Whereas the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was notorious for his brutality, the Fourteenth will most certainly be remembered for his deception and hypocrisy. There is little doubt that this false Dalai Lama has achieved enormous personal success, establishing a huge reputation and great power; no other figure in modern political history has enjoyed fifty years of uncritical press, had two major biographical motion pictures appear within their lifetime, and been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But how has he accomplished this? It is because he wears the robes of an ordained Buddhist monk, and gives teachings taken from his Spiritual Guide, while performing the actions of a politician, hiding his true actions behind a spiritual mask.
What is needed now is an honest evaluation of the man behind this mask, the present Dalai Lama, for he is after all regarded by some to be a key player on the world stage in both political and religious spheres, with the result that his actions have far-reaching effects. There is no reason why the standards by which we hold other world leaders accountable should not also apply to the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.
As Professor Jens-Uwe-Hartmann, Tibetologist at Humboldt University Berlin points out:
‘The glorification of the Dalai Lama in his function as a political leader does not aid the process of democratisation. A critically differentiating analysis of his political statements must be possible, and it should furthermore not be blocked off by the argument that criticism solely serves the purposes of the Chinese.’122
His Early Life and Education
Following the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s death in 1933, the Tibetan authorities immediately made necessary arrangements to maintain the political apparatus of a reincarnate Dalai Lama. The details of the mock search which resulted in the recognition of the present false Dalai Lama have already been given in Chapter 2.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama had as his Senior and Junior Tutors two of the greatest spiritual masters of our time: Kyabje Ling Rinpoche (1903-1983) and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche (1901-1981). Trijang Rinpoche and his own principal Spiritual Guide, Kyabje Je Phabongkha Rinpoche, are the two most important figures of the Gelugpa Tradition in the twentieth century. It is due primarily to these two spiritual masters that all of the essential Gelugpa lineages have been carried forward, completely pure and unbroken to the present day, including the close lineage of the Dharma Protector, Dorje Shugden.
Trijang Rinpoche, who was considered to be an emanation of Buddha Shakyamuni, Buddha Heruka, Atisha and Je Tsongkhapa, wrote an extensive commentary as well as many special rituals and yogas connected with Dorje Shugden.123The present Dalai Lama has referred to Trijang Rinpoche as his root Guru, or principal Spiritual Guide124; and Trijang Rinpoche was also the root Guru of many of the senior and junior lamas of the Gelugpa Tradition as well as of thousands of other monks, nuns and lay people. He was one of the most respected and loved lamas in the last half of the twentieth century.125It is sad to note that the Dalai Lama does not mention these extraordinary qualities of his Spiritual Guide even once in his later autobiography, referring to him in passing only as his Junior Tutor and as a member of his retinue.126His earlier autobiography also mentions Trijang Rinpoche, but only as the person who taught him how to read, the principles of grammar and how to spell.127
Embracing Communism
In 1949, the new communist Chinese government initially attempted to engage the Tibetan government in peaceful negotiations to resolve their disputes. But when in September 1950 the Tibetans’ official representatives failed to arrive for negotiations in the Chinese capital, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was ordered by Chairman Mao Zedong to enter Chamdo in eastern Tibet. Chinese troops crossed the Yangtse River on 7 October 1950.128
The Tibetan forces were poorly led, equipped and organised, and were quickly defeated. Within two weeks the PLA had captured the entire Tibetan army, including the governor-general of the region. Although, with this easy military victory the road to Lhasa was open, the PLA did not advance further; instead they again called on Lhasa to negotiate. Melvyn Goldstein explains:
‘Mao did not want simply to conquer Tibet, even though it would have been easy to do so. He wanted a political settlement approved by Tibet’s leader, the Dalai Lama. He wanted China’s claim to Tibet legitimized by having the Dalai Lama accept Chinese sovereignty and work with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] gradually to reform Tibet’s feudal economy.’129
