World Tibet News -- January 10, 2000
Christian Wiedemann
## aus der Gruppe: c.wie...@lm102.link-m.de
_________________WTN-L World Tibet Network News _________________
Published by: The Canada Tibet Committee
Editorial Board: Brian Given, Conrad Richter, Nima Dorjee,
Tseten Samdup, Thubten (Sam) Samdup
WTN Editors: wtn-e...@tibet.ca
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Monday, January 10, 2000
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ISSUE ID: 00/01/10 Compiled by Nima Dorjee
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Contents:
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1. No request for Karmapa's political asylum: govt (Times of India)
2. Chinese Repression Forced Boy Monk To Flee (Reuters)
3. The boy who outwitted a superpower (Guardian)
4. India in a fix over boy-monk from Tibet (Times of India)
5. China left stunned as 'Black Hat' Lama flies to freedom (The Independent)
6. CANADIANS WELCOME HIS HOLINESS KARMAPA'S SAFE ARRIVAL IN INDIA (CTC)
7. Beijing horrified by Tibetan lama escape (The Times)
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1. No request for Karmapa's political asylum: govt (Times of India)
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January 10, 2000 New Delhi (TOI): The government Monday said no formal
request had been received for "political asylum" from defected Tibetan
religious leader, Karmapa Orygen Trinley Dorje and his status in India is
yet to determined.
"No formal request has been received," an external affairs ministry
spokesman said commenting on reports from Dharamshala that the Tibetan
temporal head, Dalai Lama, had approached the Indian government for granting
asylum to the 14-year-old boy monk, who surfaced in the country five days
ago after reportedly defecting from Tibet.
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2. Chinese Repression Forced Boy Monk To Flee (Reuters)
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DHARAMSALA, Jan 10, 2000 -- (Reuters ) Religious repression and human rights
violations by the Chinese forced Tibet's third-ranking lama to flee Lhasa,
the Tibetan government in exile said late on Sunday.
"...the harsh conditions on religion, arrests of monks and nuns, serious
violations of human rights and the indifferent attitude of Chinese vis a vis
the Karmapa Rimpoche for the last few years... it is with that background he
had to flee," Tashi Wangdi, minister for religion and culture in the Tibetan
exile government told Reuters in an interview.
He said the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama was concerned by the erosion of Tibetan
culture in Lhasa.
He said: "He is a very strong Tibetan nationalist and wanted to work for the
cultural and religious development of the people there but was very much
concerned with repression on religious activities and also very much worried
about deliberate dilution of Tibetan culture by the authorities in Tibet".
It was the first official statement by the Tibetan government in exile on
what forced the boy monk to flee to India.
"REVIVAL OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION"
The 17th Karmapa Lama is the highest Tibetan lama whose authority is
recognised by both Beijing and by the Nobel Prize-winning Dalai Lama, who
lives in exile at Dharamsala.
Karmapa Lama, his sister and two lamas trekked 1,400 km (875 miles) through
the snowbound Himalayas to reach Dharamsala in the north Indian state of
Himachal Pradesh on January 5.
Chinese official reports insisted the lama's departure did not mean he had
betrayed Beijing. They said he had travelled to India to collect holy
relics - musical instruments and black hats - used by a previous incarnation
of the Karmapa Lama.
Wangdi said the escape of the lama, born Ugyen Trinley Dorje, was prompted
by the "revival of cultural revolution" by Chinese authorities in Tibet. In
1950, China's Communist army, fresh from victory in the Chinese civil war,
entered Tibet and overthrew its Buddhist theocracy. Nine years later, a
large-scale uprising exploded and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of
the Tibetans, fled to India with thousands of followers.
The Indian government, meanwhile, refused to comment on whether the Karmapa
Lama had asked for political asylum. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh
did not answer questions by reporters late on Sunday in New Delhi on whether
the government has received an asylum request from the Tibetans.
The government said on Saturday it was looking into the circumstances and
consequences of the lama's arrival.
Tibetans in Dharamsala, overjoyed at the Karmapa Lama's arrival, said they
wanted the Indian government to officially accept the monk's arrival. "I
would like to plead with the Indian government to grant asylum to Karmapa
Lama," said Tenzing, a 25-year-old Tibetan.
John McLeod, an American Buddhist in Dharamsala for the last seven months
with his family said: "He (the lama) is a jewel and people have to protect
this jewel".
