‘Over a Thousand’ Tibetans Gather in Kardze to Pray For Dalai Lama’s Health
2016-01-27
In open defiance of authorities, over a thousand Tibetans in western China’s Sichuan province gathered this week in public at a Buddhist monastery to pray for the long life of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who is receiving medical treatment in the U.S.
Participants in the gathering had assembled two weeks before at Chokri monastery in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) county in the Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture for an already scheduled traditional ceremony, a Tibetan source in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“This is an annual prayer gathering which usually begins on Jan. 13 and ends on Jan. 25,” RFA’s source, named Lodroe, said.
“But following a notice sent out on Jan. 20 by the [India-based] Central Tibetan Administration requesting prayers for His Holiness the Dalai Lama while he undergoes a health check at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S., the Tibetans extended their praying for two extra days,” Lodroe said.
“They dedicated the gathering’s final two days, Jan. 25 and 26, to those specific prayers,” he said.
Video and photos circulating on social media sites and obtained by RFA show hundreds of Tibetan men, women, and children seated before a large shrine at the monastery and praying before a large image of the Dalai Lama, whose photos are banned by Chinese authorities in Tibetan areas.
No crackdown on event
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet into exile in India in 1959, is reviled by Chinese leaders as a dangerous separatist who seeks to split the formerly self-governing region from Beijing’s rule.
In what he calls a Middle Way Approach, though, the Dalai Lama himself says that he seeks only a “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet as a part of China, with protections for the region’s language, religion, and culture.
No word has been received of a possible suppression by Chinese authorities of this week’s gathering in Kardze, a second source living in India with connections in the region told RFA on Tuesday.
“So far there has been no word of a crackdown because of the prayer gatherings,” Chokri Phuntsok Tsering said, adding,“The situation is said to be tense, though.”
Speaking on Wednesday at a prayer service held in Dharamsala, India, Tibet’s exile political leader, or Sikyong, Lobsang Sangay said that the Dalai Lama, 80, is expected to make a full recovery after treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and that there are now “no major concerns” for his health.
“This has been confirmed by His Holiness himself as well as the doctors who are looking after [him],” Sangay said in a statement released by the exile Central Tibetan Administration.
Reported by Sonam Wangdue for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Tibetan Villagers Capture Poachers in Protected Areas
2016-01-15
Tibetan villagers assigned to guard wildlife in a Tibetan prefecture in northwestern China’s Sichuan province have taken into custody four Han Chinese caught poaching endangered animals in protected areas, sources said.
The four were detained at around 2:00 a.m. on Jan. 9 near Basu village in Dzoege (in Chinese, Ruo’ergai) county in the Ngaba (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and were quickly handed over to local officials, a resident of the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“The Tibetans confiscated two rifles and a jeep, along with the carcasses of 12 animals the poachers had hunted,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The animals they had killed included musk deer, wild sheep, wolves, and rabbits, according to photos circulating on the social media platform Weibo and obtained by RFA.
Sichuan’s provincial government website later confirmed the detentions, adding that the accused poachers are now under investigation by Dzoege county police.
Snow leopards killed

In a separate incident, official sources reported on Jan. 12 that five Chinese nationals of unknown ethnicity were taken into custody for alleged poaching near Hetita village in Qinghai’s Tsonub (Haixi) Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
No date of detention was reported, but the suspects were found with the carcasses of two snow leopards and several vultures and wild sheep.
The alleged illegal hunt occurred in a Tibetan nature reserve in Qinghai and is thought to have been a part of wider poaching activities in the area beginning in October. The suspects have not admitted guilt in the case but face ongoing investigation by the authorities, sources said.
China is one of the world’s largest consumers of wildlife products, and snow leopards are prized by poachers because of their beautiful fur, though their bones and other body parts are frequently used in traditional Asian medicine.
An estimated 6,000 snow leopards remain in the wild, though their numbers are dwindling and are difficult to pin down because of the animals’ shy nature and rugged habitat.
