Tibet Equilibrium – Page 2 – Whole Dude

Whole Lesson – Lessons of Covert Action in Tibet

The Cold War in Asia – Lessons of Covert Action in Tibet

The Cold War in Asia represents the security threat posed by the spread of Communism to mainland China. Because of my lifetime affiliation with the military organization called Special Frontier Force, I can review the covert action in Tibet to draw some lessons.

Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The CIA covert operations inside Tibet led to the creation of a military organization called Establishment Number. 22, or Special Frontier Force which was formed in 1962 during the presidency of John F. Kennedy

In my analysis, the US, India, and Tibet lack the intelligence capabilities to conduct a successful covert action in Tibet. In 1959, Tibet National Uprising failed for the CIA underestimated the enemy’s capabilities both in terms of intelligence and the use of military power to crush civilian uprising or rebellion. In 1962, the CIA again failed to know the enemy’s war preparation and the attack across the Himalayan Frontier came as a rude surprise.

Establishment No. 22 – Operation Eagle: This badge represents a military alliance/pact between India, Tibet, and the United States of America. Its first combat mission was in the Chittagong Hill Tracts which unfolded on 03 November 1971. It was named Operation Eagle. It accomplished its mission of securing peace in the region that is now knownas Republic of Bangladesh.

I directly ask the CIA to improve its intelligence capabilities to respond to the security challenge posed by the spread of Communism to mainland China. The United States fought wars in Korea and Vietnam without testing the enemy’s military capabilities. To fight against the enemy, the United States must recognize the face of the enemy. No covert action will succeed without knowing your enemy.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

TIBET AWARENESS – PROJECT CIRCUS. The quest for Freedom in Tibet. A military training Camp known as Camp Hale was established in Colorado under the supervision of CIA officers Roger E. McCarthy and John Reagan.

**Whole Dude – Whole Secret: The CIA Tibet Operation.**

Whole Dude – Whole Agency: Allen Welsh Dulles shaped the history of the Central Intelligence Agency. During World War II, he had served in the Office of Strategic Services(1942-1945), and when CIA formed in 1951, he served as Deputy Director under General Walter Bedell Smith. He was appointed the Director by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during January 1953.

Whole Dude-Whole Master: November 29, 1961. President John F. Kennedy welcomes the 6th Director of CIA, John Alexander McCone.

Richard McGarrah Helms(March 30, 1913 – October 22, 2002) was the chief architect of the legislation that created the Central Intelligence Agency during 1947. He had served in CIA in various positions and was its Director from June 1966 to February 1973. The 1962 India-China War was the consequence of a failed CIA mission inside Tibet.

Lessons of Covert Action in Tibet (1950 – 1972)

Clipped /from: http://smallwarsjournal.com/index.php/jrnl/art/lessons-covert-action-tibet-1950-1972

Between 1950 and 1972, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in close cooperation with the Departments of State (DoS) and Defense (DoD), conducted a comprehensive covert action campaign in support of Tibetan resistance movements fighting against Communist Chinese occupation of their homeland. The campaign consisted of “political action, propaganda, paramilitary, and intelligence operations” intended to internally weaken and undermine the expansionist ambitions of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).[i] Following the October 1950 invasion of Tibet by the PRC, the CIA’s Special Activities Division (SAD) inserted teams into Tibet to train, advise, and assist Tibetans who were already fighting the Communists.[ii]

A number of Tibetan resistance fighters were specially selected and exfiltrated to the Pacific island of Saipan and Camp Hale in Colorado to undergo training in demolitions, clandestine communication, and other critical skills.[iii] Operating out of neighboring Nepal and India, SAD-directed teams of Tibetan rebels waged a ceaseless campaign against the Chinese that tied down significant PRC troop strength, strengthened international opposition to Chinese atrocities against Tibetans, and prevented the PRC from effectively pursuing its regional ambitions in South Asia to further spread its communist ideology.[iv] The CIA continued to support the Tibetan resistance until 1972 when U.S. President Richard Nixon changed course and decided to normalize relations with the PRC.[v]

Though the CIA’s Tibetan covert action campaign never successfully ousted the Chinese Communists, the campaign was quite successful in accomplishing the U.S.’s limited objectives. Through its covert action campaign, the U.S. sought to internally weaken the PRC through sustained attrition and distraction in order to prevent the Chinese from spreading their brand of communism across South Asia – specifically India.[vi] The CIA’s covert action campaign succeeded in three ways: it depleted the PRC’s already limited resources, which further weakened the state; it undermined the PRC’s international standing and limited its regional influence, and it prevented the expansion of the PRC’s borders.[vii]

Specifically, the CIA’s covert action campaign forced the PRC to commit vast numbers of troops and resources to pacify Tibet, which delayed a number of other critical initiatives that the young communist state sought to pursue. In 1959, the CIA estimated that the PRC had over 60,000 soldiers deployed just to subjugate Tibet, a force that required 256 tons of supplies daily to sustain. [viii] The PRC, which had just successfully ended its own civil war in 1949, saw its military stretched incredibly thin by its Tibetan occupation. This strain likely undermined the ability of the Chinese government in Beijing to effectively consolidate full control over the expansive country, further encumbering efforts to pursue its strategic ambitions.

Adding to the PRC’s frustrations was the widespread international condemnation resulting from the increasingly brutal pacification campaign that China felt compelled to undertake to try and quell the Tibetan rebellion.[ix] Much of this international focus was (and still is) cultivated by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^thDalai Lama and the spiritual leader of the majority of Tibet’s Buddhists. During a particularly violent 1959 revolt, The Dalai Lama fled from Tibet with over 100,000 of his followers, escaping with the help of the CIA to India where he established a Tibetan “government in exile”.[x] This government has been a constant thorn in the PRC’s side, with the Dalai Lama and his disciples incessantly lobbying the international community for Tibetan rights and autonomy from China.[xi] The sustained focus on Chinese atrocities against the Tibetans significantly undermined the PRC’s regional standing and efforts to strengthen ties with neighbors.

Finally, the CIA’s covert action campaign was successful in its primary objective of preventing the spread of communism across South Asia. Mao Tsetung, the chairman of the PRC’s Communist Party, was convinced during an extended stay in the Soviet Union between 1949 and 1950 to undertake the leadership role in “liberating” Asia for the cause of global communism.[xii] However, the PRC’s inability to fully control Tibet, largely due to the CIA’s covert action campaign that sustained indigenous resistance, denied China the use of key terrain that might have enabled military action against India or even the Middle East.[xiii] The covert action campaign thus protected the U.S. or its allies from the need to fight a major land conflict in South Asia against the military forces of the PRC.

The CIA achieved a significant victory for the U.S. with a minimal commitment of American resources: total expenditures per year amounted to roughly $1.7 million dollars.[xiv] However, it is important to note that the CIA’s covert action campaign cost tens of thousands of Tibetans their lives, and the supported resistance encouraged violent oppression from the Chinese occupiers. Further, when relations between the U.S. and China normalized under President Nixon, many Tibetans and even a few CIA SAD officers saw the abrupt decision in 1972 to cease support of the Tibetan resistance as tantamount to betrayal.[xv] The Dalai Lama described this sentiment with some bitterness in a 1998 interview, saying that the CIA had aided his cause, “not because they cared about Tibetan independence, but as part of their worldwide efforts to destabilize all Communist governments.”[xvi] Despite such accusations of duplicity, the CIA achieved its stated objectives through this covert action campaign.

The CIA’s efforts in Tibet were successful because the objectives of the covert action campaign were reasonably limited and achievable with the resources available. While the Tibetans themselves may have nursed illusions of eventually driving all Chinese occupiers from their homeland, it is clear from the available records that the CIA and the political leadership in Washington were content to simply destabilize China and frustrate the Communists’ designs to spread their ideology throughout Asia.[xvii] Once the political winds changed and relations started to improve between the U.S. and China, the continuation of support to the Tibetan resistance was no longer in the best interests of the U.S. The U.S. successfully achieved its objectives through this covert action campaign because those objectives were achievable without escalating into a wider conflict.

Other successful covert actions, such as the SAD-spearheaded coups that toppled the governments of Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953[xviii] and Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954[xix] are thought by historians to have given the CIA and subsequent U.S presidents an overly optimistic opinion of the potential for covert action to achieve outsized objectives. This overconfidence likely led to the 1961 “Bay of Pigs” invasion in Cuba, which was a tremendous failure because its objectives were overly ambitious and unachievable given the limited resources that the U.S. committed.[xx] Rather than be greeted as liberators and reinforced by masses of Cubans dissidents flocking to their cause, the US-backed Cuban rebel forces were quickly overwhelmed. The most important lesson that covert action practitioners and policymakers who consider the use of covert action should take from the highly effective campaign in Tibet is that such campaigns must be reasonably limited in their objectives to maximize the chances of success.

The Cold War in Asia. Lessons from Covert Action in Tibet.

[i] “Memorandum for the 303 Committee,” U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, January 28, 1968, accessed October 10, 2017, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v30/d342.

[ii] Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet, The University Press of Kansas, 2002.

