_________________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-editors@tibet.ca

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ISSUE ID: 00/01/28 Compiled by Tseten Samdup

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Friday, January 28, 2000

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Contents:

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1. Tibet's Dalai Lama Issues Letter On Escaped Boy Lama (BBC)

2. Bumbler on the Roof of the World (TM)

3. Land of Spirits (BBC)

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1. Tibet's Dalai Lama Issues Letter On Escaped Boy Lama (BBC)

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(BBC 1/28/00)

Tibetan spiritual head the Dalai Lama has said that it would be a terrible

mistake on the part of the Indian government, both in respect of the

country's image as well as in substance, if Karmapa Urgyen Trinley Dorje,

who escaped from Tibet, was not allowed to stay in the country. In a letter

to former Lok Sabha (lower house of India's parliament) Speaker Rabi Ray,

the Dalai Lama, however, said he understood to some extent the cautious

stand of the Indian government on this issue. The 17th Karmapa escaped from

Tibet with his sister Ngodup Palzam, a nun, and five others and reached

India on 5th January. The Dalai Lama, in his letter dated 18th January,

also thanked Ray for his stand on the issue of granting asylum to the

Karmapa. The copy of the letter was released by Ray to the press Friday

[28th January].

Stating that he was convinced that the 14-year-old Dorje had escaped from

Tibet because he did not find it possible to pursue his religious studies

and practices satisfactorily there, the Dalai Lama said he had clear

evidence that contrary to superficial appearances, there was much

restriction and suppression of religious freedom in Tibet. Meanwhile, the

escape of the monk from Tibet to India has triggered off a controversy

among the three living regents of northeastern state of Sikkim's

influential Rumtek monastery with the majority supporting him. The Dalai

Lama said that in a letter to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee he

had mentioned that the Karmapa's conduct in the past clearly indicated a

strong character and correct stand on issues relating to his religious

practice and welfare of Tibetan people. Unfortunately, there was

factionalism within the Karma Kargyu sect itself which had complicated the

matter, the Dalai Lama said referring to the Shamar group and the Situ

group.

Despite this, I believe if the young Karmapa can remain above these

factions and concentrate on his studies, he would definitely be able to

make considerable contribution not only to his own traditional lineage but

also to Tibetan Buddhism in general, he said. While two regents of Rumtek,

Tai Situ Rimpoche and Gyaltsen Rimpoche, hailed Dorje's selection as the

17th Karmapa, another regent, Shamar Rimpoche, opposed it choosing another

Tibet-born boy Thaye Dorje. The controversy over the reincarnated head of

the rumtek monastery, which has almost 300 monasteries under it across the

globe, erupted in 1981 following the death of the 16th Karmapa, who left

behind "a sacred letter of prediction" to choose his successor. With Shamar

Rimpoche based in Delhi, Buddhists in Sikkim supported Trinley Dorje.

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2. Bumbler on the Roof of the World (TM)

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Beijing's heavy hand ensures that Tibetan separatism will grow stronger By

ISABEL HILTON

TIME Magazine, JANUARY 24, 2000

There were reminders, in the 17th Karmapa's escape, of the Dalai Lama's

flight across the mountains to India in 1959. Then, too, the Chinese

government had broken some promises. Then, too, China's first reaction was

that the fleeing lama intended no disrespect to the Communist Party or

treason to Beijing. The Dalai Lama, the Chinese said in 1959, had been

"kidnapped" by imperialists. The Karmapa, they said last week, had gone to

get his hat.

It is, admittedly, a very important hat. But why would he risk his life on

such a dangerous journey to fetch it? China could not explain. No doubt the

story was meant to imply that the teenager, Beijing's key trophy lama, had

no quarrel with the government and would soon be back. Not likely.

The explanation offered by those close to the young Karmapa -- that he

wanted more contact with his teachers -- is highly plausible. Advanced

spiritual masters are thin on the ground in Tibet, a direct result of

Chinese attrition over the years. It is also reasonable to assume that the

Karmapa did not like the regime under which he had been living. Last year,

for instance, he was taken to Tashilunpo monastery in Shigatse to greet the

heavily guarded child the government has endorsed as the 11th Panchen Lama,

after the Dalai Lama's choice was made to disappear. The boy is widely

perceived in Tibet as a Chinese-imposed fake. As a religious leader with

rather better credentials, the Karmapa perhaps resented having to pay

homage to a Chinese policy error.

What is striking about his departure is that it didn't have to happen.

Closer contact with the Karmapa's exiled teachers, after all, would have

posed no danger to the Chinese state. Had Beijing displayed a modicum of

sensitivity and intelligence, it could have been spared the humiliation of

the Karmapa's flight, and his devotees in Tibet would still have the

consolation of his presence.