Directives from China’s central government urging protection of the vulnerable environment of Tibetan areas are often flouted at the local level by Han Chinese migrants to the region, experts say.
Reported by Guru Choegyi and Chakmo Tso for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Brooks Boliek and Richard Finney.

Tibetan Language Made Equal With Chinese in County in China’s Qinghai
2016-01-13
The Tibetan and Chinese languages will now be given equal status in Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county in Qinghai’s Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture after a storm of protest erupted online following a local hotel’s attempt to prevent Tibetan workers from speaking their native tongue.
In a Jan. 11 notice written in Chinese, county authorities have directed government offices, schools, and state-owned businesses to use both Tibetan and Chinese on official seals, signboards, letterhead, and other forms of communication.
According to the notice, a copy of which was obtained by RFA, the Tibetan language will also be given prominence in some cases, for example when used on a signboard or official letter. The notice also instructs people to print Tibetan and Chinese characters in the same size.
It was not immediately clear whether the new directive is intended also to apply to private businesses or shops.
The government action comes after the Shang Yon hotel in Rebgong on Jan. 7 forbade Tibetan workers from speaking their own language on the job, threatening them with a 500 yuan (U.S. $76 approx.) fine for noncompliance, according to social media accounts.
Online complaints
The rule was quickly reversed when local authorities ordered the hotel temporarily closed after Tibetans furiously complained in social media postings at this intrusion on their rights, sources on the popular social media platform WeChat said.
There was also little support for the hotel’s move among Han Chinese, with many taking to the Internet to back Tibetans in the dispute.
On Jan. 8, the hotel released a public apology to the Tibetan community, saying that its actions had breached cultural privileges guaranteed by China’s policy on so-called minority nationality groups.
While the hotel rescinded its order, the local government order that went into effect on Jan. 13 appears to go further, as it would apply to more than just the hotel.
Eroding traditions
Tibetans have long complained about eroding religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions in Tibetan-populated regions of China, and language rights have become a focal point as Tibetans struggle to reassert their national identity, sources say.
On Nov. 9, 2012, several thousand students in Rebgong took to the streets to demand greater rights, including the right to use Tibetan instead of Mandarin Chinese as their language of instruction in the schools.
Groups formed to promote the study and speaking of Tibetan have been banned as “illegal associations” in Rebgong, though, due to Chinese concerns that these may pose a threat to Beijing’s rule.
Reported by Guru Choegyi and Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

China’s influence in Nepal endangers Tibetan refugees
January 18, 2016
By Emily Korstanje
New Internationalist, January 12, 2016 – Tibetan refugees are extremely passionate about their homeland, culture and freedom – which is why it has devastated so many families to have to flee the country ever since the Chinese military invaded and took control of Tibet in 1949.
Until 2008, over roughly 128,000 Tibetans made it through the incredibly dangerous crossing over the Himalayas and more than 20,000 are currently living in Nepal as refugees, according to the Central Tibetan Administration and International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). Yet because of the overwhelming amount of undocumented Tibetans in Nepal, it is extremely difficult to get a precise number.
It is estimated that somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 Tibetans were coming into Nepal each year. However, after several massive peaceful protests in Tibet in 2008, China intensely cracked down on Tibetans and severely tightened the borders. Since then there has been a dramatic decrease of refugees with roughly a few hundred people known to have made the journey last year and only 60 this year.
Tibetans in Nepal are known for their beautiful shops filled with stunning crafts and jewellery. One of the reasons they have these shops is because it is nearly impossible to gain Nepalese citizenship and they are not allowed to work for Nepalese corporations. Owning a small business, selling items on the street or selling Tibetan products to tourists inside their welcoming refugee camps are their only options for making a living in Nepal.
Among the Tibetan community in Nepal, you will find many Tibetan flags with the words ‘Free Tibet’ in various languages, along with pictures of the Dalai Lama. They use these items to represent their desire for freedom, human rights, and the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet. In Tibet, speaking out against China’s control or exhibiting such items could lead to imprisonment, torture, and even death.