[iii] John Roberts and Elizabeth Roberts, Freeing Tibet: 50 Years of Struggle, Resilience, and Hope, (New York, AMACOM Books, 2009), 43-46.

[iv] Joe Bageant, “CIA’s Secret War in Tibet,” History.net, June 12, 2006, accessed October 10, 2017, http://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.htm.

[v] Jonathan Mirsky, “Tibet: The CIA’s Cancelled War,” The New York Review of Books, April 9, 2013, accessed October 10, 2017, http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2013/04/09/cias-cancelled-war-tibet/.

[vi] “Chinese Communist Motives in Invasion of Tibet,” Central Intelligence Agency, November 16, 1950, accessed October 10, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R006300270010-6.pdf.

[vii] “Memorandum for the 303 Committee,” U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, January 28, 1968.

[viii] “Logistical Problems of the Tibetan Campaign,” Central Intelligence Agency, April 17, 1959, accessed October 10, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79T01049A001900130001-6.pdf.

[ix] “Tibet and China Background Paper,” Central Intelligence Agency, April 27, 1959, accessed October 10, 2017, 35-38, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82R00025R000100060022-5.pdf.

[x] Jennifer Latson, “How and Why the Dalai Lama Left Tibet,” Time Magazine, March 17, 2015, accessed October 10, 2017, http://time.com/3742242/dalai-lama-1959/.

[xi] Michael Backman, “Behind Dalai Lama’s Holy Cloak,” The Age, May 23, 2007, accessed October 10, 2017, http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/behind-dalai-lamas-holy-cloak/2007/05/22/1179601410290.html.

[xii] “Chinese Communist Motives in Invasion of Tibet,” Central Intelligence Agency, November 16, 1950, accessed October 10, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R006300270010-6.pdf.

[xiii] “Resistance in Tibet,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 21, 1958, accessed October 11, 2017, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP79-01006A000100090001-7.pdf.

[xiv] “Memorandum for the Special Group,” U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, January 9, 1964, accessed October 10, 2017, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v30/d337.

[xv] Joe Bageant, “CIA’s Secret War in Tibet,” History.net, June 12, 2006, accessed October 10, 2017, http://www.historynet.com/cias-secret-war-in-tibet.htm.

[xvi] Jim Mann, “CIA Gave Aid to Tibetan Exiles in ’60s, Files Show,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1998, accessed October 10, 2017, http://articles.latimes.com/1998/sep/15/news/mn-22993.

[xvii] “Memorandum for the Special Group,” Department of State Office of the Historian, January 9, 1964.

[xviii] James Risen, “SECRETS OF HISTORY: The C.I.A. in Iran — A special report. How a Plot Convulsed Iran in ’53 (and in ’79),” The New York Times, April 16, 2000, accessed October 10, 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/world/secrets-history-cia-iran-special-report-plot-convulsed-iran-53-79.html?pagewanted=all.

[xix] Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954, (Stanford University Press: 1999).

[xx] Grayston Lynch, Decision for Disaster: Betrayal at the Bay of Pigs, (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2000).

**SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE DEMANDS TRUMP – DALAI LAMA MEETING. IT IS LOGICAL FOR BOTH ARE OPPOSED TO COMMUNISM.**

Whole Supreme – The Temporal and the Spiritual Ruler of Tibet Living in Exile

The Supreme Ruler of Tibet is unlike any spiritual leader or king

I am pleased to share the photo images of the 14th Dalai Lama, the Supreme Ruler of Tibet, living in exile.

All photographs are part of the book, ‘A God in Exile: The Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Raghu Rai’, published by Roli Books.

The BBC News shared these photo images describing the Dalai Lama as a ‘spiritual leader’. Photographer and author Raghu Rai went a step further in recognizing the Dalai Lama as “A God in Exile.”

In my analysis, the relevance of the 14th Dalai Lama relates to the Institution of Dalai Lama that governs Tibet giving a sense of reality to the Tibetan Living Experience. If the Dalai Lama is just a Spiritual Leader, he would not be living in exile. If the Dalai Lama is indeed a ‘God’, Communist China would have utterly failed in crushing the massive Tibetan Uprising of March 1959.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

The Dalai Lama: Intimate portrait of a spiritual leader – BBC News

Clipped from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45585890

The 14th Dalai Lama. The Supreme Ruler of Tibet living in exile. **The Supreme Ruler of Tibet is unlike any spiritual leader or king**

Image copyright Raghu Rai Image caption The Dalai Lama watching the TV series, Mahabharata

A new book by acclaimed Indian photographer Raghu Rai offers an unprecedented glimpse into the life of one of the world’s leading religious figures.

A God In Exile is the result of a photographer’s decades-long insight into his muse. Rai took his first picture of the iconic Tibetan spiritual leader in 1975.

He recalled being stopped by the Dalai Lama’s security. “I somehow managed to make eye contact with His Holiness and asked him if I could take some photos of him. He smiled and said yes,” Rai told the BBC.

Over the years, he has photographed the Dalai Lama many times and has cultivated a “deep friendship”.

In March 1959, as Chinese troops crushed an attempted uprising in Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama, who was born Tenzin Gyatso, fled into India. He was then a young man in his mid-20s.

Image copyright Raghu Rai

The Indian government granted him asylum and he settled in the northern town of Dharamshala. About 80,000 Tibetans followed him into exile, most of whom settled in the same area.

Image copyright Raghu Rai

Thronged by Tibetan worshippers and tourists, the Dalai Lama is seen in the above image blessing a woman at a ceremony.

“When he sees his Tibetans, my god! You should see his eyes! It’s like a grandfather doting on his grandchildren,” Rai says.

In 2014, Rai decided to curate the hundreds of photos he had taken of the Dalai Lama and compile them into a book – a project which, he said, has been in the making for 40 years.

· The ancient wisdom the Dalai Lama hopes will enrich the world

Image copyright Raghu Rai

Many of the photos in the collection capture the Dalai Lama in candid moments, giving us an intimate glimpse into his everyday life.

“He loves to play with animals – I was waiting for him one day when he suddenly showed up with a cat,” Rai says.

Image copyright Raghu Rai

Rai also captured scenes from the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday celebrations in 2015 at home in Dharamshala.

He hosted his siblings, including his older brother, Gyalo Thondup (pictured above), whom he introduced to guests as a “troublemaker”.

The book’s preface, written by Rai, offers readers an account of his interactions with the Dalai Lama.

“He left an indelible impression on me – gentle, gracious, humble and full of wonder. It is peculiar to say such a thing, but I got the strange yet pleasant feeling of being equals, despite his position. In hindsight, I realise it was because His Holiness behaved with such unfeigned kindness and lack of vanity.”

Image copyright Raghu Rai

Many images in the book feature the Dalai Lama performing innocuous chores such as repairing his TV or gardening in his home – tasks that he always did himself, Rai says.

Image copyright Raghu Rai

“In a lot of ways, he gave me everything a photographer ever wants from a subject,” the photographer says.

Image copyright Raghu Rai

Among the Dalai Lama’s favorite places at his home is the garden, where he grows all sorts of plants.

All photographs are part of the book, ‘A God in Exile: The Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Raghu Rai’, published by Roli Books.

Whole Equilibrium – Restoring the Balance of Power in Occupied Tibet

Tibet Equilibrium – Balance of Power in Tibet

TIBET EQUILIBRIUM - BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. THE GREAT TIBET PROBLEM WILL EXIST UNTIL BALANCE OF POWER IS RESTORED IN OCCUPIED TIBET. — **TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. THE GREAT TIBET PROBLEM WILL EXIST UNTIL THE BALANCE OF POWER IS RESTORED IN OCCUPIED TIBET.**

Balance of Power refers to the distribution of military and economic power among nations that is sufficiently even to keep any one of them from being too strong or dangerous. The term ‘Balance’ describes a state of equilibrium or equipoise, equality in power between two nations. Red China’s economic and military power is far greater than power of Tibet and hence there is no equilibrium in Tibet. Red China’s overwhelming economic and military power has serious consequences to all nations in her neighborhood. To restore this Balance of Power, Tibet has willingly joined a larger group by allying with India, and the United States. Special Frontier Force is a military organization that represents Tibet’s alliance with India and USA. While Red China demands “stability” in Occupied Tibet, Tibet and the alliance partners reject Red China’s demand for it will not resolve the problem of Balance of Power. To the same extent, Red China has rejected Tibet’s demand for meaningful autonomy or “Middle Way” as a means to restore Tibet Equilibrium.