In effect, Mao Zedong was using his military might to force the Tibetans to the negotiating table, for he understood the dangers of a protracted guerrilla war in Tibet’s mountainous terrain.130With the advent of the Cold War there was also the very real possibility of such a conflict drawing in the United States as part of its worldwide stance against communism.131
In Lhasa the news of the Chinese victory brought fear and confusion. High lamas and the traditional oracles were consulted to determine a course of action. It was agreed that the sixteenyear-old Dalai Lama should be ‘officially enthroned’ and given full powers of government.132Shortly afterwards the Dalai Lama and many of the Lhasan nobility fled to the town of Yatung, just north of the Indian frontier, and established a provisional government there.133
Before his departure from Lhasa, the Dalai Lama sent a message to the PLA in Chamdo saying that he ‘sincerely wanted to restore the friendship’ between the Tibetan and Chinese peoples. Moreover, he authorised two delegations to travel to Beijing to begin negotiations with the Chinese, and finally on 23 May 1951, under direct order from the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the ‘Agreement of the Central People’s Government and the Local Government of Tibet’ was signed, now more commonly known as the ‘SeventeenPoint Agreement’.134As Goldstein says,
‘The SeventeenPoint Agreement ushered in a new chapter in Sino-Tibetan relations since it officially ended the conflict over the Tibet Question. Point 1 sets this out clearly: “The Tibetan people shall unite and drive out imperialist forces from Tibet: the Tibet people shall return to the big family of the Motherland - the People’s Republic of China.” Tibet, for the first time in its 1,300 years of recorded history, had now in a formal written agreement acknowledged Chinese sovereignty.’135
The Dalai Lama sent the Chinese leadership a telegram expressing ‘unanimous support for the agreement’ by the ‘local government of Tibet, the monks and the entire Tibetan people’. Whatever his reasons were for sending this message, with his return to Lhasa and ratification of the SeventeenPoint Agreement the political incorporation of Tibet into China was accomplished. Tibet was now formally part of the Chinese state. Mao Zedong had the political agreement he wished for that would lead to the peaceful liberation of feudalistic Tibet, and the Tibetan nobility and clergy had assurances that their positions of power and privilege would continue.136
Contrary to popular belief the Chinese invasion of Tibet was peaceful after the initial clash in Chamdo. In some parts of the country the Chinese were even welcomed. Han Chinese soldiers and civilian cadres were authorised to enter central Tibet only after the formal signing of the SeventeenPoint Agreement. They were well-behaved and under strict instructions not to become a burden on the local populace.137
The Chinese went to extraordinary efforts to work with the Tibetan elite in a ‘united front’. Goldstein writes that:
‘… [Mao’s] Tibet strategy sought to create cordial relations between Han (ethnic Chinese) and Tibetans, and allay Tibetan anxieties so that Tibet’s elite would over time genuinely accept “reintegration” with China and agree to a societal transformation … Between 1951 and 1959, not only was no aristocratic or monastic property confiscated, but feudal lords were permitted to exercise continued judicial authority over their hereditarily bound peasants. At the heart of this strategy was the Dalai Lama. Mao saw him, in particular, as the vehicle by which the feudal and religious elite (and then the masses) would come to accept their place in China’s new multi-ethnic Communist state.’138
It is under these circumstances that the Dalai Lama’s view of communism evolved. Far from taking a confrontational position as he would have his western audience believe, instead he embraced the communist ideology in general and Chairman Mao in particular.
The first foreigner to interview the Dalai Lama after his signing of the SeventeenPoint Agreement in 1951 was Alan Winnington. In an interview that was obviously warm and respectful, the Tibetan leader shared his convictions with the British journalist, who first asked him what had happened since the signing of the agreement. The Dalai Lama replied:
‘Before the agreement … Tibet could see no way ahead. Since the agreement Tibet has left the old way that led to darkness and has taken a new way leading to a bright future of development.
‘... I heard Chairman Mao talk on different matters and I received instruction from him. I have come to the firm conviction that the brilliant prospects for the people of China as a whole are also the prospects for us Tibetan people; the path of our entire country is our path and not any other.’139
In 1954 he accepted an invitation to visit Beijing and represent Tibet in the Chinese People’s National Assembly. It was the young Dalai Lama’s first trip out of Tibet.
