Every day I get two or three e-mails urging me to do something about the current unrest and repression in Tibet. Perhaps signing some of these petitions is helpful, but perhaps not. Feeling powerless is not a nice feeling for any of us, but sometimes the truth is that there is almost nothing we can do to influence events the other side of the world. Least of all if we are seen to be intervening in a hypocritical way, as part of a Western propaganda offensive. No matter our 'opposition' to the misdeeds of our own governemnts, 'Why don't we take the beam out of 'our' own eye first?', many in Tehran or Moscow or Beijing might be tempted to ask us - for our 'opposition' stance - however important to the construction of our own right-on identities, seems to them barely observable.
The following thoughts are shared at a time when Western Buddhists and other would-be consistent supporters of peace and human rights find ourselves joined by many mainstream Western media in 'championing the cause of the Tibetal people': Hmmm.
These same Western media which haven't reported the 'avoidable death of 1.3 billion people since 1950 on Spaceship Earth with the First World in control of the flight deck' to quote the veteran biologist and public health statistician Dr Gideon Polya of
These same Western media who also downplay the scale of the West-attributable excess avoidable mortality figure in the the Middle East/West Asia wars since 1990, which Dr Polya puts around around 8 million: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17139/42 . Hmmm.
These same Western media which have averted their eyes and ours from the ongoing Holocaust of 5-10 million dead in the new scramble for Africa taking place in the Congo: see Keith Harmon Snow's The War that did not make the headlines: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7957 ). Hmmm.
I should add that I write as a Buddhist who believes that we should try to put truth/reality before all comforting myths. Let all ideological camps and political 'sides' wash our own dirty linen, and not necessarily only in private either! For a good example of such public truth-telling, see Zen at War by fellow Zen Buddhist, Brian Victoria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War .
Let us start with the following report from a China Daily reporter which shows - surprise, surprise! - that Western media have been manipulating the news about Lhasa demonstrations. http://english.cri.cn/2946/2008/03/22/65@336718.htm
Whatever the truth about the scale and the brutal and/or relatively measured response by the Chinese, it is far from clear that the original protests which broke out recently in Lahsa were peaceful, or remained so for long.
Even those who are usually suspicious when the neocons start to champion the human rights of people living in or near Yugoslavia/Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Russia or China, seem all too ready to ignore the Dalai Lama's long term strategic alliance with - or use by - the CIA and the West.
This strategic alliance was most embarrassingly displayed when the Dalai Lama consented to receive the Congressional Medal of Honour from that same US Congress that has loyally voted credits for the illegal wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
At a time when the 'freedom-loving' West keep amping up the propaganda against Iran, Russia and Beijing, and the US surrounds all these countries with missiles and battleships, it seems to me most unlikely that US-led 'external pressure' on Beijng will lead China's rulers to look on Tibetan autonomy with favour.
Such pressures wll be particularly conuter-produective if the Dalai Lama is either happy to be praised as a 'man of peace' by 'President' (non-elect) Bush or so compromised that he can't avoid being required to do so as an integral part of the West's surging propaganda offensive. Instead Political Sociology 101 tells me that China will redouble its authoritarian vigilance, and refuse to believe that the Dalai Lama is sincere in his protestations of only wanting self-rule within China. What some hail as a great day for Buddhism, I feared was a tremendously unskilful move which will just make life harder for all the people of Tibet.
For supporters of popular freedom and social progress in Tibet to avoid being swept away in a media-concocted hysteria against China and all things Chinese in the coming months leading up to the Olympics, it will be helpful to read an article such as Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth, by Dr Michael Parenti.
'For the rich lamas and secular lords, the Communist intervention was an unmitigated calamity. Most of them fled abroad, as did the Dalai Lama himself, who was assisted in his flight by the CIA. Some discovered to their horror that they would have to work for a living. Many, however, escaped that fate. Throughout the 1960s, the Tibetan exile community was secretly pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, according to documents released by the State Department in 1998. Once this fact was publicized, the Dalai Lama's organization itself issued a statement admitting that it had received millions of dollars from the CIA during the 1960s to send armed squads of exiles into Tibet to undermine the Maoist revolution. The Dalai Lama's annual payment from the CIA was $186,000. Indian intelligence also financed both him and other Tibetan exiles. He has refused to say whether he or his brothers worked for the CIA. The agency has also declined to comment.