Most of my readers know that CIA takes orders from the Executive Branch of Power called US Presidency. The other two branches of Power are known as the US Congress (Legislative Power) and the US Supreme Court (Judicial Power) and the Balance of Power between these three branches is maintained by the US Constitution. CIA has no external source of funding for its activities. The US Congress approves National Budget for funding requests submitted by the Executive Branch. Hotel Mount Annapurna in Nepal that supported CIA operation, was funded by US President Richard M Nixon and American citizens, the taxpayers who provide funds to the Government for further use as allocated by a Budget plan duly approved by representatives of elected by people and signed into a Law by the US President. I categorically affirm that all CIA operations to help Tibetan freedom fighters are funded by the US Congress and Budget Laws signed by the US President. I thank US President Dwight David Eisenhower and the US Congress for supporting Tibetan Resistance Movement to counteract Red China’s Evil Power.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-4162 USA
Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

The CIA’s Secret Himalayan Hotel for Tibetan Guerillas

TIBET EQUILIBRIUM - BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. I THANK US PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER AND THE US CONGRESS FOR THEIR SUPPORT TO RESTORE BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. — TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. I THANK US PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER AND THE US CONGRESS FOR THEIR SUPPORT TO RESTORE BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. Photo. Nolan Peterson. The Daily Signal.

NOLAN W PETERSON @nolanwpeterson October 30, 2015

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. HOTEL MOUNT ANNAPURNA IN NEPAL OPENED IN 1973, WITH FUNDING SANCTIONED BY US PRESIDENT RICHARD M NIXON.**

The Hotel Mount Annapurna was opened in 1973 as part of a CIA program to rehabilitate former Tibetan guerillas. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

POKHARA, Nepal—It’s been 43 years since the CIA cut off support to the Tibetan guerillas that the agency trained and armed to fight a covert war against China. Yet, a monument to the CIA’s secret war in Tibet is still standing in Pokhara, Nepal.

The former Hotel Mount Annapurna building sits on a quiet side street off the Pokhara airport. Established in 1972 with CIA funds, the hotel was meant to give former Tibetan resistance fighters based in Nepal’s nearby Mustang region a livelihood and a future as they laid down their arms and transitioned to life as refugees.

Tibetan guerillas and their families ran the hotel until it closed in 2010. Today, the Hotel Mount Annapurna building is a nursing school. The aging concrete structure with 1960s lines looks tired and nondescript. Paint is peeling off the exterior walls. The once lush and well manicured landscaping is overgrown and wilted. This relic of the CIA’s secret Cold War guerilla campaign in Tibet is now locked behind a rusting metal gate and easily overlooked. It is in a part of town into which tourists rarely venture.

The area around the Pokhara airport was prime real estate in the 1970s. But business slowly dried up as Pokhara’s tourism center of gravity shifted to the Phewa Lake shoreline to accommodate waves of hippies and trekkers. The Lodrik Welfare Fund—an NGO that former Tibetan resistance fighters created in 1983 to provide welfare for veterans and their families—currently owns the property and rents it out to the Gandaki Medical College.

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. HOTEL MOUNT ANNAPURNA WAS FUNDED BY US PRESIDENT RICHARD M NIXON in 1973. NOW IS RENTED TO A MEDICAL SCHOOL. Photo. Nolan Peterson. The Daily Signal.**

The former hotel is now a nursing school. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

“This used to be the best spot, but we shut down because there was no business,” said Tsultrim Gyatso, chairman of the Lodrik Welfare Fund and former manager of the Hotel Mount Annapurna. His father was a Mustang resistance fighter.
Gyatso was born in Pokhara in 1972. He worked at the Hotel Mount Annapurna from 1989 to 2010 and was the hotel’s manager at the time it shut down.

Gyatso currently works next door to the former hotel property out of the same offices that were a command center for the Mustang resistance in the 1960s and 1970s—the office he works in was opened in 1962 for the resistance movement. “My father worked in this very office when he was an intelligence officer for the resistance,” Gyatso said.

OVERLOOKED LEGACY

Today there are few visible clues to the former hotel’s guerilla heritage. In the lobby there is a framed poster of Mt. Kailas (the most holy mountain in Tibet), which is hanging next to a painting of the hotel in its glory days. There is also a painted mural on the wall of the main stairwell, the imagery of which pays homage to the fighting spirit of Tibet’s resistance fighters.

The security guard at the gate offered a confused look when asked about the building’s Cold War history. Younger shop owners on the adjacent street shrugged their shoulders politely and said they knew nothing about Tibetan resistance fighters. A few older shop owners, however, acknowledged the hotel used to be run by “Khampas”—a reference to Tibet’s Kham region, which is known for its warriors and bandits and was the birthplace of Tibet’s guerilla campaign after the 1950 Chinese invasion.

Those who knew about the hotel’s past, however, were reluctant to talk about it. Questions about the CIA and Tibetan resistance movement spurred worried looks and anxious body language. One older shop owner, a Sherpa from the Solukhumbu region near Mt. Everest, offered an explanatory hint when he claimed pressure from Maoist rebels during Nepal’s civil war (1996-2006) forced the hotel to shut down. As proof, he pointed to Maoist graffiti on a wall across from the hotel’s entrance.
“They’re bullies,” the old Sherpa said, speaking about Maoist rebels. “And they didn’t get along with the Khampas.”

Maoist rebel graffiti outside the former Hotel Mount Annapurna. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

Gyatso disputes the claim, however, and insists that a struggling bottom line forced the hotel’s closure. “We have a friendly relationship with the Maoists,” Gyatso said. “Some of them stayed in the hotel. I know many old Tibetans think communists are the enemy, but we never had a problem with them.”

Gyatso did acknowledge, however, that Communist labor unions contributed to the hotel’s demise. The hotel initially employed only Tibetans, but pressure from unions spurred the hotel to ultimately employ a mix of Tibetans and Nepalese. At its height, the hotel had about 40 employees. But as business tapered in the 1990s and early 2000s, Gyatso said the unions tied his hands when he tried to streamline staff and cut down on expenses.

“The Unified Marxist-Leninist Party workers union gave us a lot of trouble,” he said. “They demanded a lot and basically put us out of business.”

The Lodrik Welfare Fund is an evolution of the Mustang resistance bureaucracy, which is now dedicated to welfare, not armed insurgency. While the hotel was operational, it generated revenue for the Lodrik Welfare Fund to finance schools and public works for Tibetan refugees around Pokhara and to provide benefits for Tibetan resistance veterans. Now only a thin slice of revenue from the building’s rent goes toward the NGO’s welfare projects. The majority of funding comes from foreign sponsors—many of whom are anonymous Americans.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it was still providing any support for the veterans of the Mustang resistance living around Pokhara. But Gyatso said there was no ongoing U.S. government support for the guerilla fighter veterans or their descendants.

“There’s no official U.S. support,” Gyatso said. “But of course the U.S. should help us. They used us to fight China for them and then they dropped us on the spot. They should do something for us.”

NO MORE BAD BLOOD

The CIA began training and arming Tibetan guerillas in 1957. Initially, the Tibetan resistance fighters, called the Chushi-Gangdruk, were based inside Tibet. But in the 1960s groups of fighters also set up bases in Nepal’s Mustang region, from which they conducted raids across the border into China.

The Mustang resistance, as the Nepal-based fighters came to be known, were supported by CIA funds until 1972, when President Richard Nixon normalized relations with China and the CIA’s Tibetan operation (in Nepal) ended. The Mustang resistance continued without U.S. support until 1974, when Nepal, bowing to pressure from China, sent soldiers into the arid Himalayan region to root out the Tibetan guerillas.

The Hotel Mount Annapurna was the CIA’s olive branch to the Mustang fighters, attempting to give the former guerrillas (many of whom had no education or professional skills beyond soldiering) a chance to make a livelihood as they transitioned to (their former) life as refugees.

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. TSULTRIM GYATSO, FORMER MANAGER OF HOTEL MOUNT ANNAPURNA FUNDED BY US PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON. Photo. Nolan Peterson. The Daily Signal.**

Tsultrim Gyatso, chairman of the Lodrik Welfare Fund and former manager of the Hotel Mount Annapurna. (Photo: Nolan Peterson/The Daily Signal)

“After surrender, it took at least 15 years before the soldiers could finally reintegrate into normal life,” Gyatso said. “The CIA was good in the beginning, but they abandoned us.”

Today, resistance fighter veterans and their descendants still do not have Nepalese citizenship, and most do not have paperwork identifying them as refugees—making it impossible to travel abroad, get a driver’s license, open a bank account or start a business. They live in refugee camps around Pokhara and are largely dependent on welfare for their survival.
“Babies don’t even have birth certificates,” Gyatso said. “We just need a paper to identify ourselves so we can work.”

The Mustang resistance raids ultimately did little to seriously damage China’s occupation of Tibet, but the intelligence Tibetan fighters gathered was sometimes of great value to the United States. A raid on a Chinese convoy in 1961, for example, killed a Chinese regimental commander and provided the CIA with what it later referred to as the “bible” on Chinese military intelligence.

A faction of Mustang resistance fighters under the command of Baba Yeshi collaborated with Nepal in 1974 by giving up their compatriots’ positions, clearing the way for an operation that killed many Tibetan guerillas, including their CIA-trained commander, General Gyato Wangdu. Yeshi’s Tibetan collaborators went on to create prosperous carpet-making enterprises in Kathmandu. And unlike the descendants of the Mustang resistance fighters around Pokhara, the descendants of the Tibetan collaborators enjoy Nepalese citizenship, according to Gyatso.