‘It was only when I went to China in 1954-55 that I actually studied Marxist ideology and learned the history of the Chinese revolution. Once I understood Marxism, my attitude changed completely. I was so attracted to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist Party member. …
‘I ... went to China to meet Chairman Mao. We had several good meetings.’140
While in Beijing the Dalai Lama agreed to be chairman of Mao’s proposed Preparatory Committee for the Autonomous Region of Tibet (PCART), whose purpose was to prepare Tibet for regional autonomy under Chinese rule. At the inaugural festivities of the PCART in Lhasa the Dalai Lama praised the Han in Tibet saying they had:
‘... strictly adhered to the policy of freedom of religion, carefully protected the lamaseries and respected the religious beliefs of the Tibetan people. … All this has greatly helped to remove the apprehensions that previously prevailed … as a result of the rumors and instigations made by the agents of the imperialists.’141
Right up until the events in 1959 the Dalai Lama was working closely with the Chinese to develop Tibet under communist rule. He expressed ‘his most effusive support for China in speeches and articles as late as January 1959 (published in Xizang Ribao)’. He also continued to express admiration for Mao, speaking in 1955, for example, of his joy at meeting him face-to-face.142As Gelder and Gelder have pointed out:
‘… the god-king … in his public statements had proved to be Mao’s most valuable ally in Tibet.’143
The Myths Surrounding his Escape from Tibet
The release of the Hollywood movie Kundunin 1997 sparked fresh interest in the Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet in 1959. Careful investigation into the actual stages of this escape reveal a variety of conflicting versions, which when considered altogether expose one common truth – the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is a shameless liar and master at creating his own deceptive reality in the face of the truth.
Having a leader of the Tibetan people who was a communist sympathiser and admirer of Mao placed those Tibetans rebelling against the Chinese in a very difficult position. For the rebels it became imperative to get him out of Lhasa and to sever his connection with the Chinese.
The image of a beleaguered Dalai Lama as a virtual prisoner, not of the Chinese but of the Tibetan rebels, is reflected in a remarkable series of letters between him and the Chinese General Tan Yuan-san (see Appendix 1). In Lhasa at around 4 p.m. on 17 March 1959, two mortar shells landed harmlessly in a marsh inside the palace grounds. The Tibetans say these were fired from the direction of the Chinese camp, but this has always been open to question. Grunfeld points out that at this time the Dalai Lama:
‘… was writing to General Tan, informing the Chinese of his support and of his plans to move to their camp. Why would the Chinese have fired shots, thereby precipitating a crisis? On the other hand, the rebels, undoubtedly disturbed by the Dalai Lama—Tan correspondence, needed some grand gesture to get the Dalai to finally break with the Chinese. Logically, the mortars could have come from the rebels.’144
The mortar shells created panic in the palace and the Dalai Lama turned to his oracle for advice. But which oracle did he consult? There are conflicting accounts; over forty years later the Dalai Lama claims in his most recent autobiography that just before the two mortar shells were fired he consulted the Nechung oracle:
‘I again sought the counsel of the oracle. To my astonishment, he shouted, “Go! Go! Tonight!” The medium, still in his trance, then staggered forward and, snatching up some paper and pen, wrote down, quite clearly and explicitly, the route that I should take out of the Norbulingka, down to the last Tibetan town on the Indian border. His directions were not what might have been expected. That done, the medium, a young monk named Lobsang Jigme, collapsed in a faint, signifying that Dorje Drakden [Nechung] had left his body.’145
Eye-witnesses alive today however say that the Dalai Lama did not consult the oracle of Nechung but rather the oracle of Dorje Shugden.146In 1998 Swiss National TV interviewed Lobsang Yeshe, the assistant of the previous abbot of Sera Monastery and someone who accompanied the Dalai Lama on his escape from Tibet. Lobsang Yeshe stated that he went to the oracle of Dorje Shugden to request exact instructions about the escape. In the SNTV programme:
‘Lobsang Yeshe tells us that the oracle gave precise instructions as to how and by which route the escape should take place with the monks as his bodyguard.’147
Helmut Gassner, for many years the German-language translator for the Dalai Lama, has also pointed out:
