World Tibet News -- January 11, 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
______________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, January 11, 2000
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ISSUE ID: 00/01/11 Compiled by Nima Dorjee
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Contents:
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1. Tight security for Karmapa (TOI)
2. Karmapa's escape puts cold water on China's long term plans on occupied
Tibet
3. Karmapa's flight puts exiled Tibetans, India on diplomatic tightrope
(AFP)
4. Gruelling trek of freedom for Tibetans fraught with danger (AFP)
5. Security concerns over escaped Tibet spiritual leader (AFP)
6. China Girds For a Battle Of the Spirit (WP)
7. Crisis of Faith grips Chinese leadership (AFR)
8. The Seventeenth Karmapa's Departure from Tibet to India (KTD)
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1. Tight security for Karmapa (TOI)
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No request for asylum has been made: Govt
The Times of India 11/1/2000
By Jagdish Bhatt and Agencies
SHIMLA: Karmapa Rimpoche Ugyen Trinley Dorje has been shifted to an
undisclosed location as ``there are threats to his life from different
quarters'', Dharamsala SP K C Shadyal said on Monday.
Earlier reports had said that he was kept in isolation on the outskirts of
the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
The police have tightened the Karmapa's security apprehending ``serious
threat'' to his life. Shadyal said all possible measures had been taken to
ward off the threats.
Meanwhile, the Indian government has not received any formal request from
the Tibetan government-in-exile to grant political asylum to the 17th
Karmapa, an external affairs ministry spokesman said in New Delhi on Monday.
The spokesman denied that the visit of US special coordinator for Tibet
Julia Taft (who has reached Dharamsala) to meet Tibetan refugees was in
anyway linked with the Karmapa's arrival.
On the other hand, the Dalai Lama, now in retreat (when he does not grant
audience to anyone), is said to have met the Karmapa twice, on January 5 and
January 8. Although it is not known what transpired between them, sources in
McLeodganj said the Dalai Lama explained to the Karmapa the consequences of
his flight (from China) and also the talks his office has held with the
external affairs ministry officials in Delhi.
Efforts were on to get political asylum for the Karmapa in India, at least
till the time he took a decision on his future plans. ``There is a lot of
uncertainty about his plans. Initial reports were that he may like to move
to Gangtok in Sikkim to the monastery of his predecessor, the 16th Karmapa.
But since there are reports that they (some lamas in Rumtek) were not
willing to have him there, things are in a flux,'' a source said.
There were also reports that the Karmapa may initially shift to Sherabling
monastery near Baijnath, 70 km from Dharamsala. Sherabling is the seat of
Tai Situ Rimpoche, a close associate and disciple of the 16th Karmapa. Tai
Situ was instrumental in searching and establishing that Ugyen Trinley Dorje
was the 17th Karmapa.
Minister for religion and culture in the Tibetan government-in-exile Tashi
Wangde said the Karmapa had not yet made public his future plans.
Wangde said he hoped that India would grant asylum to the Karmapa. He said
he he did not think the grant of asylum would affect India-China relations
as ``it is a humanitarian issue''.
Asked whether the Karmapa's flight had angered China, he said: ``Unconfirmed
reports reaching us here indicate that security personnel had reached the
monastery from where the Karmapa had fled and were interrogating the monks
there. Two monks have been arrested.''
Meanwhile, a report from Gangtok (Sikkim) said the dramatic escape of the
Karmapa has surprised the Buddhist community there.
The Karmapa's arrival has renewed rivalry over the succession of the Rumtek
monastery which is the headquarters-in-exile of Tibetan Buddhism's most
prominent sect, the Karma Kargyu school.
Shamarpa Rimpoche is a regent monk of Rumtek belonging to the sect but
supporter of a rival claimant to the Karmapa title. He has described the
defection of Karmapa Ugyen Trinley Dorjee as a ``political ploy in agreement
with the Chinese government''.
This has angered the Buddhist community in Sikkim and several Buddhist
associations of the state on Monday strongly criticised the Shamarpa's
claims that he was the second in line in the sect.
``Shamarpa has never been considered the second in line after the Karmapa,''
they said.