Yet, Gyatso added, there is no more bad blood between the descendants of the Mustang resistance and those who betrayed them.
“There are no more divides between factions of the Mustang resistance,” Gyatso said. “We are all Tibetan. The history is there, yes. But we are all against the Chinese. Bad things happened, and His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) has forgiven them.”

@nolanwpeterson

NOLAN PETERSON

Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal’s foreign correspondent based in Ukraine.

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. US PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER APPROVED FUNDING OF TIBETAN RESISTANCE MOVEMENT WITH INDIA AND TIBET AS US PARTNERS.**

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET. 34th US PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER SANCTIONED FUNDS FOR SUPPORTING TIBETAN RESISTANCE MOVEMENT TO RESTORE BALANCE OF POWER IN TIBET.**

TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. RED CHINA’S ECONOMIC AND MILITARY POWER IMPOSES A HUGE IMBALANCE OF POWER IN SOUTHEAST ASIA. US PRESIDENT DWIGHT DAVID EISENHOWER TOOK EXECUTIVE ACTION TO CORRECT THIS IMBALANCE.

**TIBET EQUILIBRIUM – BALANCE OF POWER IN OCCUPIED TIBET. THE GREAT TIBET PROBLEM WILL EXIST UNTIL THE BALANCE OF POWER IS RESTORED IN OCCUPIED TIBET.**

Whole Equilibrium – Balancing the Force – Tibetan David vs Chinese Goliath

Excerpt: In my analysis, Tibet Equilibrium is about balancing physical force applied by Communist regime to overcome Nature’s Agenda of granting freedom without asking questions. Living Tibetan Spirits speak of Nature’s Agenda in Tibet. Freedom and Independence are gifts of Nature quietly operating across Tibetan Plateau long before the arrival of Anatomically Modern Man. Occupying force wielded by Communist China creates imbalance, disharmony, and discord in the lives of Tibetans who view freedom as natural experience.

Author Alexander Norman gives an illuminating account of the Dalai Lama, from his selection as an infant through to his exile and his 21st century persona as a benign all-smiling Buddhist version of the Pope

I like the description of the Dalai Lama as a “Tibetan David who stood up to the Chinese Goliath.” In my analysis, Tibetan Equilibrium, the restoration of Natural Freedom in Tibet is Just a Stone’s Throw Away.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

Special Frontier Force-Establishment 22-Vikas Regiment

The Dalai Lama: a Tibetan David who stood up to the Chinese Goliath

Author Alexander Norman gives an illuminating account of the Dalai Lama, from his selection as an infant through to his exile and his 21st century persona as a benign all-smiling Buddhist version of the Pope

Biography

The Dalai Lama

Alexander Norman

Rider, hardback, 464 pages, €33.59

**Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama addresses those gathered at Buyant Ukhaa sport palace in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, November 20, 2016. REUTERS/B. Rentsendorj**

Kim Bielenberg

February 29 2020 02:30 AM

For most of his adult life, the Dalai Lama has been the leader in exile of a vast mountainous territory under the yoke of communist China. Almost as soon as he took power in Tibet as a spiritual and political leader, his authority was being stripped away from him – and within a decade he had fled to India.

Over the decades, the Dalai Lama, now 84, could only read with horror about what happened in his homeland under Communist rule. Monasteries were destroyed, monks were killed and religious freedom obliterated by the occupying power.

There was a ban on displaying or possessing pictures of his image. Tibetan students were even banned from visiting monasteries or taking part in religious ceremonies, and the Chinese stranglehold has hardly loosened.

And yet, after 61 years of exile, the Rolex-wearing holy man – known by his acolytes as “the Precious Protector” and by Rupert Murdoch as a “canny old monk in Gucci loafers” – remains a potent moral and spiritual force around the world.

In his illuminating biography, Alexander Norman describes the Dalai Lama as the “Tibetan David standing up to the Chinese Goliath, armed only with the rhetoric of compassion.”

He roams the globe as a kind of benign all-smiling Buddhist version of the Pope, welcomed by world leaders and cheered at the Glastonbury rock festival, where he was kissed by the singer Patti Smith.

Bizarrely, he once appeared as a guest judge on the Australian version of Masterchef, and relaxes watching the 1970s BBC comedy, Dad’s Army. He is fascinated by the art of clock and watchmaking, hence his interest in Rolex watches.

**THE BATTLE OF RIGHT AGAINST MIGHT. Just like David who defeated the Philistine Champion Goliath, Tibet will prevail in its just battle against the military giant called China.**

His form of spirituality – with its emphasis on extended periods of meditation – is arguably now more appealing in secularised Western societies than traditional Catholicism.

Alexander Norman is clearly an avid admirer of the Tibetan leader, and interviewed him for this biography, but does not gloss over controversies, or romanticise life in the old Tibet.

In the feudal society of Tibet before the communists arrived, there could be bitter infighting between those with an eye on power, and it was far from being a peace-loving Shangri-la.

One senior official from the last century had his eyes gouged out and was consigned to a dungeon. And Reting Rinpoché, who served as regent when the present Dalai Lama was a boy, also met a sorry end.

Depending on which account you believe, he died by having his testicles crushed, he was poisoned or he was strangled.

The appointment of the present Dalai Lama as a young child is one of the more fascinating episodes in this biography.

He is supposedly the reincarnation of the last one. So how is the infant Dalai Lama found?

The lengthy selection process involves senior officials having dreams and visions, sending out search parties, and worthy toddlers undergoing a series of tests.

The two-year-old boy who became the present Dalai Lama had to choose between two drums, one of which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, and he picked the right one. He also picked out other objects belonging to his predecessor.

Other auspicious signs that he was the rightful heir were that visitors to his home heard the first cuckoo of spring, and on the day he was born, a rainbow appeared above his house.

Once he had been found, the young child was separated from his parents and taken to a monastery, where he lived until his confirmation by the authorities.

The Dalai Lama by Alexander Norman

When he eventually came of age, the communist pressure on Tibet was already being felt and under duress, his officials signed an agreement with Chairman Mao for the “peaceful liberation” of Tibet.

Of course, by liberation, the communists meant suppression.

Still remarkably young, the Tibetan leader tried to appease Mao in the hope that the territory could maintain some of its independence, or at least its religious freedom.

At a banquet in Beijing, Mao impressed the Dalai Lama with his charm, and at one stage even applied to join the Communist Party. Any hopes that there could be peaceful co-existence were dashed, however, with many monks in open rebellion and a growing Chinese military presence.

Trouble flared in the capital Lhasa in March 1959, and amid fears that he might be captured by the Chinese, the Dalai Lama fled his palace. He crossed the border into India after an epic 15-day journey on foot over the Himalayan mountains.

Once the religious leader had gone into exile, the communist invaders seemed to lose all restraint and their opponents were often subjected to beatings and ritualised humiliation.

The death of Chairman Mao seemed to signal a softening of the treatment of Tibet. The new leader Deng Xiaoping fostered these hopes and even wanted the exiled Dalai Lama to return.

But exiled Tibetans who were invited to return on fact-finding missions encountered extreme poverty and intolerance of their religion. Monasteries had been destroyed, temples were used as slaughterhouses, and schoolchildren were not allowed to learn their own language.

In 2011, the Dalai Lama renounced his claim to lead his people as head of state in favour of a democratically elected layman. He now sees his role as that a teacher.

According to Alexander Norman, this makes perfect sense. The word lama is the Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit word guru – a spiritual guide. Communist tyrants may still hold a grip on China, but across the world, the teachings of the Tibetan holy man have echoed more loudly than the thoughts of Chairman Mao.

Indo Review

Whole Trouble – Troubles of Tibet – Red China’s Cyberspace Expansionism

Red China’s Cyberspace Expansionism

In my analysis, Communist China’s Beidou Satellite Navigation Network may succeed in the invasion of Tibetan Cyberspace but will utterly fail in defending China from an attack from Heavenly Domain.

Rudra Narasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

**Red China – Evil Empire-Isaiah 47: 10 and 11**

Big data system keeps real-time track of visitors in Tibet – Global Times

Clipped from: http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1121934.shtml

A Tibetan opera competition held in a park during the traditional Shoton Festival in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, on August 12, 2018, attracts numerous Tibetan people and tourists from home and abroad. Photo: VCG

Tibet University installs a real-time monitoring electronic screen which can display the number of tourists in a given period and the specific number at any tourist attraction. Photo: Courtesy of Nyima Tashi

This big data screen made its debut at this year’s Tourism and Culture Expo that kicked off in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in early September. The screen shows the distribution of Tibet’s natural resources including lakes, lands and rare wild species. Photo: Courtesy of Wang Sheng

As China enters the era of big data, a key university in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region is using this technical method to monitor the flow of tourists.

Analysts said the move will not only boost the tourism industry but also help safeguard regional stability and promote national unity.

Tibet University, the largest university in the region with an internationally renowned department of Tibetan studies, has established a big data center based on tourism information.

The center was jointly built by the university’s information and technology school and Beijing-based Wiseweb Technology Company, one of China’s leading companies that provide big data smart software and services. It was officially launched in early September.