‘… the Dalai Lama’s Chamberlain, Kungo Phala … organized His Holiness’ escape from the Norbulingka Summer Palace … The preparations for the escape were made in absolute secrecy and strictly followed instructions received by [the oracle of] Dorje Shugden. I asked him [Phala] what thoughts were on his mind when he had to make his way through the crowds surrounding the Norbulingka with the Dalai Lama, disguised as a servant, just behind him. He said that everything happened exactly as the Dorje Shugden Oracle from Panglung Monastery had predicted …
‘According to all trustworthy witnesses I know and consulted, the State Oracle [of Nechung] did not provide any help on that occasion. After the Dalai Lama and his retinue had fled, the State Oracle only found out the following day that he had been left behind.’148
This last statement is supported by the testimony of the medium of the Nechung oracle himself, except that he says he only found out three days later! InExile from the Land of SnowsLobsang Jigme, the medium of the Nechung oracle, says that he was ill at this time and mentions nothing about the Dalai Lama consulting Nechung or telling him to go that night. After an invocation on March 20th, three days after the Dalai Lama left, Lobsang Jigme and his attendants ‘one and all lapsed into silence, pondering Dorje Drakden’s other statement: the stunning news of the Dalai Lama’s flight from the Norbulinka … .’149This clearly contradicts the Dalai Lama’s account.
Also, by revealing that the Nechung oracle, although sick, was obliged to find his own way out of Tibet, this account shows the lower level of respect and importance at which the Nechung oracle was held at that time. It may also help to explain the subsequent resentment of the Nechung oracle towards the Shugden oracle and by extension towards Dorje Shugden.
It is therefore clear that much of what the Dalai Lama has said about his escape from Tibet is untrue. A lot has been written of this dramatic escape – how at any moment the Chinese could have caught up with them, how brave the Tibetan soldiers were and how arduous the journey was. However, two points are now seen to be glaringly omitted from these popular accounts. First of these is that the party was accompanied by a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-trained operative who was in radio contact with the CIA network throughout the escape. As reported in the American George Magazine:
‘Around 3 a.m. on March 18th, they rested for a few hours near the Che-La pass separating Lhasa valley from the Tsangpo valley. It was then that the first coded radio message on the Dalai Lama’s progress was broadcast from Tibet to a CIA listening post on Okinawa, Japan. The message was relayed to CIA headquarters near Washington, D.C., where Allen Dulles waited for news of the Dalai Lama’s journey. Soon Dulles would brief President Eisenhower. Tibet’s war for independence was about to begin.’150
The CIA involvement was not just limited to radio operators:
‘… the Dalai Lama was accompanied by a Khampa who had been trained and equipped with a movie camera and sufficient color film to preserve a visual record of the flight. The Americans used a Lockheed C130 aircraft—modified especially for flight over the thin air of Tibet—to drop food and fodder for the Dalai’s party and were able to do so thanks to the training other Khampas had in learning how to place distinctive panels in the snow as targets for the pilots.’151
As Grunfeld has quoted:
‘… this fantastic escape and its major significance has been buried in the lore of the CIA as one of the successes that are not talked about. The Dalai Lama would never have been saved without the CIA.’152
Another feature of this mythical flight that is rarely reported is the Chinese claim to have deliberately let the Dalai Lama go. Two British visitors to Tibet in the early 1960s report that the Dalai Lama’s party was followed by observation aircraft, and that no attempt was made to pursue the slowly-moving entourage, which included the Dalai Lama’s mother, elderly people and children.153Credence is given to this claim by the fact that China announced his arrival in India before anyone else did, causing the Indian government acute embarrassment. The Chinese also state that Mao gave orders to the PLA to allow the Tibetan leader to cross the border. Mao Zedong is reported as telling the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing, ‘If we had arrested him, we would have called the population of Tibet into rebellion.’154
The western and Indian media reacted immediately and with considerable glee to these dramatic events on the roof of the world. One journalist writing in the Atlanticmagazine described how:
‘Kalimpong became deluged with journalists from around the world, who were inundated with phone calls from frantic editors pleading for colorful, 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.” ’155 Grunfeld comments that ‘… fiction is what they got. Stories circulated of two thousand to one hundred thousand Tibetans killed.’ The media feeding-frenzy was such that correspondents were filing stories that had not even been witnessed.156
