiated with the US government for military and financial assistance. In the State Department document ‘United States Policy Concerning the Legal Status of Tibet – 1942 – 1956’, a summary of the US government’s response is given:
‘The United States was prepared to provide light arms, but it was not prepared to pay the expenses of the Dalai Lama and his retinue if they sought asylum abroad, because it assumed that the Dalai Lama had enough treasure to pay his own expenses.’
When the Dalai Lama finally did flee Tibet in early 1959, he sent his brother, Gyalo Thondup, to ask for financial and military assistance. Gyalo Thondup let it be known that:
‘The Dalai Lama did not bring out any treasures from Tibet and consequently was very hard up financially’.
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The declassified documents show that the Dalai Lama received a personal subsidy from the US government – a covert payment arranged by the CIA – of 180,000 US Dollars per year from 1959 through till at least 1974. To put this in a modern context 180,000 dollars in the 1950s would be worth nearly 1.5 million today, and 180,000 dollars in the seventies would be worth nearly 800,000 today. Considering the US intended not to support the Dalai Lama financially that’s a pretty generous subsidy to have squeezed out of them.
An alternative version of the ‘no treasure brought from Tibet’ story can be found in The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering on pages 57 – 58:
‘In 1950, when it had seemed like a Chinese invasion was imminent, the Dalai Lama’s substantial stocks of gold and silver had been transported out of the country to safety in Sikkim. During the 1950s, though the Dalai Lama himself was in Tibet, the gold and silver remained in one of the storehouses of the maharaja of Sikkim. The Chinese had asked for its return but had not made an issue of it at the time. Following the Lhasa Uprising and the flight of the Dalai Lama, they claimed that the money was not the Dalai Lama’s personal fortune but belonged to the country–which they now considered to belong to them. At that point the Tibetan leaders decided it was time to secure their treasure more permanently and farther away from the border; and because of my association with Gyalola [Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama’s brother], I found myself involved. It was quite an operation.’
‘The gold and silver were in the form of coins and ingots. When I became involved, the gold and silver were being hand-loaded onto trucks in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, and driven south to Siliguri, the location of the nearest airstrip. At the airport the literally millions of dollars’ worth of gold were loaded onto Dakota cargo planes and flown to Calcutta.’
‘When this precious cargo reached Calcutta, the gold was immediately put into the banks. But for a while the silver was stored in a single room on the third floor of a trusted Tibetan merchant’s house. It was my responsibility to stand guard over it, and for nearly a month I stood sentinel in a silent room full of coins and odd pieces of silver.’
It is estimated that the Dalai Lama had nearly 5 tons of solid gold at his disposal in India. For a man with tens of millions of dollars in the bank to successfully plead poverty to the United States government is quite a feat.
Admittedly, the Dalai Lama had left the bulk of his fortune back in Lhasa – for example, in the west chapel of the Potala Palace there is a tomb with nearly 5 tons of solid gold encasing it, there’s no need to mention the thousands of other golden statues, tombs and works of art.
This rather clever con trick wasn’t the only time the Dalai Lama rolled the US over, as we’ll see in part 2 (coming soon).
The Dalai Lama Wikileaks – Curious Statistics
February 5th, 2011
The recent release of US State Department cables by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.org has revealed some curious statistics in relation to the Tibetans in exile.
Clearly, Tibet and the Dalai Lama are at the centre of a propaganda war between the United States and Communist China. In virtually all western media, the Tibetans are portrayed like the Ewoks from Star Wars – as cute, cuddly, harmless and deeply spiritual – while the Chinese are demonized - sinophobic charicatures like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon spring to Mind. This media distortion has been carefully orchestrated with the US’s vested interests in mind. A closer analysis of the Wikileaks cables reveals statistics that challenge this popular myth.
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In one cable it reveals that far from being pacifists, most of the Tibetans serve in the military. The cables states:
‘Most Tibetan men in northeastern India join the SFF [Special Frontier Force]. In Gangtok, [...] the majority of men work for the SFF; and in Ravangla, 90% of the Tibetan families have at least one family member serving.’
That so many Tibetans serve in the military may come as a shock to some readers, and they may perhaps think this must be a recent development, quite unusual for the Tibetans. Such a view would only demonstrate how deeply effective the Dalai Lama’s efforts to rewrite Tibetan history have been. In his illuminating article ‘Vegetarian between Meals: The Dalai Lama, War, and Violence’, Professor Barry Sautman presents facts that are in stark contrast with the picture the Dalai Lama likes to paint. Professor Sautman provides references for every statement he makes, his sources are listed below.