'In 1995, the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, carried a frontpage color photograph of the Dalai Lama being embraced by the reactionary Republican senator Jesse Helms, under the headline "Buddhist Captivates Hero of Religious Right." ....
'Into the twenty-first century, via the National Endowment for Democracy and other conduits that are more respectable sounding than the CIA, the U.S. Congress continued to allocate an annual $2 million to Tibetans in India, with additional millions for "democracy activities" within the Tibetan exile community. In addition to these funds, the Dalai Lama received money from financier George Soros. (Heather Cottin, "George Soros, Imperial Wizard," CovertAction Quarterly no. 74 (Fall 2002).'
In November 2005 at Stanford University Nobel Peace Laureate, the Dalai Lama declined to condemn all use of force e.g. to defend and protect people. (Fair enough, for few of us are absolute pacifists. The devil lies in the detail of which applications of force people then identify as just or skilful, i.e. more life-protective than life-negating.) However as Michael Paenti continues:
' What of the four years of carnage and mass destruction in Iraq, a war condemned by most of the world -- even by a conservative pope -- as a blatant violation of international law and a crime against humanity? The Dalai Lama was undecided: "The Iraq war -- it's too early to say, right or wrong."(San Francisco Chronicle, 5 November 2005)
'Earlier the Dalai Lama had voiced support for the U.S. military intervention against Yugoslavia and, later on, the U.S. military intervention into Afghanistan. (Times of India 13 October 2000; Samantha Conti's report, Reuter, 17 June 1994; Amitabh Pal, "The Dalai Lama Interview," Progressive, January 2006.) '
Parenti concludes:
' To welcome the end of the old feudal theocracy in Tibet is not to applaud everything about Chinese rule in that country. This point is seldom understood by today's Shangri-La believers in the West. The converse is also true: To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime. ...."
"Tibetan feudalism was cloaked in Buddhism, but the two are not to be equated. In reality, old Tibet was not a Paradise Lost. It was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty, a long way from Shangri-La.'
Yet the Dalai Lama has often portrayed an idealised image of Tibet and exaggerated the degree of popular opposition which the Chinese-imposed and Chinese-backed reforms engendered in Tibet in the fifties - and which actually left both the common people and the monasteries free to practice their religion to a much greater extent than subseqently obtained - i.e. in the context of the Tibetan struggle being taken up the the USA, with two brothers of the Dalai Lama actively involved with armed CIA-trained Tibetan liberation forces.
Parenti does mention the Dalai Lama's repeated praise of non-violence, and support for e.g. somewhat greater equality for Buddhist nuns compared with the monks. However, it is possible that he takes more care than is warranted not to risk offending Tibetan and other Buddhists by asking, as we now need to, whether there are deep-structural correspondences between Vajrayana Buddhism at the level of religion and a patriarchal-feudal social order which was admired by Hitler's SS and in some circumstances mutates into aggressive militarism, viz the religious zeal of Mongolian Genghis Khan or the Fifth Dalai Lama whose calls for a holy war of extermination mirror what we can read in Jewish/Christian holy books - or what some exponents of Imperial Zen advocated and practiced in Korea, Manchuria and China in WW2.
No such inhibitions detain two German scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, pro-feminists Victor and Victoria Trimondi (surely pseudonymns?) in their well-informed and comprehensive E-book, The Shadow of the Dalai Lama:
The Trimondis show with abundant examples that Tantric and 'Shambala warrior' mythology are full of bloodthirsty imagery, weapons, slaying, torture, etc. Reflecting real historical battles both defensive and agressive against Islam, strands in such mythologies also look forward to an ultimate showdown with Islam/unbelievers. Here is an excerpt from one disturbing chapter (Chapter 2-9: The War Gods behind the Mask of Peace
Political calculation and the Buddhist message of peace 'It is not the task of our analysis to make a personal choice between “armed rebellion” and the “ahimsa principle” or to answer the question whether violent action in Tibet is morally justified and makes sense in terms of national politics. We also do not want -as the Chinese attempt to do — to expose the Kundun as no more than a fanatical warmonger in sheep’s clothing. Perhaps, by and large he is personally a peace-loving person, but without doubt he represents a culture which has from its very origins been warlike and which does not even think of admitting to its violent past, let alone reappraising it."