The lineage of the Shamarpa was done away with as he had frequently created
trouble in the sect, they pointed out. ``It is Gyaltsab Rimpoche who is the
traditional `caretaker' of the Karmapa seat,'' they said.
Ugyen Trinley Dorjee was first given the seal of approval ``Bhuktham
Rimpoche'' by the Dalai Lama on June 7, 1992, and was recognised by the
Chinese authorities 20 days later.
In 1992, the group of four monk regents of the Rumtek monastery split as the
16th Karmapa apparently left behind no tell-tale clue about his successor.
While Tai-Situ and Gyaltsab identified Tibet-bron Dorjee as the 17th
Karmapa, the other faction, led by Shamarpa, insisted that India-born
Thinley Thai Dorjee was the 17th Karmapa.
Meanwhile, a release issued by general secretary of the Rumtek monastery
denied that the monastery had disowned the Karmapa. ``The misguided
information is completely baseless and opposite of the official stand,'' it
said.
A delegation met Sikkim chief minister P K Chamling on Monday and urged him
to help in getting political asylum for Karmapa. Another delegation called
on Sikkim governor Chaudhury Randhir Singh and submitted a similar
memorandum.
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2. KARMAPA's ESCAPE PUTS COLD WATER ON CHINA's LONG TERM PLANS ON OCCUPIED
TIBET
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BY: VIJAY KRANTI *
(Vijay Kranti, a senior journalist, is a keen watcher of Tibetan scene for
over 25 years)
e-mail : vijay...@vsnl.com
8th January, 2000
The new millenium could not have started on a more inauspicious note for the
Chinese bosses of Tibet. The fourteen year old Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the
`17th reincarnation of Karma Pa, has literally shoved his Beijing godfathers
by slipping over to India and joining hands with their arch rival Dalai
Lama.
Since 1959 when Dalai Lama, the religious ruler of Tibet and the highest
pontiff of Mahayana Buddhism, escaped from the clutches of invading Chinese
army, Karma Pa is the highest ranking religious leader to give a slip to the
Chinese leaders and their omnipresent security forces in their Himalayan
colony.
The most embarrassing part of this game is that only till the other day
Chinese government has been publicising statements, attributed to the young
Karma Pa, which branded Dalai Lama as the 'traitor' and Tibet as an integral
part of the 'great Chinese Motherland'.
The details of the daring escape story of Karma Pa have yet to come out from
a tight lipped Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala or the Indian
security agencies. The only available details are that he walked seven days
through snow with his 'handful' of followers to cross over to Nepal and then
to India before Chinese could know about his escape. Every year an average
of nearly four thousand Tibetans cross over to Nepal, mostly during the lax
winter days, risking frost bite, amputation of hands or feet - even death or
arrest at the hands of Chinese border forces.
Besides being the third highest ranking religious leader of Tibet Karma Pa
happens to be the only high ranking reincarnate lama who had been, so far,
officially recognised by the Chinese government as well as the exiled Dalai
Lama. More than that, Ugyen Trinley Dorje has had the distinction of being
the prime mover of Chinese communist leaders' latest policy of winning
Tibetan hearts through religion.
It was in the beginning of 90's that Chinese leaders decided to use religion
as the last tool to win hearts of their lesser brothers in their Himalayan
colony. In 1991 the communist masters appointed a committee of Tantrik lamas
under the leadership of a senior communist official. The committee was
assigned the job of identifying the reincarnation of the 16th Karma Pa who
had died in 1981 in his Rumtek monastery of Sikkim, the Himalayan state
which China refuses to recognise as a part of India.
The communist sponsored Tantriks certified Ugyen, then 5 years old, in a
village near Lhasa as the real soul boy. In a first of its kind ceremony
sponsored by the Chinese government Ugyen was enthroned as the 17th Karma Pa
in a pompous public function at Tsurphu monastery which houses the
traditional seat of Karma Pas in Tibet. In order to give it an international
image a good number of western followers of the former Karma Pa were flown
in from various parts of Europe and the United States to witness the
enthronement. The show was given an extraordinary coverage in the Chinese
media and millions of his coloured photos were distributed among Tibetans in
Tibet, Nepal and India. Interestingly, the Dalai Lama also sent his
blessings and official recognition to the new Karma Pa despite strong
protests from a vocal section of Karma Pa followers in Sikkim.
