Cracks emerge in 'Dalai Lama
clique' By Law Siu-lan
The symbolic Olympic flame for the 2008
Beijing Summer Games, lit in Athens on March 24,
arrived in Beijing on March 31. The traditional
torch relay will soon travel to the rooftop of the
world - Mount Everest - and Lhasa, capital of the
Tibet Autonomous Region, where anti-China protests
by Tibetans took place early last month.
China has accused the "Dalai Lama clique"
of attempting to sabotage the Olympic torch relay.
The Dalai Lama immediately dismissed the charge.
As a matter of fact, Tibetans in exile have split
into various factions, and there are allegedly
segments of radical youths that are plotting to
sabotage the Beijing Olympics. Beijing, however,
indiscriminately categorizes them all as under the
"Dalai clique", a classification that could only
lead Beijing into misjudgments.
Promptly
dismissing the charge of attempting to sabotage
the
Olympic torch relay, the Dalai
Lama said he has always supported Beijing's bid to
host the Games - an historic event that will make
more than one billion Chinese proud. Less
supportive is Tsewang Rigzin, the president of the
Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) - an exiled Tibetan
organization that advocates independence for Tibet
- who, when interviewed by foreign media, has
admitted outright that his group plans to disrupt
the torch rally on Mount Everest. According to
statements, they will press multinationals to
withdraw their sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics
and send teams to brief foreign athletes on the
Tibet issue.
Since the riots took place in
Lhasa on March 14, Beijing has maintained that the
incident exposed the “Dalai clique’s” fake mask of
non-violence. But such an accusation ignores a
fact: since 1989, when the Dalai Lama gave up
demands for Tibet’s independence and turned
instead to seeking a high-degree of autonomy for
the Himalayan region, Beijing has never given any
positive response. As a result, the Tibetan
resistance movement in exile has become
fractionalized. Some young Tibetans, refusing to
accept the Dalai Lama’s middle-of-the-road line,
not only insist on advocating independence for
Tibet but also on using violent means for the
purpose.
Founded in 1970, the TYC is the
most influential of the pro-independence Tibetan
organizations in exile. Claiming to have 30,000
members, it now has set up some 70 branches
globally including in the United States. To be a
member, one needs only pay a token annual fee. The
major financial source of the organization is
donations from abroad. The TYC organizes
demonstrations, protests and hunger strikes to
fight for independence of Tibet.
The TYC
has attracted a number of young, Western-educated
Tibetans in exile, whose religious enthusiasm is
not as zealous as that of older generations. They
still respect the Dalai Lama but do not see the
spiritual leader as the living Buddha who cannot
be challenged. The TYC's Tsewang Rigzin, grew up
in southern India. In 1993, he went to work in the
US and later became a naturalized American
citizen. Last October, he was elected TYC
president and decided to live in Dharamsala,
leaving his wife and children in the US. More than
once during interviews with Western media, he has
said there is no guarantee that Tibetans would
only resort to non-violent actions.
The
violent tone of the TYC's rhetoric first appeared
in 1989 when the Dalai Lama became determined to
take the "middle of the road". The then TYC
president, Tseten Norbu, claimed in interviews
that the “middle-of-the-road” line took into
consideration interests of both Tibetans and
Chinese, but the TYC would only consider the
former’s interests and would use every available
means including terrorism to end the Chinese
Communist Party’s rule in Tibet.
He said
that once the Dalai Lama passed away - he is now
aged 72 - the young Tibetan exiles would take up
arms and return to their homeland to fight for
independence - like their Uyghur counterparts in
Xinjiang - and would resort to means such as
cutting off electricity lines, blasting bridges
and destroying highways.
Tseten Norbu also
said that freedom and independence were worth
dying for, drawing comparison with people in
Chechnya and Bosnia fighting for their
independence through armed struggles. Tseten Norbu
even envisaged that the Tibetan movement would be
something like the Palestine Liberation
Organization, eventually have its own country,
allocate its own passports and fly the Tibetan
flag over the Potala Palace.
It is obvious
that the TYC has not yet developed into a real
terrorist organization because of restraint by the
Dalai Lama. In the past, when outrageous Tibetans
turned to violence, the spiritual leader
repeatedly threatened to resign unless they gave
it up. This shows that there are political
differences between the Dalai Lama and the radical
youths. So it is wrong and unwise for Beijing to
blend the two together and label them under one
title - the “Dalai clique”.
So far Beijing
has refused to actively engage in dialogue with
the Dalai Lama. It is believed that one of its
considerations is the belief that once the Dalai
Lama passes away, Beijing could appoint a new
living Buddha and the currently active
pro-independence forces would disintegrate; hence
there is no pressing need to take a proactive
attitude toward dealing the Tibet issue.
However, analysts point out that such
thinking overlooks the potential threat of radical
Tibetan organizations. With China’s national
muscle expanding rapidly, organizations of a
similar nature could be made use of by foreign
forces. With financial aid and arms provided by
foreign countries, such organizations could create
trouble in China’s backyard, becoming a secrete
weapon to impede China’s rise. It is likely that
the stronger China becomes, the more foreign aid
such organizations would receive. Contrary to what
Beijing may think, they would not disintegrate
with the passing of the Dalai Lama.
Since
the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949,
China has basically been immune to terror attacks,
despite being troubled by the long, unsettled
issues of Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang. But there is
no guarantee that the situation will remain so. To
prevent radical groups like the TYC from turning
themselves into armed terrorist organizations such
as those in Chechnya and Palestine, Beijing should
start as soon as possible to talk with the Dalai
Lama. This would help consolidate Tibetans’
support of his “middle-of-the-road” line, and keep
them away from the influence of the radical ideas
that pose a real threat to China’s security.
Law
Siu-lan is a contributor to the Chinese
edition of Asia Times Online.
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