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3. The boy who outwitted a superpower (Guardian)
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Blow to Beijing as young Tibetan leader joins Dalai Lama in exile
John Gittings in Hong Kong
Saturday January 8, 2000 (The Guardian) -- The Tibetan youth was heavily
muffled against the Himalayan cold - and to avoid discovery by Chinese
police patrols. With a small group of four of five monks, also in disguise,
he had travelled across the high plateau for nearly a week, on foot and by
mule.
The snow in the final pass was so deep that it buried the prayer flags and
cairns of stones left by generations of pilgrims. A piercing wind swept down
from Mount Everest as the party struggled on, down a perilous road
threatened by ice-falls.
>From Tsurphu monastery, near Lhasa, to the border usually takes two days by
land-cruiser. Urgyen Trinley Doje, the 17th Karmapa of the Kagyu sect, who
is being groomed by China to be the Living Buddha, took nearly a week to
reach Nepal and then Dharamsala, in the hills of northern India - the seat
of the Tibetan government in exile.
But the atrocious weather and the distraction of the new year must have
helped the group circumvent Chinese checkpoints and find an unguarded route
across the border.
Yesterday Beijing was struggling in embarrassment to explain why the 17th
Karmapa - the third most important figure in Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy -
has joined the Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in exile. A
statement from the official Chinese news agency admitted that he had "gone
abroad", without saying that he is now in Dharamsala.
Traitor
Even if 15-year-old Urgyen Trinley Dorje remains silent, keeping the door
open for an eventual return home, it is a heavy blow for Beijing to see him
in the camp of the spiritual leader it so bitterly denounced as a traitor.
Beijing claimed yesterday that the Karmapa had left a letter saying he was
just going to collect some musical instruments and sacred headgear used in
his sect's ceremonies.
It did not explain why the youth should have done so without first telling
his Chinese minders - who were perhaps lulled by his previous good
behaviour.
Only last year the Chinese press poured praise on the young Karmapa. He was
taken to Beijing to meet senior Communist party leaders, and was quoted as
saying he would "follow the teachings of President Jiang Zemin" as well as
those of Buddha.
In accordance with Tibetan Buddhist practice, the 17th Karmapa had been
identified was identified as the reincarnation of his predecessor when a
child. A search team was sent out in 1992, armed with a prediction by the
late 16th Karmapa and instructions from the Dalai Lama and found the boy. He
had already been talent-spotted by a local abbot who was impressed by his
fine white, clear features. When the party approached, the future 17th
Karmapa is supposed to have cried out, "my monks are coming. I'm going to my
monastery!"
Though re-incarnation is hardly a socialist doctrine, Beijing made the
shrewd tactical decision to approve the Dalai's choice, hoping to cultivate
the young man as a religious counter-weight.
Like the young Dalai Lama in the early 1950s, the Karmapa was taken to
Beijing and coached in the wisdom of the Communist party. But his secret
journey to India revives memories of the Dalai Lama's flight, after the
March 1959 Tibetan uprising in Lhasa.
Yesterday's Chinese statement said that the young Karmapa had left Tsurphu
monastery "with a small number of people around him." The wording may allow
Beijing to argue later that the young man was led astray by his entourage -
just it claimed the Dalai was in 1959.
Beijing says that he left behind a letter saying that he did not mean to
"betray the state, the nation, the monastery or the [national] leadership."
The admission that the journey could be seen as an act of "betrayal" shows
China's anxiety.
Karma Yeshi, vice-president of the militant Tibetan Youth Congress, said
yesterday in Dharamsala. "We welcomed him into India and paid homage to him.
It is good news for all Tibetans, both in exile and still living in Tibet."
The Tsurphu monastery has become a tourist attraction, with the support of
the Chinese authorities. Supporters have funded its rebuilding after its
destruction in the Cultural Revolution. Videotapes of the Karmapa and holy
relics can be ordered from the movement's websites abroad.
But in spite of Beijing's approval of the Karmapa, his monastery has
suffered from increasingly crude efforts by local communist officials in
Tibet to weed out potential dissent.
Repression
The young Karmapa complains that he was denied permission to visit his guru
in exile, Tai Situ Rinpoche. This may have spurred him to leave.
Re-education teams have made repeated visits to Tibetan monasteries giving
compulsory lessons in "patriotism" under the slogan "Love your country, love
religion." Monks and nuns have been forced to repudiate the Dalai Lama, and
some monasteries have been closed. In 1995 five monks at the Karmapa's
monastery were said to have been arrested after throwing stones at
government officials.
Recent visitors to Tibet say that officials have become more heavy-handed
since summer when Beijing launched its campaign against the Falun Gong
sect - even though the Falun Gong has no appeal to Tibetan Buddhists.