Nyima Tashi, dean of the school, told the Global Times on Friday that the center aims to provide data support for the regional government to boost the local tourism industry and further accelerate the region’s openness to the world.

Nyima said the school installed a real-time monitoring electronic screen which could display the number of tourists in a given period and the specific number at any tourist attraction.

Moreover, it can show the background information of local tourist attractions and exhibit any trends of changing tourist preferences.

“In near future, the screen could also show more information about tourists, such as the origin of domestic and overseas tourists and their preferences of scenic spots, as long as the information does not invade personal privacy,” Nyima noted.

The big data screen made its debut at this year’s tourism and culture expo that kicked off in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, in early September.

Wang Sheng, deputy manager of Wiseweb, told the Global Times on Thursday that the data aims to provide a reference for the regional government to monitor tourism market dynamics.

For example, the screen could display important events held in Tibet, ticket information, and the number of tourists in different scenic spots, he said.

“The real-time monitoring could give a warning to the government on negative social events,” Wang noted.

According to Wang, some data is captured from open sources on the internet while other data is purchased from tourist companies. For the next step, the company will obtain more data from different levels of government. “Possibly, the screen will show more information about overseas tourists,” said Wang.

The big data center impressed foreign visitors. Han Woo-duck, director of South Korea Central Daily China Institute, said in an article published on its website on September 18 that what marveled him most during his four-day visit to Tibet was not the Potala Palace or the Jokhang Monastery, but the big data center at Tibet University.

Han said the university’s staff led him to the center, and the changing data on the screen, shown as pie charts and bar graphs, could demonstrate the changes of tourists in real-time.

“It means that the Tibet University, in the deep heart of China, is building up a big data center. It marks a clear comparison with South Korea, where there is not any real-time information about the number of tourists in scenic spots or the major gathering spots of overseas tourists,” Han said in the article.

Tibet received a record 25.6 million domestic and foreign tourists in 2017, up 10.6 percent compared with the previous year, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January, citing regional authorities.

Tourism has become one of the pillar industries in the region. Tourism revenue during 2017 reached 37.9 billion yuan ($5.9 billion), with a year-on-year increase of 14.7 percent. Statistics showed that for the past five years, total tourism revenue in the region topped 130 billion yuan, said Xinhua.

Due to special ethnic traditions and environmental protection concerns, overseas tourists must get a permit from the regional tourist bureau before entering into Tibet.

From January to April, Tibet received nearly 40,000 foreign tourists, up 50.5 percent compared with the previous year.

“A big data system incorporating tourism information will help local governments manage the industry in a more orderly way and avoid accidents,” Xiong Kunxin, a professor of ethnic studies at the Minzu University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times on Friday.

In addition to sharing the beautiful scenery and cultural heritage with the outside world, developing tourism in Tibet is also an important move to safeguard regional stability, promote national unity, and guard against separatist forces, said Xiong.

Whole Problem – The Great Problem of Tibet is on the Back Burner

The Great Problem of Tibet is on the Back Burner

During the month of March, Tibet Awareness Month, I regret to report that The Great Problem of Tibet is still on the Back Burner. But, I am adamantly hopeful for the word Evil means Doom, Apocalypse, Calamity, Cataclysm, and Disaster. The global attention for Tibet has shrunk but the Evil Red Empire could be rushing ahead to meet its unavoidable Fate. My hope comes from a Biblical Prophesy.

How China has shrunk global attention for Tibet and the Dalai Lama — Quartz

Clipped from: https://qz.com/1565178/how-china-has-shrunk-global-attention-for-tibet-and-the-dalai-lama/

***The global attention for Tibet has shrunk but the Evil Red Empire could be rushing ahead to meet its unavoidable Fate. My hope comes from a Biblical Prophesy.***

March is a sensitive month in Tibet. In 1959, an uprising led to a bloody crackdown by Chinese forces, culminating in the 23-year-old Dalai Lama’s escape to India on March 17, where he arrived after two weeks of apprehension over his fate. Protests marking the Tibetan revolt were put down in 1989, and most recently in 2008, months before China was set to showcase itself to the world with the opening of the Beijing Olympics.

It’s hard to imagine such acts of defiance taking place today. In 2011, Beijing further tightened its chokehold on the autonomous region under the leadership of new Tibet Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo (paywall), who implemented a vast array of security measures, including the incarceration and “re-education” of those who had returned from listening to the Dalai Lama’s teachings in India. Tibetans were also forced to adapt their culture to party ideology and to learn how to “revere” science, part of Beijing’s ongoing propaganda campaign that portrays its rule in Tibet as a benevolent exercise in modernization and anti-feudalism. Ten years ago today (March 28), the Chinese instituted Serfs’ Emancipation Day as a holiday to celebrate its program.

Reuters

Smoke rises from burning buildings below the Potala Palace in the Tibetan capital Lhasa during protests on March 14, 2008.

“To some extent, China has been very successful in dealing with Tibet,” said Tsering Shakya, an academic at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Beijing is applying the Tibet model to another minority considered to pose a danger to the state. In 2016, Chen became party secretary in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, where his Tibetan policies are largely seen as the foundation for repression of the Uyghur minority. Large-scale re-education camps hold hundreds of thousands of Muslims as Uyghur cultural and religious practices face systematic erosion.

From Kundun to Rock Dog

Advocates hope that growing international awareness over Xinjiang will help rekindle the world’s attention toward Tibet, which has dwindled amid the Chinese Communist Party’s relentless efforts to reshape the global conversation about the region.

Perhaps the starkest manifestation of that is in the arts. Tibet, once a cause célèbre in Hollywood as the subject of films such as Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet—in which Brad Pitt played the role of an Austrian mountaineer who tutored the young Dalai Lama—is today almost nowhere to be seen on screen. Actor Richard Gere, one of the most well-known celebrities to support Tibetan independence, said in 2017 that he has been shut out of major productions because of his outspokenness.

Reuters/Yuri Gripas

Nancy Pelosi talks to Richard Gere at a memorial event for Kasur Gyari, former special envoy of the Dalai Lama to the US, March 12, 2019.

When Tibet is still visible, said Seagh Kehoe at the University of Leicester, it is often in a watered-down and totally depoliticized fashion, as in the animated Rock Dog, a 2016 joint US-China production about a Tibetan mastiff who becomes a music star. Self-censorship over Tibet can be seen at work in London as well, with a West End theater suspending performance of a play about Tibet last year reportedly at the urging of the British Council, the UK’s international cultural organization, which is partly government funded. Following accusations of censorship by its playwright and apologies by the theater, Pah-la is now due to be staged next month.

Shaping the narrative on campus

Universities are another important battleground in Beijing’s attempt to mold its narrative. Campus activism in an earlier era was generally pro-Tibetan. That’s changing today with the ballooning number of Chinese students abroad—over 600,000 now compared with fewer than 50,000 in the late 1990s.

Chinese authorities “see overseas students as allies in their ongoing efforts to counter regime opponents” including groups sympathetic to Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and the Falun Gong, according to a report (pdf) last year by the Wilson Center, a Washington, DC-based think tank. The report detailed attempts by Chinese officials to put pressure on institutions to cancel invitations to the Dalai Lama and to bring more Chinese delegations to US universities to espouse the Communist Party’s line on Tibet.

Chemi Lhamo, a Tibetan student who was elected last month as a student president at the University of Toronto, received thousands of threatening Instagram messages from Chinese students. The student union decided to close her office out of concern for her safety. Chinese officials in Canada denied having anything to do with the incident or a case in which an Uyghur speaker was disrupted by Chinese students at McMaster University who had reportedly sought advice (paywall) from the consulate in Toronto. Chinese diplomats in Canada have praised the actions of students in both instances as being “patriotic.”

“Slow violence” gets less attention

Draconian restrictions on travel by Tibetans, foreign diplomats and journalists have made getting disseminating information from the region immensely more difficult.

Ever-tightening security has eliminated visible, large-scale displays of protest. The “optics of urgency” spotlighting the Xinjiang situation, such as satellite photos of camps and reporting by journalists on the ground, are missing from the Tibet narrative, wrote Gerald Roche, an anthropologist at La Trobe University in Melbourne. The “slow violence” that characterizes the plight of Tibet today, Roche added, makes it harder to get global attention.

Ahead of the 60th anniversary of the uprisings in Tibet, Chinese authorities further tightened control, restricting even foreign tourists from traveling there. Meanwhile, a white paper from China’s State Council on Tibet released yesterday (March 27) boasted of “democratic reform” over the past six decades, including a chapter titled “The People Have Become Masters of Their Own Affairs.”

During the month of March, Tibet Awareness Month, I regret to report that The Great Problem of Tibet is still on the Back Burner. But, I am adamantly hopeful for the word Evil means Doom, Apocalypse, Calamity, Cataclysm, and Disaster. The global attention for Tibet has shrunk but the Evil Red Empire could be rushing ahead to meet its unavoidable Fate. My hope comes from a Biblical Prophesy.