The Karmapa's residence at his historic monastery in Tsurphu was perhaps

the biggest success of China's Tibetan policy. The process of finding and

recognizing the boy had several remarkable and encouraging aspects, though

a quarrel over a rival candidate did create a schism in his Kagyupa order.

That the Karmapa was recognized as authentic by both the Dalai Lama and

Beijing gave him spiritual as well as temporal standing. Enthroned at

Tsurphu, he received thousands of devotees and embodied the restoration of

a tradition even older than the Dalai Lama's Gelugpa order.

Had Beijing handled the affair more deftly, it would still be able to point

to warm relations with the Buddhist sect that had ruled Tibet before the

Dalai Lamas and that has, since 1959, built up a large and wealthy

worldwide following. Even if he had no greater value than to refute, by his

presence in Tibet, the charges of religious oppression China routinely

faces, the Karmapa was worth his weight in sutras to Beijing. Instead,

China has been humiliated. And worse. Several years ago, Beijing seems to

have decided that time would eventually solve the Tibet problem. The Dalai

Lama is 64 years old. The end of his reproaches was in sight. But now there

is a young and charismatic alternative. Instead of becoming his substitute

in Tibet, the Karmapa is now the Dalai Lama's ally in exile.

How the Karmapa spends that exile will be crucial. No doubt he will get

back to his books and teachers, for a few years at least. But he has the

potential to become a figurehead for the next generation, as the Dalai Lama

has been for his. The Dalai Lama's position as Tibet's secular ruler is

gone forever, as he often points out. Today what matters is that someone

embody Tibetan religious identity and national aspirations -- and be a

focus for Western sympathies. If the Karmapa continues to demonstrate the

courage and charisma he has shown so far, he could prove a formidable

symbol of resistance to China's occupation of Tibet.

With no religious beliefs themselves, China's party chiefs find it

difficult to handle those who have faith. Remove the element of belief, and

no doubt one maroon-robed figure looks much like another. Perhaps the

leadership is genuinely puzzled by the Tibetan insistence that only the

right lama will do. Beijing seems to be trying to manage Tibetan Buddhism

as it would a slightly deviant party branch: if the regrettable necessity

of a purge arises, another leader can be substituted. And if the branch

resists, simply disband it and start again.

The Karmapa's defection poses difficult questions for China. Its attempt to

eradicate Buddhism in Tibet in the 1950s and '60s was a failure. Isn't the

lesson that oppression tends to strengthen religious belief rather than

weaken it? If so, what is to be gained by continuing to alienate Tibet's

religious leaders? Within China itself, where is the advantage in picking

fights, as the government has, with the Falun Gong meditation group, the

Vatican and the house church movement?

As China continues down the path of liberalization, party influence will

inevitably decline and other mechanisms -- the elements of civil society --

will need to arise to keep the social fabric from fraying. Religion is one

aspect of society that, on the whole, promotes desirable behavior rather

than the opposite. The party has tried to extirpate religion, only to have

it blossom more vigorously than before. Time, surely, to try for peaceful

co-existence.

Isabel Hilton, a London journalist, is the author of The Search for the

Panchen

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3. Land of Spirits (BBC)

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Chinese officials seem willing to tolerate religion, but they certainly

don't like to give up control

By ANTHONY SPAETH

TIME Magazine, JANUARY 24, 2000 VOL.

The maroon-robed 14-year-old with the gentle smile and penetrating gaze was

settling in nicely last week after his dramatic escape from Tibet. Ugyen

Thinley Dorje, better known as the 17th incarnation of the Karmapa, emerged

for his first encounter with followers at a monastery outside the Indian

hill town of Dharamsala, home to the exiled Dalai Lama. Although the boy

did not speak to the gathering, his flight from China has set off a noisy

controversy. Supporters of Tibetan freedom want New Delhi to grant him

refugee status or asylum, which would infuriate Beijing. "He needs to be

protected," says Ngodup Tsering Burkar, translator for the previous

Karmapa. The alternative is to yield to Beijing's pressure and send the

Karmapa to a third country or even back to China. "We're damned if we do

and damned if we don't," sighs K.S. Bajpai, a former Indian ambassador to

Beijing.

The Karmapa controversy is the latest skirmish in China's messy,

long-running battle with citizens of faith. The boy apparently fled Tibet

to escape Chinese attempts to control Buddhism in that land, which

Beijing's troops invaded in 1959. But the case is not an isolated one.

Beijing is waging an all-out war against the Falun Gong meditation

movement, is locked in battle with the Catholic Church and puts steady

pressure on small Protestant groups that meet in people's homes. Religious

and meditation organizations that Beijing deems threatening, like Falun

Gong, are branded as cults -- paving the way to declaring them illegal.