Encouraged by the Karma Pa experience the Chinese very soon started search
for the reincarnation of Panchen Lama, second in Tibetan hirarchy and the
only other lama senior to Karma Pa after Dalai Lama. The previous Panchen
Lama, living under Chinese control since his childhood, had died under
suspicious circumstances following his anti-China utterances during his
Tibet visit.
But the discovery of Panchen Lama's reincarnate ran into trouble when Dalai
Lama recognised Gedun choeky Nyima, one of the boys tested by the China
sponsored search team, before Chinese authorities could make their final
choice known to the world. Enraged at Dalai Lama's decision the Chinese
authorities not only rejected his decision but also arrested the little boy
and enthroned another boy as the 'real' Panchen Lama. Since then there have
been numerous demonstrations inside as well as outside Tibet about the
safety of Gedun. Various international human rights groups have been
demanding the release of this youngest prisoner of conscience who should be
11 by now, if alive.
With two topmost religious leaders like the Panchen Lama and Karma Pa in
their pocket, the Chinese rulers were actually waiting for the present
ageing Dalai Lama to pass away and leave the ground exclusively for them to
manipulate. For, in the Tibetan system of appointment through reincarnation
to higher places it is the senior lamas who play significant role by
offering their seal of approval to each other's reincarnation. A puppet
Dalai Lama, selected with the help of puppet Panchen Lama and Karma Pa would
have solved the Tibetan problem for ever in favour of China. But the escape
of young Karma Pa has sent a severe blow to the Chinese game plan in Tibet.
The Chinese game of influencing Tibet's political fate through religion
appears to have fallen flat.
For Indian government too, the escape of young Karma Pa to India has come as
a blessing from the blues. Since Karma Pa holds the supreme religious
position in India's sensitive Himalayan state of Sikkim, India had all the
reasons to be worried about his physical presence under the Chinese control.
These fears have been further agravated by consistent refusal by China to
recognise Sikkim's merger into India.
While the escape of Karma Pa offers a big relief both to India as well as
the Dalai Lama who is leading a long drawn struggle for the freedom of his
occupied country, the event offers Chinese leaders yet another occasion to
rethink whether they can beat the Tibetans in their own game of religion.
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3. Karmapa's flight puts exiled Tibetans, India on diplomatic tightrope
(AFP)
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by Giles Hewitt
DHARAMSALA, India, Jan 9 (AFP) - The escape of one of Tibetan Buddhism's
top spiritual leaders from China to India has left New Delhi and the Tibetan
government in exile here tip-toeing on thin diplomatic ice.
Since the shock arrival Wednesday of 14-year-old Ugyen Trinley Dorje -- the
17th Karmapa Rinpoche -- the northern hill town of Dharamsala has been
buzzing with speculation about his escape and future plans.
The government in exile, while clearly overjoyed at the successful
defection of such an important figure, has worked hard to mute the media
excitement generated by the Karmapa's dramatic one-week trek to freedom
across the Himalayas.
Ever-mindful of its delicate status in India, which like the rest of the
world recognises Tibet as part of China, the exiled administration has
sought to avoid being seen as an official player in the drama of the
Karmapa's flight. Prior to a briefing for reporters here at the weekend, the
secretary of the information and international relations department,
Thubten Samphel, insisted that what was about to take place was not an
official media event. Rather than a "formal press conference," the briefing
was actually "a gesture to clarify many queries from media people," Samphel
carefully explained.
Similarly, when the briefing began, the Religion and Cultural Affairs
Minister Kalon Tashi Wangdi repeatedly stressed that the exiled
administration had not only played no role in the Karmapa's escape, it had
even been unaware that he had left.
"The Rinpoche's arrival even caught me, the minister for the department of
religion and culture, by surprise," he said.
Since his arrival on Wednesday, there have been precious few sightings of
the Karmapa. Apart from visiting the Dalai Lama's residence, he has been
mostly incommunicado in guarded rooms at the Chonor House Hotel. Recognised
by both the Dalai Lama and the atheist Chinese government as the
reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa Rinpoche, the current Karmapa is an
extremely important figure.