Leaders in faith and politics
The system of reincarnation for Living Buddhas distinguishes Tibetan from
other forms of Buddhism. Tibetans believe that the same individual is born
again in successive generations: elaborate procedures have been devised for
discovering the right child.
There are more than 150 Living Buddhas alive today but until this week only
the two most powerful - the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama - were involved
in controversy. The young Karmapa, protege till now of Beijing, has now
emerged dramatically.
Dalai Lama
Tibet's top spiritual leader is Living Buddha of the Yellow Sect. Worshipped
by all Tibetans, he was also a symbol of political power. The 14th Dalai
Lama (born in 1935) tried to work with the Chinese after they occupied Tibet
in 1950, travelling to Beijing to meet Chairman Mao. But militant Tibetans
rose up against Chinese rule and he fled to India in 1959.
The Dalai says he does not seek full independence for Tibet, only genuine
autonomy. But he insists that Tibet includes large areas which are now part
of other Chinese provinces. After the Cultural Revolution which destroyed
thousand of monasteries, the post-Mao leadership admitted that it had done
great damage in Tibet. But semi-secret negotations between Beijing and the
Dalai Lama's emissaries over more than 10 years have failed to break the
deadlock. Beijing propaganda denounces the Dalai, claiming that he is
two-faced and has encouraged "splittists" to rebel against China.
Panchen Lama
Tibet's second spiritual leader, also belongs to the Yellow Sect. He plays a
crucial role in deciding on the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama. His
traditional seat in Shigazi has often been regarded as pro-Chinese. The 10th
Panchen Lama cooperated with Beijing but was severely punished for a secret
report in 1962 denouncing Chinese excesses in Tibet. He died in disputed
circumstances in 1989.
In 1995 Beijing named a five-year old boy, Gyaltsen Norbu, as the new
Panchen Lama, after the Dalai Lama had picked a different little boy, Gendun
Choekyi Nyima. Gendun was spirited away and his whereabouts is unknown.
China insists that Gyaltsen was properly chosen and says it will insist on
choosing the next Dalai Lama too.
The Karmapa
The Karmapa Living Buddhas belong to the oldest line of Tibetan
reincarnations dating back to the 13th century, and head the White Sect.The
Mongolian ruler Kublai Khan gave the first Karmapa a black hat to mark his
authority. Traditionally, the Karmapas travelled widely in the countries
bordering Tibet. The last (16th) Karmapa who died in 1981 went round the
world spreading his teachings. In a rare moment of unity, Beijing and the
Dalai Lama agreed on his new incarnation, Ugyen Trinley Dorje in 1992. His
monastery at Tsurphu near Lhasa is a tourist destination and has been
rebuilt with funds from foreign believers. Only last year, Beijing praised
him for his "diligent studies".
(c) Copyright Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
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4. India in a fix over boy-monk from Tibet (Times of India)
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"Times of India"
Saturday 8 January 2000 Posted at 0130 hrs IST By Seema Guha and Agencies
NEW DELHI: The hijack drama has hardly played itself out and the Vajpayee
government is once again confronted with potential trouble. This time with
China. The arrival of a 14-year-old Tibetan monk, the third highest leader
in Tibetan Buddhism, in Dharamsala may spark a diplomatic row with Beijing.
So far the Karampa, the title the boy-monk carries, has been used by the
Chinese as a symbol of authority and Beijing's encouragement of Buddhism in
Tibet. His defection - and particularly if he seeks asylum here - will be an
embarrassment for China. And India allowing him to stay as a refugee may
further strain India-China ties which are on the mend. After the nuclear
tests relations with China had nearly frozen but the thaw came with external
affairs minister Jaswant Singh's visit to Beijing.
Ugyen Trinley Dorje left the Tsurphu monastery in Lhasa recently with ``a
small number of people with him,'' the official Xinhua news agency reported.
He left a letter at the monastery saying that he was going ``abroad this
time to get the musical instruments of the Buddhist mass and the black hats
that had been used by the previous living Buddhas.'' ``This did not mean he
will betray the state, the nation, the monastery or the leadership,'' he
said in his letter, according to Xinhua.
The Karampa is likely to visit the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, the exile
seat of his predecessor, the 16th Karampa, who died in 1981 in Sikkim. New
Delhi has maintained a studied silence. However, the home ministry is likely
to send a team to Dharamsala to talk to the boy-monk. So far there has been
no indication why he has come. Nor has there been any talk about him seeking
refuge or political asylum.
A news agency quoted a spokesman for the religious affairs bureau in Tibet
as saying: ``He disappeared on the evening of December 31 accompanied by
three other monks, and we don't know where he is.''