Reuters/Thomas Peter

Armed police attempt to prevent a photographer from taking pictures at the entrance to the village of Taktser, known in Chinese as Hongya, where the Dalai Lama was born in 1935, Qinghai province, China March 9, 2019.

Dramatic protests have continued. Since 2009, Tibetans have been self-immolating as a form of protest, with the act spreading from nuns and monks to laypeople. The International Campaign for Tibet’s latest count of self-immolations totals 155, with the last of the three known to have occurred in 2018 taking place in December. International media coverage, however, has largely disappeared. “We have some 150 cases of self-immolation, but for all, I know it could be 300,” said Kevin Carrico at Monash University in Australia. “Even for people who pay attention to this situation, we don’t really know what’s happening.”

The debate over the next Dalai Lama

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch in Washington, said that spotlighting China’s human-rights abuses in Xinjiang can reinforce mutual support between diaspora Uyghur and Tibetan groups. There’s a common “core pathology” underlining Beijing’s actions in both places, including the “erasing of cultural identities and practices,” she said. Lhamo, the Tibetan student, told Quartz that a growing focus of her activism now involves building ties and sharing information with Uyghurs, Taiwanese, and the Falun Gong.

Advocacy groups have also welcomed renewed pressure by the US on Beijing. Congress passed the Tibet Reciprocal Act in December, which denies entry to the US any Chinese official who blocks Americans from going to Tibet. Matteo Mecacci, a former lawmaker in Italy and president for the International Campaign for Tibet, said the bill signals “enduring, bipartisan support for Tibet” in the US. The law requires annual reports detailing access to Tibet for Americans, with the first published this week.

AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia

The Dalai Lama smiles as he sits on his chair at the Tsuglakhang temple in Dharmsala, India, Feb. 27, 2019.

The fight over the Dalai Lama’s succession—and China’s obsessive control over it—could also return Tibet to headlines in the coming years.

Amid a flurry of attention this month marking the leader’s 60th anniversary in exile in Dharamsala, the 83-year-old Dalai Lama said in an interview that his next incarnation could be found in India, adding that Beijing is likely to appoint its own successor whom “nobody will trust.” Beijing, which consistently maintains that the Dalai Lama is a separatist, promptly reiterated that the selection of the next Tibetan spiritual leader must follow Chinese law.

Whole Uprising – Because Tibet is not Free

65th Tibetan National Uprising Day

**Sunday, March 10, 2024. 65th Anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day.**

On Sunday, March 10, 2024, the Living Tibetan Spirits commemorate events of Tibetan Uprising on Tuesday, March 10, 1959.

Tibet Uprising or Tibet Rebellion on Tuesday, March 10, 1959 makes a profound impact on the course of my life’s journey since 1971 when I joined the Tibetan Resistance Movement in support of Human Rights, Freedom, Peace and Justice in Occupied Tibet. I speak on behalf of the Living Tibetan Spirits who live in exile without a refugee status, without asylum protection, and without any entity that can be called a friend.

Sunday, March 10, 2024. 65th Anniversary of Tibetan Uprising Day: For Seventy Five years, Tibetans are living under military occupation and political oppression. What is Tibet’s Future? How to evict the illegal occupier of Tibet?

How to find Hope when the Final Destination remains unknown? Can Patience and Perseverance serve the purpose of Hope for Freedom, Peace, and Justice?

EVENTS LEADING TO THE 1959 TIBETAN UPRISING

Clipped from: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-tibetan-uprising-of-1959-195267

China Forces the Dalai Lama into Exile

The Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, which was destroyed by the Chinese Army during the 1959 Tibetan Uprising but later rebuilt. lapin.lapin on Flickr.com

Chinese artillery shells pummeled the Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, sending plumes of smoke, fire, and dust into the night sky. The centuries-old building crumbled under the barrage, while the badly outnumbered Tibetan Army fought desperately to repel the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from Lhasa…

Meanwhile, amidst the snows of the high Himalaya, the teenaged Dalai Lama and his bodyguards endured a cold and treacherous two-week-long journey into India.

Origins of the Tibetan Uprising of 1959

Tibet had an ill-defined relationship with China’s Qing Dynasty (1644-1912); at various times it could have been an ally, an opponent, a tributary state, or a region within Chinese control.

In 1724, during a Mongol invasion of Tibet, the Qing seized the opportunity to incorporate the Tibetan regions of Amdo and Kham into China proper. The central area was renamed Qinghai, while pieces of both regions were broken off and added to other western Chinese provinces. This land grab would fuel Tibetan resentment and unrest into the twentieth century.

When the last Qing Emperor fell in 1912, Tibet asserted its independence from China. The 13th Dalai Lama returned from three years of exile in Darjeeling, India, and resumed control of Tibet from his capital at Lhasa. He ruled until his death in 1933.

China, meanwhile, was under siege from a Japanese invasion of Manchuria, as well as a general breakdown of order across the country.

Between 1916 and 1938, China descended into the “Warlord Era,” as different military leaders fought for control of the headless state. In fact, the once-great empire would not pull itself back together until after World War II, when Mao Zedong and the Communists triumphed over the Nationalists in 1949.

Meanwhile, a new incarnation of the Dalai Lama was discovered in Amdo, part of Chinese “Inner Tibet.” Tenzin Gyatso, the current incarnation, was brought to Lhasa as a two-year-old in 1937 and was enthroned as the leader of Tibet in 1950, at 15.

China Moves in and Tensions Rise

In 1950, Mao’s gaze turned west. He decided to “liberate” Tibet from the Dalai Lama’s rule and bring it into the People’s Republic of China. The PLA crushed Tibet’s tiny armed forces in a matter of weeks; Beijing then imposed the Seventeen Point Agreement, which Tibetan officials were forced to sign (but later renounced).

According to the Seventeen Point Agreement, privately-held land would be socialized and then redistributed, and farmers would work communally. This system would first be imposed on Kham and Amdo (along with other areas of the Sichuan and Qinghai Provinces), before being instituted in Tibet proper.

All the barley and other crops produced on the communal land went to the Chinese government, according to Communist principles, and then some was redistributed to the farmers. So much of the grain was appropriated for use by the PLA that the Tibetans did not have enough to eat.

By June of 1956, the ethnic Tibetan people of Amdo and Kham were up in arms.

As more and more farmers were stripped of their land, tens of thousands organized themselves into armed resistance groups and began to fight back. Chinese army reprisals grew increasingly brutal and included wide-spread abuse of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. (China alleged that many of the monastic Tibetans acted as messengers for the guerrilla fighters.)

The Dalai Lama visited India in 1956 and admitted to Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he was considering asking for asylum. Nehru advised him to return home, and the Chinese Government promised that communist reforms in Tibet would be postponed and that the number of Chinese officials in Lhasa would be reduced by half. Beijing did not follow through on these pledges.

By 1958, as many as 80,000 people had joined the Tibetan resistance fighters.

Alarmed, the Dalai Lama’s government sent a delegation to Inner Tibet to try and negotiate an end to the fighting. Ironically, the guerrillas convinced the delegates of the righteousness of the fight, and Lhasa’s representatives soon joined in the resistance!

Meanwhile, a flood of refugees and freedom fighters moved into Lhasa, bringing their anger against China with them. Beijing’s representatives in Lhasa kept careful tabs on the growing unrest within Tibet’s capital city.

March 1959 – The Uprising Erupts in Tibet Proper

Important religious leaders had disappeared suddenly in Amdo and Kham, so the people of Lhasa were quite concerned about the safety of the Dalai Lama. The people’s suspicions therefore were raised immediately when the Chinese Army in Lhasa invited His Holiness to watch a drama at the military barracks on March 10, 1959. Those suspicions were reinforced by a none-too-subtle order, issued to the head of the Dalai Lama’s security detail on March 9, that the Dalai Lama should not bring along his bodyguards.

On the appointed day, March 10, some 300,000 protesting Tibetans poured into the streets and formed a massive human cordon around Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace, to protect him from the planned Chinese abduction. The protestors stayed for several days, and calls for the Chinese to pull out of Tibet altogether grew louder each day. By March 12, the crowd had begun to barricade the streets of the capital, while both armies moved into strategic positions around the city and began to reinforce them.

Ever the moderate, the Dalai Lama pleaded with his people to go home and sent placatory letters to the Chinese PLA commander in Lhasa. and sent placatory letters to the Chinese PLA commander in Lhasa.

When the PLA moved artillery into range of the Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama agreed to evacuate the building. Tibetan troops prepared a secure escape route out of the besieged capital on March 15. When two artillery shells struck the palace two days later, the young Dalai Lama and his ministers began the arduous 14-day trek over the Himalayas for India.

On March 19, 1959, fighting broke out in earnest in Lhasa. The Tibetan army fought bravely, but they were vastly outnumbered by the PLA. In addition, the Tibetans had antiquated weapons.