After the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, the leading figure in
Tibetan Buddhism is the Panchen Lama, who is responsible for recognising the
reincarnation of the Dalai Lama after his death.
In 1995, the Dalai Lama and Beijing clashed over the choice of the Panchen
Lama, with each picking rival candidates.
The Dalai Lama's choice was spirited away and is believed to be held in a
secret location somewhere in China, while Beijing's candidate was duly
enthroned.
With the Panchen Lama in its pocket, China appeared to hold all the cards,
but the Karmapa's escape to Dharamsala changes the scenario entirely, with
some suggesting that he could succeed the Dalai Lama as the spiritual head
of Tibetan Buddhism and, by extension, as the figurehead of the Tibetan
freedom movement.
Meanwhile, the Indian government, which has been trying of late to improve
its traditionally frosty ties with Beijing, has also tried to distance
itself from the implications of the Karmapa's arrival here.
"We are enquiring into the circumstances attendant upon the sudden arrival
in India of the Karmapa, as also the consequences of it," the foreign
ministry said in a non-committal statement.
A foreign ministry official reportedly flew to Dharamsala on Friday to
discuss the situation with the exiled Tibetan administration.
The Tibetan administration also insists that the Karmapa is still exhausted
from his trip, and therefore unable to make any decisions about his future
plans.
Meanwhile, in New Delhi, Tibetan followers of another claimant to the title
of the Karmapa warned the Indian government not to support the 14-year-old
Ugyen Trinley Dorje.
"If the Indian government provides support to the Chinese Karmapa, we will
look for other options," Shamarpa Rimpoche, the second highest Lama of the
Karma Kagyu lineage said.
He said the Dalai Lama supported the Chinese Karmapa purely for "political
purposes" to undermine the Indian Karmapa
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4. Gruelling trek of freedom for Tibetans fraught with danger (AFP)
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by Zarir Hussain
GUWAHATI, India, Jan 9 (AFP) - Forty-one years ago, the Dalai Lama,
undertook a gruelling trek to freedom, a journey which lasted much longer
than the one made by 14-year-old Ugyen Trinley Dorje, a Tibetan official
said Sunday.
The journey made by Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th living Buddha Karmapa who
arrived in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamsala on Wednesday after
lasted more than a week and is also attempted by up to 3,000 Tibetans every
year.
In 1959, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, disguised as a soldier and with a
small escort of 80-odd followers reached the Indian fareastern state of
Arunachal Pradesh, bordering China.
"After nearly three weeks of gruelling trekking on foot and on mule backs,
the entourage managed to reach Tawang in India's Arunachal Pradesh state
from where we were escorted to Bombida, a township," U. Rimpocne, a
65-year-old Tibetan exile who was a part of the Dalai Lama's entourage and
now residing in Arunachal Pradesh told AFP.
The then 24-year-old Dalai Lama's formal request letter to the Indian
government for providing asylum by mistake reached the hands of a local
journalist in Shillong, former headquarters of the whole of northeastern
region.
"The messenger who carried the letter written in English by the Dalai Lama
requesting the Indian government to grant them asylum in India reached me
instead of the police chief who was residing adjacent to my residence,"
Naresh Rajkhowa, a correspondent of Assam Tribune daily said.
"I first copied the entire letter before sealing it once again to be handed
over to the police chief," the 75-year-old Rajkhowa said.
A Tibetan monk said the trek to freedom for Tibetans fleeing Chinese
suppression is a daunting 1,000-kilometer (625-mile) journey through the
Himalayas, shadowed by the constant danger of frostbite and avalanches. In
order to avoid Chinese troops and border guards, most crossings are
attempted during the harsh winter months, and precious few of those making
the journey have the right clothing or equipment to combat the high
altitude, sub-zero temperatures and hazardous conditions.
"It was well below freezing point and we were not equipped with any special
clothing to combat that hazardous conditions in altitudes which are very
high and rough," Temp Norbu, a Tibetan monk residing in Arunachal Pradesh
said. "But we managed to reach safely without any major obstacles on the
way," he said.