The Dalai Lama himself has contributed to the prevailing view of Chinese destruction and mayhem, describing the Norbulingka Palace after the rebellion had been quelled as ‘a deserted smoking ruin full of dead’.157He wrote in his autobiography:
‘The shelling had begun at two o’clock in the morning on March twentieth, just over forty-eight hours after I left, and before the Chinese had discovered that I had gone. All that day they shelled the Norbulingka, and then they turned their artillery on the city, the Potala, the temple, and the neighbouring monasteries. Nobody knows how many of the people of Lhasa were killed, but thousands of bodies could be seen inside and outside the Norbulingka. Some of the main buildings within the Norbulingka were practically destroyed, and all the others were damaged in different degrees, … In the great monastery of Sera there was the same useless wanton devastation.’158
The Dalai Lama further maintains that the Chinese soldiers searched through the corpses in the Norbulingka looking for him, and that having failed to find him ‘either alive or dead they continued to shell the city and monasteries’, deliberately killing ‘thousands of our people, who were only armed with sticks and knives and a few short range weapons against artillery, … .’159
Yet European visitors in Lhasa shortly after this ‘wanton destruction’ describe little damage to the city, the Potala, the monastery of Sera or the Norbulingka. Indeed, in 1962 the Gelders attended a holiday celebration in the grounds of the Norbulingka and reported no signs of serious damage. The book of their travels includes a photograph of one of them sitting on the steps of the Dalai Lama’s favourite residence in the palace, the Chensel Phodrang, with all its contents meticulously preserved.160
From this we can see that the Dalai Lama lied repeatedly about the events surrounding his leaving Tibet. These lies have been nurtured ever since by the Tibetan exile government, and perpetuated by the world’s media who seems eager to believe whatever the Dalai Lama says and portray him as the wronged ‘underdog’ in the face of Chinese aggression.
Political Views and Failures
Since his journey into exile the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has done much to popularise Tibetan Buddhism in the West, even to the extent of becoming a ‘Hollywood’ icon in the process. He has drawn worldwide attention to Tibet and has amassed hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars for the cause of a free, independent Tibet. But he has completely failed to accomplish the political objective of an independent Tibet upon which his reputation and power have been built. Why? The blatant reason for this is that the Dalai Lama knows that he alone handed Tibet to China on a plate through his own personal desire to embrace communism. How can he possibly undo what he alone started and further consolidated with the SeventeenPoint Agreement?
Such is the perverse nature of Lama Policy: one ruling lama mixes their personal and selfish ambition with their political and spiritual power, resulting in catastrophic life-changing consequences that affect millions but from which the ruling lama alone remains aloof and unscathed. Thus Lama Policy can be seen to be what is commonly referred to as ‘dictatorship’.
An assessment of the political views and failures of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama while in exile reveals how his constant public rhetoric for an independent Tibet is a mere front to disguise his actual deceptiveness and ineptitude as a leader of Tibetan people.
To assess the political record of the Dalai Lama, five areas of his international and domestic activity will be examined: (1) the issue of Tibetan independence; (2) negotiations with Beijing; (3) the Panchen Lama affair; (4) the issue of democratization; and (5) how the Dalai Lama’s political failures led to his ban on Dorje Shugden practice.
The Issue of Tibetan Independence
Contrary to the open hand with which the Fourteenth Dalai Lama advocated communism and supported Mao and the Chinese communist government while in Tibet, upon his arrival in India, like a skilled actor, he completely changed roles and began advocating a free, independent Tibet and repeatedly encouraged Tibetans to rise up against China to accomplish this. What could have propelled him to be so blatantly twofaced? Was it a smokescreen to hide the shame of having failed to win the Tibetan populace over to his personal ambition of being leader of a communist Tibet? Or was he daunted by the task of now being under western public scrutiny? Having clearly failed to convert Tibetans to his communist ideology in the confines of Tibet the only way the Dalai Lama could surely maintain his position as a political and spiritual leader in exile was to fulfil the wish of his people – or at least give the impression of striving to do so – and lead them to a free and independent Tibet. Basically, he needed to undo all that his lama policies had created!