The firefight lasted just two days. The Summer Palace, Norbulingka, sustained over 800 artillery shell strikes that killed an unknown number of people inside; the major monasteries were bombed, looted and burned. Priceless Tibetan Buddhist texts and works of art were piled in the streets and burned. All remaining members of the Dalai Lama’s bodyguard corps were lined up and publicly executed, as were any Tibetans discovered with weapons. In all, some 87,000 Tibetans were killed, while another 80,000 arrived in neighboring countries as refugees. An unknown number tried to flee but did not make it.

In fact, by the time of the next regional census, a total of about 300,000 Tibetans were “missing” – killed, secretly jailed, or gone into exile.

Aftermath of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising

Since the 1959 Uprising, the central government of China has been steadily tightening its grip on the Tibet.

Although Beijing has invested in infrastructure improvements for the region, particularly in Lhasa itself, it has also encouraged thousands of ethnic Han Chinese to move to Tibet. In fact, Tibetans have been swamped in their own capital; they now constitute a minority of the population of Lhasa.

Today, the Dalai Lama continues to head the Tibetan government-in-exile from Dharamshala, India. He advocates increased autonomy for Tibet, rather than full independence, but Chinese government generally refuses to negotiate with him.

Periodic unrest still sweeps through Tibet, especially around important dates such as March 10 to 19 – the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan Uprising.

Your Citation

Szczepanski, Kallie. “The Tibetan Uprising of 1959.” ThoughtCo, Feb. 6, 2017, thoughtco.com/the-tibetan-uprising-of-1959-195267. Szczepanski, Kallie. (2017, February 6). The Tibetan Uprising of 1959. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-tibetan-uprising-of-1959-195267

Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet

The White House of Supreme Ruler of Tibet

Living Tibetan Spirits present a guide to Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet. Potala Palace serves the same purpose as The White House of the US President.

The Potala Palace on the Red Hill in Lhasa was built during the reign of Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682), the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. The Sovereign Authority of the Dalai Lama as the Ruler of Tibet was established before the US President became the Chief Executive of the United States.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Ruler of Tibet: The political institution of Dalai Lama is formally known as ‘Ganden Phodrang’ and this is the Official Seal of the Tibetan Government.**

Potala is the Seat of Tibetan Government called The Dalai Lama Institution of Tibet.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Ruler of Tibet: The White House of Supreme Ruler of Tibet.**

A GUIDE TO POTALA PALACE, LHASA, TIBET

Clipped from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/asia/china/tibet-autonomous-region-lhasa-potala-palace-world-heritage/

video.nationalgeographic.com/video/travel-source/unesco-world-heritage-sites/180822-china-potala-palace-unesco-travel

Potala Palace is one of the most well-known spiritual sanctums in the world

**Whole Supreme: His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Supreme Ruler of Tibet lives in exile to defend Freedom in Tibet. Potala Palace in Lhasa is witness to the long history of Tibetan Independence.**

At 12,139 feet above sea level, Potala is the highest palace in the world. The 1,300-year-old structure was originally built as a gesture of love, commissioned by Tibetan king Songtsen Gambo for his marriage to Princess Wencheng of the Chinese Tang Dynasty. Eventually, monks came to rule Tibet and the palace was expanded and converted into the winter residence for the Dalai Lama. But when the Dalai Lama was exiled to India in 1959, the Chinese government took over and made the grounds into a museum.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: Lhasa, Potala und Medizinberg von Osten. My Prayers to Lhasa River.**

Still, the Potala Palace remains an iconic part of the region and a mecca for Buddhists around the world. The name Potala is a nod to a sacred mountain in India, where the Buddha of compassion is said to dwell. Year-round, thousands of religious pilgrims circle the perimeter of the palace with prayer wheels and beads to ask for a blessing. Many have traveled thousands of miles by foot just to pay their respects.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: TIBET AWARENESS – HISTORY OF TIBET’S UNREST. POTALA PALACE, LHASA, TIBET.**

With more than a thousand rooms, 10,000 painted scrolls, 698 murals, and thousands of exquisite statues made from precious alloys and jewels, the structure has become one of the most famous spiritual sanctums in the world. Inside are the tombs of eight Dalai Lamas, hundreds of sacred Buddhist scrolls, and numerous shrines. Butter lamps light the hallways and watchful monks are stationed in nearly every public room to ensure that decorum is maintained.

Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: The Potala Palace on the Red Hill in Lhasa was built during the reign of Lobsang Gyatso (1617-1682), the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. The Sovereign Authority of the Dalai Lama as the Ruler of Tibet was established before the US President became the Chief Executive of the United States.

The building is divided into two sections—the Red Palace and the White Palace. The former serves as the religious section and the latter as the administrative area. They are literally colored red and white; a fresh coat of paint made up of milk, honey, and sugar is applied every autumn.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: Potala Palace is the symbol of Tibets Independence**

The Potala Palace was named a World Heritage site in 1994 by UNESCO, and the neighboring Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka and were added on as extensions in 2000 and 2001, respectively. The Jokhang Temple is considered the most sacred temple in Tibet and the Norbulingka was the former summer residence of the Dalai Lama. All three structures are outstanding embodiments of Tibetan culture and despite waves of natural and human-induced damage, they are international icons that have remained spiritually relevant and intact over the centuries.

How to get there

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: Potala Palace is the Institution of Tibetan National Identity**

Fly into the Lhasa Gonggar Airport or take a train into the city. Visitors must obtain a Tibet Tourism Bureau permit through a local tour agency in advance (allow up to 14 days) to enter Tibet by plane or train.

How to visit

Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: In this July 12, 2013, photo, the Potala Palace, once the residence of the Dalai Lama, is seen in Lhasa, Tibet, China. Tibet has been a source of controversy ever since Beijing sent troops to occupy the Himalayan region following the 1949 communist revolution. It says the region has been part of Chinese territory for centuries, while many Tibetans say it has a long history of independence under a series of Buddhist leaders. (AP Photo/Penny Yi Wang)

All visitors must visit the Potala Palace with a tour group. Groups are allocated an hour inside the premises and photos are not allowed. While the palace and its adjacent temples are very much tourist attractions, many of the guests are Tibetan pilgrims who have come to the sacred sites to pray.

When to visit

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: Potala Palace represents the Institution of Dalai Lama known as Ganden Phodrang**

As one of the highest cities in the world, Lhasa can get quite frosty during the winter. Summer is the best time to visit. June to August is peak tourist season.

**Whole Supreme – The Supreme Leader of Tibet: The White House of Supreme Ruler of Tibet. These Tibetans are not pilgrims visiting the Potala Palace. They came to defend their Political Rights.**

Whole Dude – Whole Equilibrium

**WHAT IS TIBET EQUILIBRIUM? I CONSIDER NATURAL CAUSES, NATURAL FACTORS, NATURAL CONDITIONS, NATURAL MECHANISMS, AND NATURAL EVENTS THAT CAN RESTORE NATURAL FREEDOM IN OCCUPIED TIBET.**

Natural Sciences such as Physics and Geology describe Natural Forces that are at work shaping Natural Events such as Plate Tectonics that involves collision between plates of Earth’s mantle. For Life to exist on planet Earth, the physical conditions and forces interacting must generate Natural Balance, Natural Order, and Natural Equilibrium for sustained periods of time.

**WHAT IS TIBET EQUILIBRIUM? WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN POPIGAI IMPACT CRATER IN RUSSIA AND SOUTHERN TIBET UPLIFT?**

During the time of ‘Rapid Uplift of Southern Tibet’, planet Earth witnessed massive collision by a meteorite that caused very significant impact crater in Siberia, Russia. This Natural Collision Event, Russia’s Popigai Meteor Crash, contributed to extinction of several species of Life.

I investigate Natural Causes, Natural Factors, Natural Conditions, and Natural Mechanisms that shape Natural Events such as Major and Minor Extinction Events.

**What is Tibet Equilibrium? Can Bolide Collision Restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?**

Human History is full of events that involve use of Physical Force applied by Man to change Regime, the Political Power that rules or governs lives of people.

In 1950s, People’s Republic of China invaded Tibet using her superior Physical Power. Tibetans living in Occupied Tibet do not experience Natural Freedom due to change in Balance of Power that operates their lives.

Living Tibetan Spirits speak of Nature’s Agenda in Tibet. Freedom and Independence are gifts of Nature quietly operating across Tibetan Plateau long before the arrival of Anatomically Modern Man. Occupying force wielded by Communist China creates imbalance, disharmony, and discord in lives of Tibetans who view freedom as natural experience. There is no reason for Tibetans to raise their voices demanding freedom.

To again experience Natural Freedom, Tibet needs help from a Natural Event of great magnitude that applies Force or Power to cause Downfall of Power Regime that rules Tibet from its Seat of Power in Beijing. In my analysis, Bolide Collision Event described in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 18, can shake up the Seat of Power in Beijing. For that reason, I proclaim, “Beijing Doomed.”

**What is Tibet Equilibrium? What are the Natural Forces acting or operating in Tibet? “Beijing Doomed,” expression of hope for restoring Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet.**

RAPID UPLIFT OF SOUTHERN TIBET – SPACEREF.COM

Clipped from: http://spaceref.com/earth/rapid-uplift-of-southern-tibet.html

**What is Tibet Equilibrium? What Natural Causes, Natural Factors, Natural Conditions, Natural Mechanisms, and Natural Forces operate in Tibet?**

©NASA

Tibetan Plateau

Using seismic data and supercomputers, Rice University geophysicists have conducted a massive seismic CT scan of the upper mantle beneath the Tibetan Plateau.