The Karmapa's reported journey time of one week is extremely short by
comparison with the experience of most who make the attempt, suggesting that
his trip was well planned and executed.
Many of the refugees require urgent medical attention upon arrival in
India, and it is a common sight among the Tibetan community in Dharamsala to
see people with amputated fingers or scarred faces as the result of severe
frostbite.
"The arrivals really step up between November and March because the Chinese
cannot really enforce security in the thick snow," said Ngawang Norbu,
deputy director of the Tibetan Refugee centre in Dharamsala.
"Our exiled government's policy is to give them education here and ask them
to go back."
Lobsang Nyandak, director of the Tibetan Centre of Human Rights and
Democracy, said most refugees were driven by the desire to meet the Dalai
Lama, who fled into exile in 1959 following a failed uprising against
Chinese rule.
About 20,000 Tibetan Buddhist exiles are settled in the fareastern Indian
region comprising of seven states.
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5. Security concerns over escaped Tibet spiritual leader (AFP)
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by Giles Hewitt
DHARAMSALA, India Jan 9 (AFP) - The 14-year-old living Buddha who arrived
in northern India last week after escaping from Tibet, was moved for
security reasons Sunday from a hotel in Dharamsala -- his home for the past
four days. The 17th Karmapa Rinpoche, spiritual head of one of the four
schools of Tibetan Buddhism, was squirreled away before dawn by members of
the exiled Tibetan government's security department.
"The move was made for the Karmapa's own safety," said an official from the
exiled administration's religious and cultural affairs bureau.
"He hasn't been taken very far, just somewhere more private and more
secure," said the official who declined to be identified.
Official sources said the Karmapa had been taken to the Norbulinka
Institute, a complex some 15 kilometers (10 miles) outside Dharamsala,
established to teach and preserve traditional Tibetan art.
Although only 14, the Karmapa is an extremely influential figure as head of
the Kagyu sect, one of the most important and widely followed schools of
Tibetan Buddhism.
His apparent defection from China will clearly be a major blow to Beijing,
which had recognised his reincarnation in the hope of keeping him in Tibet
where his education and movements could be monitored.
Now that he is in India -- following a dramatic one-week trek over the
Himalayas -- some have even begun to talk of the Karmapa as a future
successor to the Dalai Lama as the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to sources in the religious ministry, the Karmapa has already met
several times with Situ Rinpoche, one of the top ranking lamas of the Kagyu
sect.
Their meetings are significant given a decade-long rift within the Kagyu
school over the true reincarnation of the 16th Karmapa and over control of
the wealthy Rumtek monastery -- the sect's headquarters in the Indian state
of Sikkim.
The current Karmapa was Situ Rinpoche's choice, and was duly recognised by
the Dalai Lama in 1992, but a rival candidate was enthroned by the other
senior lama at Rumtek, Sharmapa Rimpoche.
Since the Karmapa's arrival in Dharamsala, Shamarpa Rimpoche has made it
clear that the 14-year-old will not be recognised by his Kagyu faction,
which would continue to follow its own choice of Karmapa.
The "Chinese Karmapa's" escape was "stage managed," Sharma told reporters
in New Delhi.
"An innocent boy should not be used as a political instrument. If he is
here for purely spiritual purposes, I believe he should make no claim to the
crown," he said, while warning New Delhi that support for the Chinese
Karmapa "would not serve the interests of India."
"If the Indian government provides support to the Chinese Karmapa, we will
look for other options," he said.
The exiled Tibetan community has tried to play down the rift, which at one
stage boiled over into actual violence and was seized on by the official
Chinese media.
"One thing is clear. There is only one Karmapa recognised by His Holiness
the Dalai Lama, who has the acceptance of an overwhelming majority of
Buddhist followers, not only Tibetans, but around the world," said Religion
and Culture Minister Kalon Tashi Wangdi.
"We have no comment on any other candidate."
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6. China Girds For a Battle Of the Spirit (WP)
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Ruling Party Fears Religious Challenge
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, January 10, 2000; Page A01
BEIJING, Jan. 9-A series of recent clashes between the Chinese government
and a variety of spiritual groups indicates that religion--more than
traditional kinds of political dissent--has emerged in the eyes of the
Communist Party as one of the most serious threats to its monopoly on power.