‘The Dalai Lama has said “the people of Tibet are, by their nature, honest, gentle and kind,” that “Tibetan culture is a compassionate and non-violent culture” and “under the kings and Dalai Lamas . . . peace and happiness prevailed in Tibet.”20 He has also stated that “Tibetan culture [is] based on peaceful relations,”21 and that “before 1950, Tibet was completely a land of peace.”22
Tibetans, including monks, have however long borne arms against outsiders and each other in wars between rulers or Buddhist sects.31 The “Great Fifth” Dalai Lama “ferociously annihilated enemies and their families.”32 Tibetan armies warred in Ladakh in 1679–84 and in Bhutan many times in the eighteenth century, against Zunghar Mongols in 1720, Nepal from 1788 to 1792 and 1854 to 1858, Ladakh in 1842, and Britain in 1904.33 From the late eighteenth century, the ancien régime had a standing army,34 and in the early twentieth century, the “Great Thirteenth” had a ministry of war oversee his British-trained army. He advised Tibetans that, “where [peaceful means] are not appropriate, [they should] not hesitate to resort to more forceful means.”35 The present Dalai Lama has noted that the Thirteenth did “raise an army, train it as best as possible. Just between us, this isn’t strictly practicing nonviolence.”36 During World War I, the Thirteenth offered his British patrons one thousand troops,37 and in 1920 he dispatched his army to help the murderously racist Russian baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg assault Mongolia’s capital.38
In Eastern Tibet, in the first half of the twentieth century, Lhasa’s army fought Tibetans led by eastern chieftains and both fought non-Tibetan warlord armies.39 “People from Kham fought around 400–500 major battles both against the Chinese and the Lhasa government, between 1911 and 1935. These armed guerrilla forces increasingly occupied the central Tibetan military. The fighting intensified after the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1933 and the eastern Tibetans, moreover, sought a separate state, independent from any Han and central Tibetan control.”40 Violent conflicts occurred in Tibet right up to the old regime’s fall.41 Some 10 to 15 percent of monks at three large Lhasa monasteries were “fighting monks” (dobdob) who had access to guns; more generally “lamas had their own courts and prisons, and often organized their own militias and possessed thousands of guns and horses.”42 In a 1947 civil war, thousands of monks fought with artillery and guns and as many as three hundred died.43
To illustrate just how militarized the Tibetan people were, Professor Sautman provides us with a statistical comparison to the present United States military:
In 1950 the Tibetan army had twelve thousand troops for a region of 1.2 million people.44 The United States, with 761 bases abroad, has only half that proportion of its people under arms.45
The carefully crafted image of the Dalai Lama as a benign spiritual leader, and of Tibet as a Shangri-la, is a weapon in the CIA’s propaganda war. The Dalai Lama has knowingly colluded with the myth-building about himself and Tibet. A more realistic assessment of the present Dalai Lama, and the Dalai Lamas through history can be found in ‘A Great Deception’.
Professor Sautman’s sources:
20. Dalai Lama, “Guidelines for Future Tibet’s Polity and Basic Features of Its Constitution” (Dharamsala: Central Tibetan Administration, 1992); Central Tibetan Administration, “World Needs Tibet’s Compassionate and Non-violent Culture: His Holiness,” World Tibet Network News, November 24, 2008. See also “Dalai Lama Calls on Beijing to Change,” Voice of America, August 9, 2009 (head of Dalai Lama Foundation states “Tibetans are
traditionally peaceful and gentle”).
21. Pico Iyer, “Over Tea with the Dalai Lama: An Interview with the Dalai Lama”
32. Elliot Sperling, “ ‘Orientalism’ and Aspects of Violence in the Tibetan Tradition,” in Imagining Tibet: Perceptions, Projections, and Fantasies, ed. Tierry Dodin and Heinz Rather (Boston: Wisdom, 2001), 318–19. See also Tsepon Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967), 113; Melvyn Goldstein, A History of Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Berkeley: University of California, 1989), 42–43, 513–15; Lydia Arans, “Inventing Tibet,” Commentary 127:1 (2009): 38–41. The Fifth Dalai Lama also forced Buddhists of other schools to “convert” to the Gelugpa school; John Powers, History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus the People’s Republic of China (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 146.
33. Zahiruddin Ahmad, “New Light on the Tibet-Ladakh-Mogul War of 1679–1684,” East and West 18 (1968): 340–61; Patrick French, Tibet, Tibet (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2003), 98; David Kopel, “Self-Defense in Asian Religion,” Liberty Law Review 2:1 (2007): 79–164; Donald Lopez, “Seven Things You Didn’t Know about Tibet,” www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493105.html.
34. Michael Fredholm, “The Impact of Manchu Institutions on Tibetan Military Reform,” paper presented at Sixth Nordic Tibet Conference, May 5–6, 2007, pp1.it.secure.su.se/content/1/c6/04/25/81/Fredholm.pdf.
35. Quoted in John Billington, “It’s Time for Tibetans to Ignore the Dalai Lama’s Policy of Nonviolence,” Independent (London), October 12, 1997.
36. Dalai Lama, Violence and Compassion: Dialogues on Life Today (New York: Random House, 2001).
37. Sanderson Beck, Tibet, Nepal, and Ceylon, 1800–1950 (Goleta, CA: World Peace Communications, 2007), reproduced at www.san.beck.org/20–7–TibetNepalCeylon1800–1950.html.