They concluded that the southern half of the “Roof of the World” formed in less than one-quarter of the time since the beginning of India-Eurasia continental collision.

The research, which appears online this week in the journal Nature Communications, finds that the high-elevation of Southern Tibet was largely achieved within 10 million years. Continental India’s tectonic collision with Asia began about 45 million years ago.

“The features that we see in our tomographic image are very different from what has been seen before using traditional seismic inversion techniques,” said Min Chen, the Rice research scientist who headed the project. “Because we used full waveform inversion to assimilate a large seismic data set, we were able to see more clearly how the upper-mantle lithosphere beneath Southern Tibet differs from that of the surrounding region. Our seismic image suggests that the Tibetan lithosphere thickened and formed a denser root that broke away and sank deeper into the mantle. We conclude that most of the uplift across Southern Tibet likely occurred when this lithospheric root broke away.”

The research could help answer longstanding questions about Tibet’s formation. Known as the “Roof of the World,” the Tibetan Plateau stands more than three miles above sea level. The basic story behind its creation — the tectonic collision between the Indian and Eurasian continents — is well-known to schoolchildren the world over, but the specific details have remained elusive. For example, what causes the plateau to rise and how does its high elevation impact Earth’s climate?

“The leading theory holds that the plateau rose continuously once the India-Eurasia continental collision began, and that the plateau is maintained by the northward motion of the Indian plate, which forces the plateau to shorten horizontally and move upward simultaneously,” said study co-author Fenglin Niu, a professor of Earth science at Rice. “Our findings support a different scenario, a more rapid and pulsed uplift of Southern Tibet.”

It took three years for Chen and colleagues to complete their tomographic model of the crust and upper-mantle structure beneath Tibet. The model is based on readings from thousands of seismic stations in China, Japan and other countries in East Asia. Seismometers record the arrival time and amplitude of seismic waves, pulses of energy that are released by earthquakes and that travel through Earth. The arrival time of a seismic wave at a particular seismometer depends upon what type of rock it has passed through. Working backward from instrument readings to calculate the factors that produced them is something scientists refer to as an inverse problem, and seismological inverse problems with full waveforms incorporating all kinds of usable seismic waves are some of the most complex inverse problems to solve.

Chen and colleagues used a technique called full waveform inversion, “an iterative full waveform-matching technique that uses a complicated numerical code that requires parallel computing on supercomputers,” she said.

“The technique really allows us to use all the wiggles on a large number of seismographs to build up a more realistic 3-D model of Earth’s interior, in much the same way that whales or bats use echo-location,” she said. “The seismic stations are like the ears of the animal, but the echo that they are hearing is a seismic wave that has either been transmitted through or bounced off of subsurface features inside Earth.”

The tomographic model includes features to a depth of about 500 miles below Tibet and the Himalaya Mountains. The model was computed on Rice’s DAVinCI computing cluster and on supercomputers at the University of Texas that are part of the National Science Foundation’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE).

“The mechanism that led to the rise of Southern Tibet is called lithospheric thickening and foundering,” Chen said. “This happened because of convergence of two continental plates, which are each buoyant and not easy to subduct underneath the other plate. One of the plates, in this case on the Tibetan side, was more deformable than the other, and it began to deform around 45 million years ago when the collision began. The crust and the rigid lid of upper mantle — the lithosphere — deformed and thickened, and the denser lower part of this thickened lithosphere eventually foundered, or broke off from the rest of the lithosphere. Today, in our model, we can see a T-shaped section of this foundered lithosphere that extends from a depth of about 250 kilometers to at least 660 kilometers.”

Chen said that after the denser lithospheric root broke away, the remaining lithosphere under Southern Tibet experienced rapid uplift in response.

“The T-shaped piece of foundered lithosphere sank deeper into the mantle and also induced hot upwelling of the asthenosphere, which leads to surface magmatism in Southern Tibet,” she said.

Such magmatism is documented in the rock record of the region, beginning around 30 million years ago in an epoch known as the Oligocene.

“The spatial correlation between our tomographic model and Oligocene magmatism suggests that the Southern Tibetan uplift happened in a relatively short geological span that could have been as short as 5 million years,” Chen said.

Additional co-authors include Adrian Lenardic, Cin-Ty Lee, Wenrong Cao and Julia Ribeiro, all of Rice, and Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), by the NSF’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) program, and by the China Earthquake Administration’s China Seismic Array Data Management Center. Rice’s DAVinCI supercomputer is administered by Rice’s Center for Research Computing and procured in partnership with the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. The DOI of the Nature Communications paper is: 10.1038/NCOMMS15659

A copy of the paper, “Lithospheric Foundering and Under thrusting Imaged Beneath Tibet,” is available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15659

**What is Tibet Equilibrium? How to restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?**

**What is Tibet Equilibrium? Can Time alone restore Natural Freedom in Occupied Tibet?**

CHOOSING THE DALAI LAMA SUCCESSOR IS NOT CHINA’S BUSINESS

CHOOSING THE DALAI LAMA SUCCESSOR IS NOT CHINA’S BUSINESS

The discovery of the Dalai Lama Successor is not China’s business. In fact, China’s Government and Communist Party officials are not even competent to discuss the subject of the Dalai Lama succession.

Rudranarasimham Rebbapragada

SPECIAL FRONTIER FORCE

https://wholedude.com/2018/11/07/the-dalai-lama-life-cycle-man-vs-nature/

Not my business to decide on a successor: Dalai Lama

Clipped from: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/not-my-business-to-decide-on-successor-dalai-lama/story-pI7CFgqSFnmBg9ZSOvWMTP.html

In an interview with Hindustan Times, Dalai Lama said the dialogue process for reincarnation had not even started. He said that this should be decided through an international conference after his natural death.

Shishir Gupta

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama addresses a gathering at Kalachakra ground, in Bodh Gaya on Monday. (Parwaz Khan / HT Photo)

The temporal and spiritual world of Tibetan Buddhism seems headed for a period of uncertainty and possible turmoil in the near future with Lobsang Yeshi Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, leaving the question of his reincarnation and the continuation of the very institution of the Dalai Lama to Buddhists living in the Himalayan belt, Mongolia, and outside Tibet.

In an interview, he said this should be decided through an international conference after his natural death and that it is “not his business” to decide on his successor through either reincarnation or emanation. He admitted the dialogue process for reincarnation had not even started.

Talking exclusively to Hindustan Times, the Dalai Lama said that his anointed 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje “most probably” would return to India.

But that, he said, was a concern of the Karma Kagyu school head and the Indian government as he had no role to play in the matter.

While the highest lama and head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism called the meeting of Ogyen Dorje and co-claimant Trinley Thaye Dorje in France this year a “rightful beginning”, he said he did not want to play the mediator between the two reincarnations of the 16th Karmapa.

Thaye Dorje, who was anointed by rival regent Shamar Rinpoche, is currently preaching in Bodh Gaya to many foreigners from the US and Europe and has not met the 14th Dalai Lama.

Ogyen Trinley Dorje, supported by both the Dalai Lama and China, left for the US in May 2017, ostensibly for medical reasons. He then acquired a Dominican passport in March this year without informing India. He has been laying down conditions for his return – for instance, that he be allowed to visit the Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim which is the seat of the Karmapa outside Tibet and at the heart of the Karmapa controversy, with the two rival factions laying claim to its ownership – but New Delhi isn’t playing ball.

While he said that it was possible for the 16th Karmapa to have a few reincarnations, the Dalai Lama made it amply clear that there should be only one holder of the seat of the 17th Karmapa. The 14th Dalai Lama chose to remain quiet as to who will decide on the holder of the heads of Tibetan schools of Buddhism with the presence of two Panchen Lamas, two Karmapas and the Chinese government already initiating the process of anointing the 15th Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama confirmed that his anointed Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi was alive with another co-claimant. Gyaltsen Norbu is sponsored by the Chinese regime and said to be sitting on the throne in Shigatse and mostly stays in Beijing.

The Dalai Lama confirmed that there was only informal dialogue on with the Chinese government through retired officials and businessmen after all formal channels were closed in June 2010. He said that he did not want an independent Tibet since 1974 but wanted the protection of Tibetan people living even outside Tibetan Autonomous Region of China in terms of language, culture, religious affairs and environment. He said he was committed to “middle approach” when dealing with Beijing and admitted that the Tibetan people will gain financially from the rise of China.

The Dalai Lama dismissed news reports about Dr. Lobsang Sangay, President of the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamshala, not heeding his advice as “small rumors” and said that the politically elected leader trusted and believed in him.

The 84-year-old head of Yellow Hat Gelug school of Buddhism confirmed that he had been successfully treated for what he called “traces of prostate cancer” through radiation but added that he is in good health.

First Published: Dec 25, 2018, 06:56 IST