Last week, an important Tibetan Buddhist lama whose loyalty China had tried
to cultivate surfaced in India, where he had fled into exile. Then, Beijing
roiled the Vatican by appointing five Roman Catholic bishops in defiance of
the pope. And as the government crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation
movement continued, President Jiang Zemin made a striking announcement that
the massive campaign was one of the "three major political struggles" of
1999--marking the first time since China's 1949 Communist revolution that
smashing an apolitical, spiritual organization has been an official priority
of the party.
Western diplomats and human rights groups report that the crackdown is
spreading to China's network of Catholic and Protestant "house churches,"
which serve an estimated 30 million to 40 million believers who worship
illegally in private homes. Since December, Beijing has used a law outlawing
Falun Gong to brand 10 Christian sects as illegal "cults." More than 100
Christian leaders have been arrested, said Frank Lu, head of the Hong
Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in
China. "While China continues to jail any democracy activist it can find,
these days the Communists are really concerned about religions," Lu said.
"They realize there is a spiritual void in China. They know most people are
cynical about politics, so they won't follow the democratic activists. But
they will follow a new messiah."
Indeed, China on the cusp of a new century is witnessing what even state-run
publications call a "golden age" for religion. The government officially
sanctions five religions: Buddhism, which now has 100 million adherents;
Islam, with 18 million; Protestantism, with 15 million; Catholicism, with 4
million; and smaller numbers of Taoists. However, unapproved cults, sects
and underground religions are prospering--from temple gods in the northwest
and ancestral worship in the south to the house-church movement in China's
agricultural heartland. In many cases, the government has tolerated the
renaissance, and some government officials and Communist Party members have
defied central government dictates by practicing religion openly themselves.
Now, however, the Communists find themselves in a quandary. As society has
grown envious of the wealth and freedom enjoyed in the West and the
government has moved to embrace free enterprise, traditional Communist
ideology--that of Marxism-Leninism, leavened by the thinking of Mao Zedong
and Deng Xiaoping--has lost much of its appeal.
The editor of one of China's largest newspapers said that he and other party
members feel as though China is "at the end of a dynasty, when traditionally
all sorts of cults and sects rose up and challenged the emperor's rule."
The struggle against Falun Gong, Catholics loyal to the pope, cults, Tibetan
Buddhists and other independent-minded religious groups, the editor said,
could very well be the defining political battle of the next few years in
China. He and other analysts say they believe the party's program is already
backfiring. "Look at Falun Gong," said Sima Nan, an independent filmmaker
who opposes both Falun Gong and the government crackdown. "The more the
government squeezes the practitioners, the more it turns them into martyrs."
"You never know how the Chinese cookie is going to crumble," said a Western
diplomat. "Religion has as good a chance as any development to move the
process along."
A 1999 State Department report placed China near the top of a list of
countries that suppress religion. China's Communists "perceive unregulated
religious gatherings as a potential challenge to their authority . . . and
an alternative to Communist dogma," the report said. It added that a ban on
the sale of law enforcement equipment to China should continue unless its
"serious violations of religious freedoms" cease. To curtail religious
practices, police had used "prolonged detention, torture and reeducation of
Tibetan monks and nuns . . . [and] some Protestant and Catholic Christians,"
the report said. China's Religious Affairs Bureau of the State Council
called the report "unfounded" and said, "This is the best time for all the
religions in Chinese history."
The apparent increase in religious persecution follows a period in which
China seemed to be growing more tolerant in spiritual matters. In 1998,
China opened a dialogue with American clerics, and it signed the U.N.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. It rebuilt or approved the reconstruction of thousands of temples
destroyed during the ultra-leftist Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. But by
supporting traditional qigong--an ancient practice in which inner energy is
marshaled to improve physical and spiritual health--the Beijing government
encouraged the spread of Falun Gong and other groups like it.
But as religion has become more widely embraced, the party has reacted with
vain attempts to reassert control over the thoughts of its citizens. The
Falun Gong crackdown, for example, has been accompanied by exhortations to
the public to study Marxism and atheism. Chinese analysts say each of the
spiritual movements--including Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhism, house churches
and Catholicism--represents a distinct threat to Party authority.