He is the most important Tibetan figure to defect since the 16th Karampa and
other Buddhist clerics, including the current Dalai Lama, fled Tibet in
1959.
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5. China left stunned as 'Black Hat' Lama flies to freedom (The Independent)
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The Independent (UK)
By Peter Popham in Delhi 8 January 2000
Tibetans at home and in exile are digesting the most dramatic event in the
struggle against Chinese rule since the flight of the Dalai Lama nearly 41
years ago.
"His Holiness the Karmapa", read the laconic message on the website of the
Kagyu, one of Tibet's four ancient schools of Buddhism, "has left Tibet and
arrived safely in Dharamsala, India, at 10.30am on 5 January".
Urgyen Trinley Dorje is the 17th Karmapa, as the master of the Kagyu school
is known, and can trace his lineage back more than 700 years. He is only 14
years old: in the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, he was "discovered" as the
school's new Karmapa while a small child, and is regarded as the
reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa, who died four years before he was born.
He is from a nomad family in the village of Bakor in the east of Tibet. But
this young lama's unique significance is that for the Chinese authorities in
Lhasa, he was the best symbol of Tibetan acquiescence in their rule.
Unlike the present Panchen Lama, another potent spiritual figurehead who was
selected with Chinese approval but greeted with a universal thumbs down by
Tibetans, the 17th Karmapa is recognised as the legitimate head of his
school, both by the Chinese and by the Dalai Lama himself.
The fact that this holy lama, not much inferior in spiritual status to the
Dalai Lama, chose to remain at his monastery 30 miles north-west of the
Tibetan capital, Lhasa, instead of fleeing the country, gave the Chinese
precious legitimacy among the six million Tibetans who have been their
unwilling and brutalised subjects since the Chinese invasion of 1950. Like
other members of Tibet's traditional élite who stayed in the country, he was
rewarded: he retained control of his monastery and received money and cars
in return for his compliance. He was also kept under surveillance. But with
his dramatic overland flight in the middle of the Himalayan winter, that
prop of Chinese power has fallen apart.
"This explodes the myth which is fundamental to China's operation in Tibet,"
says Robbie Barnett, an expert on Tibet doing research at Columbia
University in the US. "The Chinese claimed they had done a deal with the
Karmapa. Tibetans always say the Chinese lie, and this will be taken as a
vivid example of that."
Mr Barnett calls it an "action replay" of the flight of the Dalai Lama from
Lhasa in 1959 when in a week he travelled 900 miles, crossing 16,000ft-high
passes, indisguise on donkeys and carts through a landscape of frozen
mountains. By the time the Dalai Lama arrived at the Indian border, he was
running a high fever.
No details have yet emerged about the Karmapa's journey, but it must have
been even more testing. This has been an exceptionally harsh winter, and the
Lama and his four attendants travelled through the worst of it. When they
arrived in Dharamsala, the hill station in Himachal Pradesh, northern India,
that is home to the Dalai Lama and a community of monks and other Tibetans,
he was exhausted. He had an audience with the Dalai Lama later that day. The
perilous journey seems to have been prompted by the demands of his spiritual
role. A young lama must have regular instruction from particular teachers,
and undergo elaborate rites at specified times. The Karmapa last year urged
the Chinese authorities to give him permission to visit his guru, Tai Situ
Rinpoche, who lives in exile, but they refused. "There has always been a
belief among the Tibetans that some day the Karmapa would go," Mr Barnett
said. "The Karmapas have a tradition of being autocratic and purposeful,
though also pragmatic when necessary. But to leave like this in the middle
of winter is one of the most bizarre aspects of the story. He would only do
it if, like the Dalai Lama, he was really worried about being detained."
In Dharamsala, a leading figure in the Tibetan community said: "We didn't
know anything about the Karmapa coming before he arrived."
The Karmapa's arrival in India was greeted with a total news blackout. It is
believed the Indian government may be embarrassed by the Karmapa's sudden
epiphany and awaits with some trepidation the Chinese reaction.
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6. CANADIANS WELCOME HIS HOLINESS KARMAPA'S SAFE ARRIVAL IN INDIA (CTC)
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Worries grow of reprisals in Tibet
Montreal, January 10, 2000: (CTC) -- Tibetans living in Canada and Canadian
Buddhists, have welcomed news that His Holiness the 17th Karmapa has arrived
safely in India. As head of the Kargyupa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism,
Karmapa is revered by Tibetans the world over as a teacher and
representative of Tibet's threatened cultural and spiritual heritage.