"Instead, Dharamsala and the current Dalai Lama make a constant propaganda project of presenting Tibetan Buddhism and the history of Tibet to the world public as a storehouse of eternal teachings about nonviolence and peace. There is thus a refusal to accept that the Kundun first acquired his pacifist ideas (e.g., under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi) after his flight; instead it is implied that they are drawn from the inexhaustible inheritance of a many hundred year old tradition and history. Even the aggressive “Great Fifth” and the “Great Thirteenth” with his strong interest in military matters now appear as the precursors of the current “Buddhism of peace”.
'On the basis of this distortion, the current Dalai Lama is able to fully identify with his fifth incarnation without having to mention his warlike and Machiavellian power politics and murderous magic: “By holding the position of the Fifth Dalai Lama I am supposed to follow what he did, this is the reason I have to interfere”, the Kundun explained in 1997 (HPI 006). Thus there is much which speaks for the pacifism of the Dalai Lama being nothing more than a calculated political move and never having been the expression of a principle.
'Jamyang Norbu, co-director of the Tibetan cultural institute, thus accuses his “revered leader” (the Kundun) and his exile Tibetan politicians of fostering the formation of the western myth of the good and peaceful Tibet of old. At no stage in history have the Tibetans been particularly pacifist — the terrible fighting out of the conflicts between individual monasteries proves this, as well as the bloody resistance to the occupation in the fifties. “The government in exile”, says Norbu, “capitalizes upon the western clichés, hampers a demythologization, a critical examination of its own history” (Spiegel, 16/1998).'There is also absolutely no intention of doing this. For the Dalai Lama the fundamental orientation to be adopted is dependent upon what is favorable in the prevailing power-political situation. Thus a immediate volte-face to a fighting lineage is thoroughly laid out in his system. Neither religious, nor ideological, and definitely not historical incarnational obstacles stand in the way of a possible decision to go to war. In contrast, the Tibetan war gods have been waiting for centuries to strike out and re-conquer their former extended empire. Every higher tantra includes a call to battle against the “enemies of the faith”. In any event, the Kalachakra ritual and the ideology at work behind it are to be understood as a declaration of war on the non-Buddhist world. Important members of the Tibetan clergy have already reserved their places in the great doomsday army of Shambhala. „Many of them already know the names and ranks they will have.” (Bernbaum, 1980, p. 29, 30).
'When the political circumstances are ripe the “simple monk” from Dharamsala will have to set aside his personal pacifist tendencies and, as the embodied Kalachakra deity, will hardly shrink from summoning Begtse the god of slaughter or from himself appearing in the guise of a heruka. “The wrathful goddesses and the enraged gods are there,” we learn from his own mouth (before he was awarded the Nobel peace prize), “in order to demonstrate that one can grasp the use of violence as a method; it is an effective instrument, but it can never ever be a purpose” (Levenson, 1992, p. 284). There is no noteworthy political leader in the violent history of humankind who would have thought otherwise. Even for dictators like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin violence was never an end in itself, but rather an “effective instrument” for the attainment of “honorable” goals.'
Finally, as an engaged Buddhist I believe that we should not draw too big thick black lines between 'spirituality' and 'politics', since to do so would compound and mirror the conventional but illusory separation between 'the divine' and 'reality', and 'society' and 'self'. Among engaged Buddhist teachers I have learned the most from David Loy, Ken Jones and Thich Nhat Hanh. It would be nice to walk into bookstores and find their work represented alongside that of other fine teachers, but lo!, for some reason it is the Dalai Lama whose books have been so very heavily promoted in the West, even to the extent of describing him as some kind of all-Buddhist equivalent of the Pope for Roman Catholics.
For the health of Buddhism's continuing development in the West, do Western Buddhists now need to ask ourselves to what extent our understanding of spirituality has been subtly shaped by shadowy forces and corporate marketeers who for different reasons have considered it expedient to promote such a 'de-politicised' - or Western imperialist and privatistic - understanding of our dharma?
May all beings know peace, may all beings be happy.
Attempting in a UK context to connect the world of 911 truth activism/false-flag terrorism awareness and the Voting integrity community, where I am seeking to alert the Electoral Reform Society to the dangers of the UK 'modernising' its voting mechanism, and awaken the peace movement to the 'Frats', Brotherhoods and 'Men's huts' which threaten our one Earth Motherland.
I have just received the following: from a coleague whose son speaks fluent Chinese and has studied Chinese history and culture and knows the country. He's also been to Tibet.
