Dalai Lama to retire from political life

[@nline]

Even your own government doesn't recognize it.

And the only country in the world, that has a border dispute with China's Tibetan region, is India.

Well said!

 

[Aramsogo]

Hardly. It's acknowledged fact by Tibetan exiles.


The CIA Circus: Tibet's Forgotten Army
(by R Sengupta | Outlook | February 15, 1999)


How the CIA sponsored and betrayed Tibetans in a war the world never knew about

It was code-named 'ST Circus'. But there was nothing funny about the way the CIA funded, trained, armed and ultimately used and betrayed the Tibetan cause. This is the war no one knew about. This is the war that shatters the popular impression that the non-violent Tibetans allowed the Chinese to stroll into Lhasa in 1951 after token resistance. A war that is relived in The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet, a gripping documentary made for the BBC by Tenzing Sonam and his wife Ritu Sarin.

This was a labour of love, and it shows. Without being jingoistic, the superbly shot documentary — initiated ten years ago — vividly recounts how a few thousand Tibetans took on the might of the People's Liberation Army. Outgunned and outnumbered, they fought a bloody guerrilla battle on the roof of the world for over a decade. And their ally for much of the time: The CIA.

Tenzing's father, Lhamo Tsering, was a senior resistance leader and the CIA's chief coordinator for the Tibet operation. In 1958, he was trained at CIA camps in Virginia and Colorado's Rocky Mountains. He documented the entire movement, writing at length on the subject. Though he died on January 9 this year without realising his dream of a free Tibet, The Shadow Circus stands tribute to the man.

China invaded Tibet in late 1949, and two years later, overran the brave but tiny Tibetan army to enter Lhasa. The Dalai Lama, 17 at the time, was forced into an uneasy compromise with Beijing. But when monasteries in eastern Tibet were razed in 1956, the local Khampa tribesmen revolted and formed an underground outfit, sending out desperate calls for help. The Dalai Lama's elder brother, Gyalo Thondup, in exile in India, promised to contact the Americans.

The Americans, in the throes of the worst stage of communist-phobia, were happy to oblige. Six men were selected from a group of Khampas that had come to India. They were secretly flown to the Pacific island of Saipan and trained in guerrilla warfare and clandestine radio communications.

Five months later, Athar Norbu, who now lives in Delhi, and his partner were the first men ever to be parachuted into Tibet. By then, the resistance had been forced out of Lhasa into southern Tibet. Their success against the Chinese led to the CIA making its first arms drop to the resistance. Then the agency set up a top-secret training camp in the Rocky Mountains, where conditions approximated those in Tibet. Some 259 Tibetans were trained in Camp Hale over the next five years.

'We had great expectations when we went to America. We thought perhaps they would even give us an atom bomb to take back,' says Tenzin Tsultrim. 'In the training period, we learned that the objective was to gain our independence,' adds another grizzled veteran. But the Americans had other ideas. 'The whole idea was to keep the Chinese occupied, keep them annoyed, keep them disturbed. Nobody wanted to go to war over Tibet...It was a nuisance operation. Basically, nothing more,' says former CIA agent Sam Halpern.

In March 1959, the CIA made a second arms drop in southern Tibet, where the resistance now controlled large areas. Back in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama was invited to the local Chinese military camp to attend a play — sans bodyguards, the invitation said. The citizens of Lhasa rose up in revolt; the Dalai Lama realised it was time to leave.

A few days later, the Dalai Lama, disguised as a soldier, escaped from his palace and headed south. The CIA-trained radio team met them en route, and asked the Americans to request Prime Minister Nehru to grant asylum to the Dalai Lama.Nehru, well aware of the situation, immediately approved. On March 31, 1959, after an arduous trek across the mountains, the Dalai Lama and his entourage entered India. This sparked off an exodus of refugees from Tibet to India — leaving behind only small pockets of resistance in southern Tibet.

Undeterred, the CIA parachuted four groups of Camp Hale trainees inside Tibet between 1959 and 1960 to contact the remaining resistance groups. But the missions resulted in the massacre of all but a few of the team members.

The CIA cooked up a fresh operation in Mustang, a remote corner of Nepal that juts into Tibet. Nearly two thousand Tibetans gathered here to continue their fight for freedom. A year later, the CIA made its first arms drop in Mustang. Organised on the lines of a modern army, the guerrillas were led by Bapa Yeshe, a former monk.

'As soon as we received the aid, the Americans started scolding us like children. They said that we had to go into Tibet immediately. Sometimes I wished they hadn't sent us the arms at all,' says Yeshe. The Mustang guerrillas conducted cross-border raids into Tibet. The CIA made two more arms drops to the Mustang force, the last in May 1965. Then, in early 1969, the agency abruptly cut off all support. The CIA explained that one of the main conditions the Chinese had set for establishing diplomatic relations with the US was to stop all connections and all assistance to the Tibetans. Says Roger McCarthy, an ex-CIA man, 'It still smarts that we pulled out in the manner we did.'