Buddhists in many countries, including Canada, believe they will finally
have access to Karmapa's teachings - access which until now has been
frustrated by Chinese restrictions on Karmapa's travel and on westerners
wishing to study Buddhist philosophy in Tibet.
"The facade of religious freedom in Tibet has been shattered," said Thubten
Samdup, President of the Canada Tibet Committee. "Now that Karmapa is safe
in India, the attention of the international community must turn towards the
safety of his family and monastic supporters who remain behind inside Tibet.
This is a time for vigilance and it will be a test for the engagement
policies of western governments, especially the government of Canada".
In December, a delegation of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade visited Lhasa, Tibet's capital city and met with
regional authorities to raise human rights issues including religious
freedom. Another departmental delegation as well as a possible
government-sponsored church delegation is expected later this year. Canada's
engagement with China on the issue of Tibet and the upcoming delegations
place the Canadian government in an privileged position to monitor possible
reprisals in and around Tsurphu Monastery, the traditional home of Karmapa
Lamas.
"Buddhists across the country are rejoicing at the news of the Karmapa's
escape from a very repressive environment in Tibet", said Judy Cutler,
Executive Board member of the Rigpe Dorje Foundation in Canada. "He risked a
lot by undertaking such a treacherous journey, a sign of how important it
was for him to leave. It is essential that the Karmapa receive
full traditional Buddhist education and training. This was not possible in
Tibet. The Karmapa is a major source of instruction and inspiration to
thousands of followers around the world. He can now fulfill his role as
leader of one of the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism".
Last week, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), based
in Dharmsala India, released a 140-page report citing renewed crackdowns on
religious freedom in Tibet, including the continuing detention by Chinese
authorities of the 10-year old Panchen Lama, Gendhun Choekyi Nyima. The
child prisoner has been held incommunicado for nearly 5 years. Members of
his monastery, Tashilhunpo, as well as his immediate family have also been
detained and held, some without charge or trial. The Canadian government
delegations to Tibet have been unable to obtain any information about the
safety or whereabouts of the child prisoner.
"Tibetans are fighting for their survival as a people", Samdup said. "We are
sad and disappointed that conditions in Tibet remain such that our spiritual
leaders and so many of our people are forced to leave their homeland in
order to protect and preserve our cultural heritage".
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For information:
Thubten Samdup, President, Canada Tibet Committee, 514-867-6770 (cell)
Judy Cutler, Executive Board Member, Rigpe Dorje Foundation, 416- 967-0227
For news releases on the Karmapa's escape to India and information about the
TCHRD's report "Tightening Control", please see World Tibet News (WTN)
archive at http://www.tibet.ca.
For background on the Rigpe Dorje Foundation in Canada, please contact Judy
Cutler at the above number.
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7. Beijing horrified by Tibetan lama escape (The Times)
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FROM DAVID ORR IN DHARMSALA
January 8 2000 SOUTH ASIA
The Times
THE flight to India of Tibet's third-ranking lama caused shock in China
yesterday. The seventeenth Karmapa Lama, head of one of the four great sects
of Tibetan Buddhism, was recovering in northern India after a gruelling trek
across the Himalayas. The escape of the 14-year- old religious leader is the
most embarrassing defection from communist-ruled Tibet since the Dalai Lama
fled his homeland four decades ago.
The young lama arrived in the north Indian hill town of Dharmsala on
Wednesday. His high-altitude trek took him across hundreds of miles of some
of the most difficult terrain on earth. His followers in Dharmsala, the seat
in exile of the Dalai Lama, say that he made the clandestine journey in the
company of four attendants and that it took just over a week. "His Holiness
has escaped from Tibet," said Tenzin Namgyal, a monk and follower of the
Karmapa. "He is very tired but he is fine. He's doing okay."
The teenage lama had an audience with the Dalai Lama soon after his surprise
arrival. He is resting in a guesthouse while the Indian authorities grapple
with the problem posed by having such an influential refugee in their
midst.An Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman in Delhi said that he was aware
of the Karmapa's arrival but refused to comment.
The young Ugyen Trinley Dorje was the first Tibetan reincarnation of a holy
person to be recognised by the Chinese in 1992. He heads the influential
Kagyupa sect - commonly known as the Black Hats - which is Tibetan
Buddhism's second most important after that led by the Dalai Lama. His
presence in Tibet was hailed by the Chinese authorities as proof of the
legitimacy of their rule. But sources close to the Karmapa indicate that he
was becoming increasingly frustrated by China's refusal to grant him
permission to further his religious education.
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