It's true that Tibetans have suffered at times from overly harsh policies, as have most people in China during various crazy periods of the 20th century (like the Cultural Revolution).
There are 56 ethnic groups in China, all with their own languages, cultural traditions and practices. Unlike Western countries which decimated natives in the Americas and Australia, these cultures have been celebrated and preserved (with the exception of the extreme policies of the past, which were not ethinically/racially based, but rather motivated by Maoist/communist ideal on modernisation and development. Don't forget all religion was outlawed, temples smashed, and monks/nuns forced to lead normal lives across China - Tibet was no different).
Currently minorities experience 'positive discrimination'. For decades they have been allowed to have multiple children versus the Han Chinese 1-child policy; minorities have lower entry requirements for university versus their Han Chinese peers; some minorities are allowed to carry knives as part of the their traditional attire (disallowed for Han).
There will always be animosity felt by some groups towards the 'dominant' Han - but there are no reliable statistics showing what ordinary Tibetans actually want. The diaspora of course has a vested interest in an independent Tibet - many are part of the aristocracy, or descendants of the aristocracy, that ran Tibet up to the 1950s (as a part of China though - Tibet has not been independent for many 100s of years). The young monks who initiated violent attacks on ordinary citizens earlier this month may have their own agenda also - or still have links to the CIA which instigated and led revolts during the cold war, who knows...?
My guess is that the majority of Tibetans are more concerned with having a good quality of life for themselves and their children - no matter if part of China or not. Indeed, for the majority of Tibetans, life now is a lot better than it could have been under the feudal system which prevailed pre-1950s, where even slavery existed. The rose tinted view of historic Tibet promulgated by those who enjoyed its greatest privileges is hardly surprising.
And given China is a perennial bogey-man in the Western consciousness, it hasn't taken much to garner unquestioning, emotionally driven support for the movement.
by
Keith Mothersson (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 31 comments)
on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 10:14:38 AM
James Miles describes ethnic looting - not popular uprising
James Miles, journalist with The Economist, was in Lhasa during violent protests Says he witnessed violence against ethnic Han Chinese and Muslim Hui minority Ethnic Tibetans involved in protests were "armed and very intimidating," he says. He says he did not see any evidence of any organized anti-Chinese activity.
Interview follows:
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- James Miles, of The Economist, has just returned from Lhasa, Tibet. The following is a transcript of an interview he gave to CNN.
James Miles
Q. How easy was it for you to see what you wanted to see?
A. Well remarkably so, given that the authorities are normally extremely sensitive about the presence of foreign journalists when this kind of incident occurs. I was expecting all along that they were going to call me up and tell me to leave Lhasa immediately. I think what restrained them from doing that, one very important factor in this, was the thoughts of the Olympic Games that are going to be staged in Beijing in August. And they have been going out of their way to convince the rest of the world that China is opening up in advance of this. I think they probably didn't want me there but they knew that I was there with official permission, and one thing they've been trying to get across over the last few months is that journalists based in Beijing can now get around the country more freely than they could before. Of course Tibet is a special example. I've been a journalist in China now for 15 years altogether. This is the first time that I've ever got official approval to go to Tibet. And it's remarkable I think that they decided to let me stay there and probably they felt that it was a bit of a gamble. But as the protests went on I think they also probably felt that having me there would help to get across the scale of the ethnically-targeted violence that the Chinese themselves have also been trying to highlight.
Q. What you say you saw corroborates the official version. What exactly did you see?
A. What I saw was calculated targeted violence against an ethnic group, or I should say two ethnic groups, primarily ethnic Han Chinese living in Lhasa, but also members of the Muslim Hui minority in Lhasa. And the Huis in Lhasa control much of the meat industry in the city. Those two groups were singled out by ethnic Tibetans. They marked those businesses that they knew to be Tibetan owned with white traditional scarves. Those businesses were left intact. Almost every single other across a wide swathe of the city, not only in the old Tibetan quarter, but also beyond it in areas dominated by the ethnic Han Chinese. Almost every other business was either burned, looted, destroyed, smashed into, the property therein hauled out into the streets, piled up, burned. It was an extraordinary outpouring of ethnic violence of a most unpleasant nature to watch, which surprised some Tibetans watching it. So they themselves were taken aback at the extent of what they saw. And it was not just targeted against property either. Of course many ethnic Han Chinese and Huis fled as soon as this broke out. But those who were caught in the early stages of it were themselves targeted. Stones thrown at them. At one point, I saw them throwing stones at a boy of maybe around 10 years old perhaps cycling along the street. I in fact walked out in front of them and said stop. It was a remarkable explosion of simmering ethnic grievances in the city.