Falun Gong, for example, marks the first time since 1949 that large numbers
of China's workers have joined an organization not affiliated with the
Communists, according to Wang Shan, an independent political analyst here.
Millions have flocked to the group because it provides them with spiritual
sustenance at a time of dizzying social dislocation. It also tells them that
if they embrace Falun Gong's spiritual and physical exercises, they won't
need doctors--an appealing notion at a time when China's free medical system
has virtually collapsed. "It's the first proletarian movement since
liberation that the party doesn't control," Wang said. "Of course, the party
is afraid."
Since declaring the organization illegal in July, China has jailed more than
1,500 practitioners. Last month, some Falun Gong leaders were sentenced to
18 years in prison--longer terms than any traditional political dissident
has been given in recent years. While Beijing is attempting to smash Falun
Gong, it has tried a different approach toward Tibetan Buddhism. Since the
1980s, the government has tolerated the practice while endeavoring to co-opt
Tibetan political and religious figures to ensure that the massive territory
stays under Chinese rule. Contrary to Beijing's expectations, however, the
return of religion to Tibet has fanned anti-Chinese sentiment, not squelched
it.
The defection of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa Lama to India on Wednesday
underscores the difficulty China has had winning over Tibetan leaders. The
14-year-old Karmapa Lama, generally recognized as the third most powerful
religious figure in Tibet, had been assiduously cultivated by his Chinese
minders. They gave him "patriotic" education sessions, introduced him to
President Jiang and honored him at National Day ceremonies in 1994. The
London-based Tibet Information Network said Saturday that it believes China
had planned to use the Karmapa Lama to undermine the widespread support
Tibetans still express for the Dalai Lama--the spiritual leader of millions
of Buddhists--who fled to India after a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
China had forbidden the Karmapa Lama to visit his teachers in India, despite
earlier assurances from Chinese authorities that he would have access to his
mentors, the London group said.
On a third front, the Beijing government's decision to snub Pope John Paul
II and ordain five bishops on Thursday--the same day the pontiff appointed
12 bishops in Rome--indicates that the party means to tolerate no affront
from religion to its agenda. The Vatican and China broke off relations in
1951; since then, the papacy has maintained diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and is fighting to
reunify it with the mainland, has demanded that the Vatican break ties with
Taiwan before it considers improving relations with the pope. By appointing
its own bishops to China's officially sanctioned Catholic Church, Beijing
was also warning both the Vatican and Chinese who remain loyal to the pope
to drop their support of underground churches.
The illegal house-church groundswell of both Protestants and Catholics is
the country's fastest-growing Christian movement. "China wants to put the
lid on the house churches," said Lu, the Hong Kong-based rights activist.
"Beijing cannot tolerate uncontrolled faith, especially faith that expresses
loyalty to a foreign government. The Communists have no faith anymore. The
thing they fear most is people who believe."
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7. Crisis of Faith grips Chinese leadership (AFR)
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"Australian Financial Review" Monday, January 10, 2000
By Rowan Callick, Hong Kong
China's leaders were embarking on a lonely but determined battle at the
weekend to defend their communist faith in the face of a tide of troubling
religious revivals.
The dramatic 1,400 kilometre flight of the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama,
trekking a week in the depths of winter across the Himalayas from Tibet to
the Dalai Lama's headquarters in Dharmsala, India, was a bitter blow.
It comes as Beijing struggles to suppress the Falun Gong movement that has
emerged from traditional Chinese folk religion and to control the
fast-growing underground churches, including eight million adherents of the
banned Catholic Church.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tibet's top spiritual leader, the Living Buddha of the
Yellow Sect, began to work with the communists, meeting Mao Zedong in
Beijing in 1950, but fled to India after an uprising failed in 1959.
The second leader, the 11th Panchen Lama, also of the Yellow Sect - who
plays a crucial role in determining the identity of each reincarnated Dalai
Lama - is a boy, identified in the traditional manner by the Dalai Lama, who
is being held in an unknown location by the Chinese authorities. Beijing
instead selected a rival Panchen Lama, now nine years old, who is now
closely guarded.