‘When China took over Tibet, we had to flee for our freedom. My family didn’t want to live in fear and oppression, so they took the dangerous journey through the mountains to Nepal,’ said Tibetan shop owner Dzasa.*
Like many refugees currently living in Nepal, he was only a child when his parents fled Tibet in fear. He has lived in Nepal nearly his entire life, where his son (Dawa) was born.
‘The Chinese military were waiting at the border and captured my father. No one ever saw him again. We believe he was in prison and perhaps killed,’ Dzasa said.
The Chinese military have tightened the border so much that people are forced to find even longer and more dangerous routes through the mountain. Tibetans attempting to cross the border into Nepal face deportation at the hands of Nepalese border guards. The Nepalese government has also shut down various NGOs in the country that work toward supporting Tibetan refugees and those in transit to India as well as the U.S. resettlement plan, which offers Tibetan refugees the opportunity resettle in the United States.
China has an incredible influence over Nepal, whose government deeply admires the communist state. In fact, the country’s 10-year civil war was led by rebels called Maoists after China’s former communist leader. And while Nepal suffers from India’s current alleged fuel blockade, they are hoping to build even stronger ties with China.
Because of this crucial relationship with China, during Tibetan Buddhist holidays Nepalese soldiers walk through Tibetan refugee camps to monitor and ensure there are no protests or ‘uprisings against China’. Tibetan refugees are prohibited to partake in any kind of peaceful protests, which is upsetting for the many refugees who want to raise awareness of the injustice in their homeland.
‘A few years ago we wanted to silently walk around Pokhara Lake with “Free Tibet” signs but the Chinese government told Nepal they must put an end to it,’ said Tashi, a Tibetan refugee living in one of Pokhara’s camps.
During the attempted protest Nepalese soldiers were told to shut it down and began pushing through the silent protestors, throwing down their signs and yelling at everyone to go home.
‘Some of the tourists ran toward us and even started to cry because they saw we were peacefully protesting. They knew we were not there to harm, simply to stand up for our people’s rights,’ Tashi said.
Many Tibetans, like Dzasa’s son, who were born in the refugee camps and spent their entire lives in Nepal, do not have passports since Tibetan parents are not able to register their children’s birth. They are not fully accepted in Nepal and considered as second-class citizens. These refugee children feel trapped without any official form of identification.
As China’s influence increases in Nepal, Tibetan refugees become more vulnerable and are subject to the type of control that their families fled from.
‘Until China stops controlling and oppressing Tibetans, until it allows it to be a truly autonomous region where we can keep our culture and freedom, Tibetans in and out of Tibet will not feel safe or fully free,’ said one of Nepal’s Tibetan camp leaders and social worker, Tenzin.
*Note: names have been changed for the safety of refugees living in Nepal. WTN – Canada

Former Tibetan prisoner in ‘critical’ condition following alleged torture in detention
January 18, 2016
Radio Free Asia, January 12, 2015 – A former Tibetan protester was flown on Tuesday from Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa to Sichuan for medical treatment for an injury sustained while being held in a Chinese prison, sources said.
Kelsang Tsering was released last year after serving seven years in Chushul prison, just outside Lhasa, for his role in a March 2008 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, a source in Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
He has now been taken to a hospital in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu, RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“However, there is very little hope for his recovery,” the source said.
Images of Tsering sent overseas and obtained by RFA show him lying face-down on a bed with a large, open wound on his back.
Tsering’s injury, allegedly suffered as a result of torture in detention, had failed to respond to treatment following his release, and his condition today remains critical, RFA’s source said.
Tsering and his wife and child have faced tough living conditions in Lhasa following his release, and have had little money for his medical treatment, the source said.
Tibetans from all across the plateau rallied to his cause, though, raising about 200,000 yuan [U.S. $30,430] enabling him to fly to Chengdu, he said.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. WTN – Canada

The politics of Tibet’s poisonous religious divide
December 28, 2015
By David Lague, Paul Mooney and Benjamin Kang Lim,
Reuters, December 21, 2015 – The doctrinal schism that the Chinese Communist Party is using to hound the Dalai Lama arose long ago in the internecine politics of his own school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dalai Lamas are drawn from the dominant Gelugpa School, one of the four major Buddhist traditions in Tibet.