Q. Did you see other weapons?
A. I saw them carrying traditional Tibetan swords, I didn't actually see them getting them out and intimidating people with them. But clearly the purpose of carrying them was to scare people. And speaking later to ethnic Han Chinese, that was one point that they frequently drew attention to. That these people were armed and very intimidating.
Q. There was an official response to this. In some reporting, info coming from Tibetan exiles, there was keenness to report it as Tiananmen.
A. Well the Chinese response to this was very interesting. Because you would expect at the first sings of any unrest in Lhasa, which is a city on a knife-edge at the best of times. That the response would be immediate and decisive. That they would cordon off whatever section of the city involved, that they would grab the people involved in the unrest. In fact what we saw, and I was watching it at the earliest stages, was complete inaction on the part of the authorities. It seemed as if they were paralyzed by indecision over how to handle this. The rioting rapidly spread from Beijing Road, this main central thoroughfare of Lhasa, into the narrow alleyways of the old Tibetan quarter. But I didn't see any attempt in those early hours by the authorities to intervene. And I suspect again the Olympics were a factor there. That they were very worried that if they did move in decisively at that early stage of the unrest that bloodshed would ensue in their efforts to control it. And what they did instead was let the rioting run its course and it didn't really finish as far as I saw until the middle of the day on the following day on the Saturday, March the 15th. So in effect what they did was sacrifice the livelihoods of many, many ethnic Han Chinese in the city for the sake of letting the rioters vent their anger. And then being able to move in gradually with troops with rifles that they occasionally let off with single shots, apparently warning shots, in order to scare everybody back into their homes and put an end to this.
Q. Would be false to suggest there was heavy-handed security approach?
A. Well this was covering a vast area of the city and I was the only foreign journalist, at least accredited, to ... who was there to witness this. It was impossible to get a total picture. I did hear persistent rumors while I was there during this rioting of isolated clashes between the security forces and rioters. And rumors of occasional bloodshed involved in that. But I can do no more really on the basis of what I saw then say there was a probability that some ethnic Chinese were killed in this violence, and also a probability that some Tibetans, Tibetan rioters themselves were killed by members of the security forces. But it's impossible to get the kind of numbers or real first hand evidences necessary to back that up.
Q. Form any sense of where it would go from here?
A. Well I think they now have a huge problem on their hands. When I left Lhasa yesterday the city was still in a state of effectively Martial Law. They've been bending over backwards this time not to declare martial law as they did in 1989 after the last major outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Lhasa. This time they have not used that term and yet the conditions now in Lhasa are pretty much the same as they were in 1989 under martial law. Officials say there are no soldiers, no members of the People's Liberation Army involved in this security operation. And yet I saw numerous, many military vehicles, military looking vehicles with telltale license plates covered up or removed. And also many troops there whose uniforms were distinctly lacking in the usual insignia of either the police or the riot police. So my very, very strong suspicion is that the army is out there and is in control in Lhasa. And removing that security given the way Tibetans are now focusing on the Olympics as a window of opportunity, removing that security now I think would be something they would be very, very cautious about. And yet there are enormous pressures on them to do so. Coming up to the Olympic torch carrying ceremony in Lhasa in June. That is one obvious event they will want the world to see and they will want the world to see that Lhasa is normal. But I think getting to that stage will be enormously tricky given the depth of feeling in Lhasa itself among Tibetans.
Q. Did you actually see clashes between security forces and Tibetan protesters?
A. Well what I saw and at this stage, the situation around my hotel which was right in the middle of the old Tibetan quarter, was very tense indeed and quite dangerous so it was difficult for me to freely walk around the streets. But what I saw was small groups of Tibetans, and this was on the second day of the protests, throwing stones towards what I assumed to be, and they were slightly out of vision, members of the security forces. I would hear and indeed smell occasional volleys of Tear gas fired back. There clearly was a small scale clash going on between Tibetans and the security forces. But on the second day things had calmed down generally compared with the huge rioting that was going on...on the Friday. And the authorities were responding to these occasional clashes with Tibetans not by moving forward rapidly with either riot police and truncheons and shields, or indeed troops with rifles. But for a long time, just with occasional, with the very occasional round of tear gas, which would send and I could see this, people scattering back into these very, very, narrow and winding alleyways. What I did not hear was repeated bursts of machine gun fire, I didn't have that same sense of an all out onslaught of massive firepower that I sensed here in Beijing when I was covering the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in June, 1989. This was a very different kind of operation, a more calculated one, and I think the effort of the authorities this time was to let people let off steam before establishing a very strong presence with troops, with guns, every few yards, all across the Tibetan quarter. It was only when they felt safe I think that there would not be massive bloodshed, that they actually moved in with that decisive force.