Thinley Paljor, a surviving resistance fighter, was among the thousands shattered by this volte-face. 'We felt deceived, we felt our usefulness to the CIA is finished. They were only thinking short-term for their own personal gain, not for the long-term interests of the Tibetan people.' In 1974, armtwisted by the Chinese, the Nepalese government sent troops to Mustang to demand the surrender of the guerrillas. Fearing a bloody confrontation, the Dalai Lama sent the resistance fighters a taped message, asking them to surrender. They did so, reluctantly. Some committed suicide soon afterwards.

 

[Paan Singh]

Even your own government doesn't recognize it.

And the only country in the world, that has a border dispute with China's Tibetan region, is India.

so how much time is needed to recognize it or not???
The Hindu : News / National : India tells China: Kashmir is to us what Tibet, Taiwan are to you

have u ever heard this statement from indian FM ever since b4.
i stand with my statement

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

so how much time is needed to recognize it or not???
The Hindu : News / National : India tells China: Kashmir is to us what Tibet, Taiwan are to you

have u ever heard this statement from indian FM ever since b4.
i stand with my statement

OK, we'll see what happens.

The Indian government didn't even dare to recognize it, during the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

So I doubt it will happen today, in this globalized world.

Still, we'll wait and see I guess.

 

[Paan Singh]

OK, we'll see what happens.

The Indian government didn't even dare to recognize it, during the 1962 Sino-Indian war.

So I doubt it will happen today, in this globalized world.

Still, we'll wait and see I guess.

i admire this bolded part

 

[prototype]

So they are going to prop up someone violent instead?

And being cautious is always a good thing.

Note that China has NO active armed insurgencies, even despite foreign nations trying to meddle. The unrest never transforms into insurgency.

Nor have any countries in the world recognized an independent Tibet.

I think India played this political chip poorly. And it will soon be too late.

utter rubbish,even according to u ureslf India had never acknowledged Tibet,nor before its invasion,not after its invasion,if India wanted to play on this,this game would have been on a different level,the spark would never have been extinguished.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

utter rubbish,even according to u ureslf India had never acknowledged Tibet,nor before its invasion,not after its invasion,if India wanted to play on this,this game would have been on a different level,the spark would never have been extinguished.

Due to kindness, fear or inability?

I think you overestimate India's ability to hurt us, though you certainly managed to collectively aggravate the Chinese diaspora.

Including Taiwan, who also believe that Tibet is a part of China.

 

[@nline]

Due to kindness, fear or inability?

I think you overestimate India's ability to hurt us, though you certainly managed to collectively aggravate the Chinese diaspora.

Including Taiwan, who also believe that Tibet is a part of China.

Well said!

 

[prototype]

Due to kindness, fear or inability?

I think you overestimate India's ability to hurt us, though you certainly managed to collectively aggravate the Chinese diaspora.

Including Taiwan, who also believe that Tibet is a part of China.

According to u India made China its enemy after 1959,even before that India had never acknowledged Tibet,now its ur choice to decide that was due to kindness,fear or inability.

 

[Badabing]

It's a facade makeover for Dalai. He will still lurk behind the scenes but won't bear the full brunt of criticism while receiving full credit on all "accolades". This move also leaves open for the option of "when his flock beckons", he can then re-emerge as Mr. Fix-it. Pretty savvy political move BUT as Abe Lincoln, a brilliant politician himself said long ago, you can fool some of the people some of the time......

 

[no_name]

This is not the first time that the Dalai Lama has claimed he will retire. In any case I doubt the CCP will lose their vigilance on him until he is six feet under.

 

[CardSharp]

This is not the first time that the Dalai Lama has claimed he will retire. In any case I doubt the CCP will lose their vigilance on him until he is six feet under.

Whatever I hope they choose someone more extreme, if the new leader falls out of fashion with Hollywood, the Tibetan independence movement will have to go back to taking funds from the CIA. They will be much easier to dismiss internationally once they do.

 

[CardSharp]

Conspiracy? More like you are willing to ignore truth.

World News Briefs; Dalai Lama Group Says It Got Money From C.I.A.
Published: October 2, 1998

NEW DELHI, Oct. 1— The Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged today that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960's from the Central Intelligence Agency, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000.

The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said in a statement. It added that the subsidy earmarked for the Dalai Lama was spent on setting up offices in Geneva and New York and on international lobbying.

The Dalai Lama, 63, a revered spiritual leader both in his Himalayan homeland and in Western nations, fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against a Chinese military occupation, which began in 1950.

The decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement was part of the C.I.A.'s worldwide effort to undermine Communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China.

World News Briefs - Dalai Lama Group Says It Got Money From C.I.A. - NYTimes.com

 

[ZhengHe]

If you think China will simply rest now, think again. His words mean nothing.

This is a nice trick to fool people, if it had come from someone other than this conniving disgrace of a Dalai Lama.

 

[CardSharp]

If you think China will simply rest now, think again. His words mean nothing.

I see the change in leadership as an opportunity.