When the 5th Dalai Lama united Tibet in the 17th Century, he made an effort to embrace the other schools to enhance political unity, according to the French Tibetologist Thierry Dodin.
This move angered other senior members of the Gelugpa School who opposed sharing power and privilege. They united in a clique within their school around the worship of Dorje Shugden, then a little-known “protector deity.”
Over the centuries, Shugden devotees came to dominate the Gelugpa School and the religious politics of Tibet. After the Communists came to power in 1949, Shugden practitioners became influential in the exiled Tibetan communities in India and Nepal. At first, they were hostile to Beijing, particularly after Tibetan monasteries and cultural relics were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
That changed with the current Dalai Lama, 14th in the line. He too had been educated under senior Shugden monks. But from the mid-1970s, he began to shape a more inclusive doctrine. In part, this was a political move aimed at unifying the different traditions in Tibetan Buddhism in the face of pressure from Beijing, according to Dodin and other Tibet scholars.
During a period of reflection, the Dalai Lama began to question the value of Shugden worship on the grounds it was harmful. In 1996, he publicly advised his followers to shun the practice. Since then, scholars say, there has been a gradual shift towards Beijing by the Shugden movement – a move that accelerated in the past decade.
China is careful to avoid obvious public references to its Shugden strategy. But on the ground, evidence abounds that Beijing has thrown its weight behind Shugden devotees.
GENEROUS FUNDING
Chinese authorities have poured funds into rebuilding and maintaining Shugden monasteries in the Tibet Autonomous Region and surrounding provinces. Reports in the state-run media show that China has financed extensive restoration at the Ganden Sumtseling Monastery in Yunnan Province and the Dungkar Monastery near Tibet’s frontier with India, both leading Shugden monasteries.
“There’s a massive drive to keep the remaining Shugden strongholds alive with a lot of support from the party,” said Dodin, director of the website TibetInfoNet. “This does not mean that others are left in decrepitude, but there is no such thing as a poor Shugden monastery.”
Buddhists who openly follow the Dalai Lama’s teachings face persecution by Chinese authorities, according to human rights groups and exiled Tibetans. It is now a criminal offence to discourage Shugden worship, they say.
Beijing also allows Shugden monks to travel overseas to teach and study with foreign Buddhists and exiled Tibetans.
In December 2012, Beijing sponsored the visit to Switzerland of Lama Jampa Ngodup Wangchuk Rinpoche, the first Tibetan lama sent abroad by the government to teach, according to the website dorjeshugden.com, one of the websites that publish news and commentary about the sect.
“By officially nominating him to travel abroad to teach, this would mean that the Chinese government is openly encouraging the proliferation of Buddhism, China’s ancient heritage and Dorje Shudgen’s practice,” an article on the website said.
PROTECTIVE CUSTODY
Another clear signal of Beijing’s preference: Senior Shugden monks are central to China’s effort to educate the Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in religious stature.
In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized a six-year-old Tibetan boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama. The boy and his family soon disappeared; Chinese authorities have said he is in protective custody. To sideline the Dalai Lama’s choice, Beijing then recognized another Tibetan boy, Gyaltsen Norbu, as Panchen Lama. This maneuver was crucial to Beijing’s plans to control Tibetan Buddhism, as the Panchen Lama plays a major role in recognizing reincarnations of the Dalai Lama, according to supporters of the Dalai Lama and experts on Tibetan Buddhism.
Many of the senior teachers responsible for educating Beijing’s hand-picked Panchen Lama are Shugden practitioners, according to experts on Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Gangchen, the most influential Shugden monk living abroad, has been photographed with this Panchen Lama as well.
President Xi Jinping in June met the party-approved Panchen Lama in Beijing. The monk told Xi he would “resolutely uphold the unity of the motherland and its people,” state television reported.