Q. At time you left, were Han Chinese moving freely back?
A. There were some on the Saturday morning. On the second day we came back to the shops and I saw them picking through the wreckage, tears in their eyes. They were astonished, as I was, at the lack of any security presence on the previous day. It was only during the night at the end of the first day that this cordon was established around the old Tibetan quarter. But even within it, for several hours afterwards, people were still free to continue looting and setting fires, and the authorities were still standing back. And it was only as things fizzled out towards the middle of the second day that as I say they moved in in great numbers. Ethnic Chinese in Lhasa are now very worried people. Some who had been there for many, many years expressed to me their utter astonishment that this had happened. They had no sense of great ethnic tension being a part of life in Lhasa. Now numerous Hans that I spoke to say that they are so afraid they may leave the city, which may have very damaging consequences for Lhasa's economy, Tibet's economy. Of course one would expect that ethnic Chinese would think twice now about coming into Lhasa for tourism, and that's been a huge part of their economic growth recently. And leaving Lhasa, I was sitting on a plane next to some Chinese businessmen, they say that they would normally come in and out of Lhasa by train. But their fear now is that Tibetans will blow up the railway line. That it is now actually safer to fly out of Tibet than to go by railway. We have no evidence of Terrorist activity by Tibetans, no accusation of that nature so far. But that is a fear that's haunting some ethnic Han Chinese now.
Q. When you were told to leave, what were you told?
A. Well I had an 8-day permit to be in Lhasa. That permit began two days before the rioting, on March 12, and was due to run out on March 19. My official schedule was basically abandoned after a couple days of this. Many of the places on my official itinerary turned out to be hotspots in the middle of this unrest. They left me to my own devices. I was stopped by the police at one point, taken to a police station. They made a few phone calls and then let me go back out on the streets full of troops and police carrying out the security crackdown. They insisted however that when my permit did expire on the 19th that I had to leave. I asked for an extension and they said decisively no.
Q. So you weren't expelled? It just ran out?
A. Well we're in a gray area here. Because in theory China has been opened up to foreign journalists since January 2007, which means no longer, which was the case before, do we have to apply for provincial level government approval every time we leave Beijing for reporting. The official regulations don't mention Tibet. But orally, officials have made it clear that Tibet is an exception to these new Olympic rules and journalists who have made their own way there, unofficially, both before this unrest and during it have been caught or ... and expelled. Or those who have succeeded in making it out without being detected have been criticized by the authorities for doing so. So one could argue that yes I was expelled, if one looks at the regulations they've announced which one could interpret as meaning we have the freedom to be where we like. But in their interpretation, Tibet is an exception and in their view they were being rather liberal towards me by letting run to the end of my official permit.
Q. Is Dalai behind this?
A. Well we didn't see any evidence of any organized activity, at least there was nothing in what I sensed and saw during those couple of days of unrest in Lhasa, there was anything organized behind it. And I've seen organized unrest in China. The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 involved numerous organizations spontaneously formed by people in Beijing to oppose, or to call for more reform and demand democracy. We didn't see that in Lhasa. There were no organizations there that ... certainly none that labeled themselves as such. These accusations against what they call the Dalai Lama clique, are ritual parts of the political rhetoric in Tibet. There is a constant background rhetoric directed at the Dalai Lama and his supporters in India. So it is not at all surprising that they would repeat that particular accusation in this case. But they haven't come across, haven't produced any evidence of this whatsoever. And I think it's more likely that what we saw was yes inspired by a general desire of Tibetans both inside Tibet and among the Dalai Lama's followers, to take advantage of this Olympic year. But also inspired simply by all these festering grievances on the ground in Lhasa.
by
Keith Mothersson (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 31 comments)
on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 10:19:56 AM