Despite now being under the public spotlight in the international arena, the Dalai Lama has not performed the actions of a true leader and worked for the wishes of his people. Although most Tibetans would never dare to question the Dalai Lama directly, it is clear that for them ‘the cause of Tibet’ is full independence from China, whilst for him it is a partial autonomy within China.
‘The vast majority of Tibetans, both within Tibet and in exile, favor independence for Tibet.’161
Lhasang Tsering, once a member of the Tibetan resistance force based in Mustang, Nepal, writes:
‘… I have no doubt in my mind that our people, even for generations to come, will continue to struggle, to suffer and sacrifice so long as independence remains the goal. However, I cannot expect people to make similar sacrifices for a lesser goal. I, for one, cannot struggle to be in association with China.
‘... so long as we do not recognise China’s rule and so long as our goal remains independence, then China’s intrusion into Tibet can be seen as a foreign aggression and our struggle will be one of international dimension. But if we change our goal to seeking some kind of accommodation within China, then the issue is entirely different. And, as China always claims, ours would be an “internal” affair and we would have no right to seek international involvement and support.’162
Jamyang Norbu, another former Tibetan guerrilla fighter and now a well-known author and playwright, writes:
‘… I am convinced that Tibetans must have independence if only for survival as a people. With every passing year we are getting closer to extinction.
… No autonomy, or any kind of understanding or accommodation with China will prevent it. … Only full independence holds out some hope for Tibetan survival …’163
Tashi-Topgye Jamyangling, a former official of the Tibetan exile government and member of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s first factfinding delegation to China in 1979, writes:
‘As His Holiness the Dalai Lama always says, the final decision, with respect to the future of Tibet, must be made by the Tibetans themselves. The choice is simple: Is it Independence or is it Extinction?’164
However, despite initial rhetoric during the early years of his exile advocating a free, independent Tibet, the independence of Tibet has not been on the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s true political agenda for many years. As early as 1984, in secret meetings in Beijing, independence of the Tibetan State had already been dropped in favour of a Tibetan autonomous region within the sovereignty of China.165This decision by the Dalai Lama was taken unilaterally, without any referendum of the people or even consultation with his government.166
In April 1988, the Chinese offered to allow the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to return to Tibet on the condition that he would publicly abandon the goal of independence. In the Strasbourg Statement of June 15th 1988, he set forth the conditions for his return, which included, as the Chinese had requested, an acceptance of overall Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, ‘… a kind of autonomous dominion much as it had been under the Qing dynasty.’167In accepting Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, the Dalai Lama lost in one stroke the possibility of an independent Tibet.
The historian Edward Lazar has observed: ‘The Strasbourg Statement was a surrender of the most important concerns of the Tibetan people (independence and an end to the Chinese occupation) ...’ These two were relinquished before negotiations had even begun. ‘It would be hard to recall so much being given up, not for so little, but for nothing, in the annals of diplomacy.’168
‘Why’, asks Lazar, ‘do over one hundred countries recognize the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] and not one country in the world recognizes Tibet? A major part of the reason for international tolerance of China’s occupation of Tibet is that the Tibetan leadership has maintained a consistent pattern of accommodation with the Chinese occupiers, and that this spirit of accommodation is currently maintained from exile …’ ‘The official policy of accommodation’, Lazar observes, ‘translates into a legitimatization of colonial status, a kind of national suicide.’169
‘The word itself, “independence”,’ Lazar observes, ‘is avoided in official Tibetan pronouncements and is avoided at meetings. “Independence” is not one of the hundreds of index entries in the 14th Dalai Lama’s new autobiography. The idea of independence is so dangerous that it is only referred to as the “I” word in some Tibetan circles.’170