The 17th Karmapa Lama, leader of the White Sect although he wears a black
hat, was unique in being recognised by the Dalai Lama and Beijing as
genuine. His defection - unreported in the Chinese media except for a brief
mention in the English-language China Daily - appears to have been prompted
in part because of Beijing's refusal to grant approvals for his tuition by
sufficiently senior fellow lamas, most of whom are associated with the Dalai
Lama, and in part because he was refused an exit visa to meet overseas
followers.
Beijing has stepped up its controls of all religious movements in the wake
of huge growth in support for the Falun Gong group. This caught it by
surprise and has resulted in nationwide purges and long jail sentences.
Beijing ruled last year that the Pope, during a visit to the nearby
Philippines, could not come to Hong Kong in order to fulfil a long-cherished
wish of saying Mass on Chinese soil. It emphasised its defiance of the
papacy by ordaining five new bishops for its Patriotic Catholic Association
on Thursday, the same day that Pope John Paul II ordained 12 bishops at St
Peter's in Rome.
The Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin, aware of the vacuum in belief that
followed the Cultural Revolution's unintended crushing of faith in
communism, has crusaded for a "spiritual civilisation" - a morally upright
melange of Marxism and Confucianism - but has made little headway compared
with the success of myriad religious groups.
The Government issued a statement two years ago that China was building a
socialist State and religion should adapt to that reality by accepting being
corralled within State-directed organisations.
The national constitution formally enshrines religious freedom, with five
religions receiving some formal recognition: Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, and
what Beijing delineates as the two Christian "religions" of Catholicism and
Protestantism.
The renewed problems with Tibetan Buddhism affect not only Tibet but also
other provinces where the faith has significant adherents, including
adjacent Qinghai and Sichuan, and also Inner Mongolia. Beijing cites
precedence from China's imperial Qing dynasty in its rule over the people
and religion of Tibet and brands the Dalai Lama a politician in exile who
wishes to reimpose serfdom.
Although the Dalai Lama frequently reiterates his acceptance of autonomy
rather than independence for Tibet, the Chinese leadership questions his
sincerity - and he would face almost certain arrest in Beijing were he to
return.
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8. The Seventeenth Karmapa's Departure from Tibet to India (KTD)
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Karma Triyana Dharmachakra 352 Meads Mountain Road Woodstock, New York 12498
www.kagyu.org
PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Terry Sullivan, Press Secretary 323-222-3971 tel.; 323-225-2660 fax
e-mail: tsul...@spiritbody.net
KARMA TRIYANA DHARMACHAKRA, WOODSTOCK--January 7, 2000--One of Tibetan
Buddhism's greatest reincarnate lamas, Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the Seventeenth
Karmapa, age 14, has fled Tibet for the safety of exile in India. The
Karmapa left Tibet on the twenty-eighth of December with a small party of
monks in complete secrecy, his departure unknown even to his own family. He
and his escort left his historic monastery, Tsurphu, northwest of Lhasa, and
hiked over the winter passes of the Himalayas to freedom.
Communist repression and threats to human rights, religious expression, and
even life itself made his escape critical. Details are still forthcoming but
a statement will be released soon by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in
Dharamsala, India, the current home of the Dalai Lama. At present the
Karmapa and his monks are resting after eight days with little or no sleep.
The Seventeenth Karmapa was recognized as the reincarnation of the previous
Karmapa in 1992 by means of a letter written by the Sixteenth Karmapa before
his death in 1981. The letter, as is the tradition of the line of the
Karmapas, specified the time, place and parentage of the seventeenth in his
line.
Ugyen Trinley Dorje's recognition as the Karmapa's reincarnation according
to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs was supported by the Dalai Lama, by senior lamas
of the Karmapa's Kagyu lineage, and the heads of the other lineages of
Tibetan Buddhism. Speaking in both India and New York City, the Dalai Lama
has given indisputable confirmation of Ugyen Trinley Dorje as the
reincarnation of Tibet's Karmapas.
Since the Communist takeover of Tibet, Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India,
and Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock, New York have been the
Karmapa's central monasteries-in-exile.
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