38. James Palmer, The Bloody White Baron (London: Faber, 2007).
39. Carole McGranahan, “Empire and the Status of Tibet: British, Chinese, and Tibetan Negotiations, 1913–1934,” in The History of Tibet, ed. Alex McKay, vol. 3 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 267–95; James Leibold, Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism: How the Qing Frontier and Its Indigenes Became Chinese (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 71–72.
40. Roemer, Tibetan Government-in-Exile, 27.
41. Charles Bell, Tibet: Past and Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927), 191–93; Zahiruddin Ahmad, Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century (Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1970), 101.
42. Lin Hsiao-ting, “When Christianity and Lamaism Met: The Changing Fortunes of Early Western Missionaries in Tibet,” Pacific Rim Report, no. 36 (December 2004), www.pacificrim.usfca.edu/research/pacrimreport/pacrimreport36.html.
43. Goldstein, A History of Tibet, 513; Roemer, Tibetan Government-in-Exile, 12; Thomas Laird, The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama (Berkeley, CA: Grove, 2007), 286. See also Barnett, “Essay,” 192 (“There were several insurgencies against the previous Dalai Lama or his regents this century led by monks”). Torture and death-inducing punishment was common, as U.S. Army officers observed in Tibet in 1942 and 1943. See Rosemary Jones Tung, A Portrait of Lost Tibet (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1987).
44. Robert Ford, “Robert Ford’s Report” (Dharamsala: Tibetan Government in Exile, 1994), www.tibet.com/status/ford.html. Tibetan rulers wanted to raise one hundred thousand troops; Tsering Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 (London: Pimilico, 1999), 13.
45. Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire (New York: Metropolitan, 2004).
The Dalai Lama Cables: No Noble Peace – Epilogue
February 1st, 2011
In this series of articles we comprehensively refuted the Dalai Lama’s qualification for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (please see previous articles below)
Throughout the articles please bear in mind the words of Egil Aarvik when presenting the Dalai Lama with the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize:
‘This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded … first and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty.
This is by no means the first community of exiles in the world, but it is assuredly the first and only one that has not set up any militant liberation movement.’
Please also bear in mind that the Dalai Lama is a fully ordained Buddhist monk with vows to forsake killing and any actions of harming others.
Over the course of the previous articles in this series we showed how the Dalai Lama personally requested the CIA involvement in Tibet – an involvement that led to thousands of deaths on both sides.
Now we can contrast the evidence found in the US State Department documents with the Dalai Lama’s own words:
Some quotes from his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech:
‘The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated.’
‘Because violence can only breed more violence and suffering, our struggle must remain nonviolent.’
And some from the Nobel Lecture he gave thereafter:
‘I speak to inform you of the sad situation in my country today and of the aspirations of my people, because in our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.’
‘Despite the fact that we have not drawn attention to our plight by means of violence, we have not been forgotten.’
He has always, and continues to this day, to distance himself from the CIA activities in Tibet. He blames his brothers, claims they acted without his knowledge, claims he wasn’t informed, and so on and so forth.
In his autobiography ‘Freedom in Exile’ he says:
‘The other sad episode concerned the guerillas, trained and equipped by the CIA, who continued their struggle to regain Tibetan freedom by violent means. On more than one occasion, I tried to discover detailed information about these operations from Gyalo Thondup and others, but I have never heard the full story…
‘Although I admired the determination of the guerillas, I had never been in favour of their activities.’
How hollow all these words sound now, in the light of the truths revealed.
The Dalai Lama Cables: No Noble Peace – Part 5
January 29th, 2011
In this series of articles we will comprehensively refute the Dalai Lama’s qualification for being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Throughout the articles please bear in mind the words of Egil Aarvik when presenting the Dalai Lama with the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize:
‘This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded … first and foremost for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty.
This is by no means the first community of exile
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s in the world, but it is assuredly the first and only one that has not set up any militant liberation movement.’
Please also bear in mind that the Dalai Lama is a fully ordained Buddhist monk with vows to forsake killing and any actions of harming others.
As illustrated in the previous article in this series, the Dalai Lama called in the deal he had made with the US Government for military and financial support for a war against the Chinese Communists over Tibet.
Here we give some details as to the measure of the support that was afforded. This previously top secret document is now publicly available. We urge everyone interested in the Dalai Lama and Tibet to read it.
This shows that the US government was true to its words and for the best part of two decades provided millions of dollars each year to fund the Dalai Lama’s war. Included in this was an annual personal subsidy of $180,000 to the Dalai Lama. We also note that the CIA was behind the development of ‘Tibet Houses’ around the world – a subject we will return to later.
In conclusion to this series of articles, we have comprehensively refuted the claim that the Dalai Lama is a man of peace. Egil Aarvik’s praise of him for ‘his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people’s struggle to regain their liberty’ could not be any more hollow.
* See also: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 (below)