Chinese authorities have put aside their atheist convictions to insist they will vet the selection of the next Dalai Lama, according to official statements and reports in the state-run media.
This is part of an effort to ensure that the future spiritual leader of the more than six million ethnic Tibetans in Tibet and bordering provinces are loyal to the Communist Party. In response, the Dalai Lama has suggested he may reincarnate outside China or, perhaps, not at all.
That idea drew an outraged response from Zhu Weiqun, the point man in Beijing’s efforts to neutralize the Dalai Lama. “The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama has to be endorsed by the central government, not by any other sides, including the Dalai Lama himself,” Zhu said, according to a March 11 report in the state-run Xinhua news agency.
(Editing by Peter Hirschberg and Michael Williams)

Book Review – JFK’s Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War
January 4, 2016
The Economist, January 2, 2015 – In the autumn of 1962 Chinese troops invaded Indian-held territory, attacking across the 1,800-mile (2,880km) border that stretches along the Himalayas between the two giants of Asia. Mao Zedong instructed his army to expel Indian soldiers from territory that China claimed in Kashmir. In Washington the Chinese offensive was seen as a serious communist move in the cold war.
It was an inconvenient moment for the White House. President John Kennedy was absorbed in an even bigger crisis with communism closer to home: the flow of Soviet missiles to Cuba which threatened a nuclear conflict. Luckily for Kennedy, he had his own man in New Delhi. His friend from Harvard, John Kenneth Galbraith, was the American ambassador. So in a relatively easy act of delegation, Galbraith was put in charge of the “other” crisis.
Galbraith proved up to the task, in part, as Bruce Riedel writes in “JFK’s Forgotten Crisis” (Brookings Institution Press, 256 pages; $29), because he had access to the president and his aides. Most ambassadors report to the State Department, but the blunt Galbraith told the president that going through those channels was “like trying to fornicate through a mattress”.
The border war did not last long. The Chinese crushed the Indians. Mao declared a unilateral ceasefire a month later and withdrew Chinese forces. He had prevailed over his Asian rival, humiliating the Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
But victory was not just about Chinese might. At Galbraith’s urging, the Americans had quickly backed the distressed Nehru. An emergency airlift of supplies was sent to Calcutta and a carrier battle group was dispatched to the Bay of Bengal. In the end, Mao judged that the Americans might actually come to the help of India. He did not want to suffer huge losses of Chinese soldiers so soon after the Korean war. Thus American deterrence worked, and a confrontation between America and China was avoided, Mr Riedel writes.
The actual war is just one facet of this high-wire story of the geopolitics of the period, with its outsized characters and decisions that still reverberate today. Mr Riedel puts his experience as a former CIA analyst and a senior adviser on the National Security Council to canny use, uncovering details about an American covert operation in Tibet that has been mostly forgotten, though not by China.
Between 1957 and the early 1970s America spirited young Tibetans out of their homeland through Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), trained them in Colorado, and parachuted them back into Tibet, where they fought the Chinese army. Galbraith described the covert effort as “a particularly insane enterprise”. But the CIA prevailed. In 1961 the Americans were so starved for information about China that the CIA bragged about the ambush of a Chinese army truck by the Tibetan rebels. Mr Riedel describes how a bloodstained satchel of Chinese documents from the truck was taken to the White House as prized bounty. The Americans were so ignorant about the early years of communist China, he writes, that the operation was deemed worth the risk because of the documents’ descriptions of the status of Sino-Soviet relations, and the grim conditions in the Chinese countryside.
The current alliances on the subcontinent and the unsettling arms race between Pakistan and India hark back to the war of 1962. Kennedy’s decision to help India drew Pakistan closer to China. India started down its path to becoming a nuclear power after its defeat by China. When India tested a nuclear weapon in 1998, the rationale was the threat from China.
Today China and India are competitors, not enemies. But more than 50 years after the war, the border dispute remains unresolved. The two countries account for more than a third of the world’s population. In July 2014 at the first meeting between the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, Mr Xi said: “When India and China meet, the whole world watches.” This superb history shows why. WTN CanadA