Despite China's efforts to restrict religious expression, however, the

spiritual awakening of its citizens isn't about to dissipate. Although the

ruling Communist Party remains officially atheist, the collapse of Maoist

ideology created a vacuum that religion is helping to fill. By official

estimates, more than 100 million people follow Taoism, Buddhism, Islam,

Christianity and other faiths. "Many people are looking for the help and

solace they used to get from their work units or collectives," says Dr. Xu

Yonghai, a psychiatrist in Beijing. A practicing Protestant, Xu is well

aware of the risks. In the mid-1990s, he served two years in a labor camp,

apparently for being openly religious. Several weeks ago, after finishing a

round-the-clock shift at Beijing's Ping'an Hospital, Xu was detained again,

this time for 24 hours of interrogation. His transgression: he had

scheduled a New Year's Day Bible study meeting at his home and posted an

invitation on the Internet. Four fellow believers were brought to the local

police station and questioned for six hours.

Incidents like these are adding new black marks to China's spotty human

rights record. The United States announced last week that it would renew

efforts to censure China at the annual meeting of the United Nations

Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in March, even though eight previous

attempts have failed. Last fall, the U.S. State Department labeled China a

"country of particular concern" on religious freedom, along with Burma,

Sudan, Iran and Iraq. Rabbi David Saperstein, chairman of a commission set

up by the U.S. Congress to monitor religious freedom worldwide, says

Beijing is showing signs of rising intolerance. "In the last few months

there has been a clear pattern of escalation," he says. The commission

could propose pressure tactics designed to make China behave, such as

restricting the country's access to U.S. capital markets.

China seems determined to maintain control over religion, regardless of the

impact on its international relations. In the past six weeks, Beijing has

outlawed several Christian groups -- with a total of perhaps 3 million

adherents -- as illegal cults, according to Frank Lu, head of Hong Kong's

Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. In

December alone, says Lu, more than 100 Christians were arrested nationwide,

while six Protestant leaders in Henan province were sentenced to labor

camps for leading "evil cults." In Guangdong province earlier this month,

officials demolished a small temple built by local villagers and, in the

process, injured a couple of elderly female protesters. "When little old

ladies are knocked over by the police," says Sophia Woodman, research

director for Human Rights in China, a Hong Kong-based watchdog, "it sends

clear signals that the Communist Party will go to great lengths to prevent

the formation of any organization outside its authority."

China's biggest battle is with adherents of Falun Gong, a meditation group

that has set off alarms in Beijing because of its size and organizational

ability. Believers are thought to number anywhere from 60 million to 100

million, including many members of the Communist Party. Angered at what

they consider to be official mistreatment, Falun Gong members held a

demonstration last April outside the government leadership compound in

Beijing, provoking a swift and relentless crackdown. Last week a retired

air-force general was sentenced to 17 years' imprisonment for links to the

spiritual group. Other large sects are prompting a similar backlash. The

Shaanxi province training center of Zhong Gong, a meditation movement that

claims 20 million followers, was shut down last month.

Chinese officials aren't necessarily against citizens having faith. Party

leaders have characterized religious followers as relatively hard-working

and law-abiding. But the large size and shared purpose of certain groups

pose a potential threat to the party's hold on power. "Religion makes

people flock together," says the Rev. Kwok Nai-wang, director of the Hong

Kong Christian Institute. "What could be more frightening to the leadership

in Beijing?" Premier Zhu Rongji last week publicly endorsed religious

freedom, but he said the government needed to play a role in order to

"vigorously guide religion to become compatible with our socialist

society."

China's religious wars defy easy answers. The Tibetan imbroglio, for

example, is four decades old. Beijing views Tibetan religious leaders,

especially the Dalai Lama, as potential heads of a separatist movement for

the vast territory. Islamic devotion in China's far west is also feared in

case it leads to nationalist fervor among the region's minority groups,

such as the Uighurs, and separatism. Beijing's quibble with the Catholic

Church is no less complex. For one thing, the Vatican represents a foreign

center of influence over China's adherents. For another, it maintains

diplomatic relations with Taiwan, not the People's Republic. As a result,

China doesn't allow its state-approved Patriotic Catholic Association to

recognize the Pope as leader. On Jan. 6, the traditional day for bishops to

be ordained in Rome, China's church elevated five of its own priests to the

episcopacy, a move one Vatican official describes as a "direct insult" to

Pope John Paul II.

Evangelical Protestants, who often meet in small groups in private homes,

have long suffered harassment because they refuse to register with the

government as a matter of religious principle. Many of these house

churches, as they are known, convene without interference, but others have

recently been branded cults and threatened by local government officials.

Despite his recent interrogation, Xu continues to attend a house church,

one of 1,000 he estimates are operating in Beijing. He blames his recent

troubles on overeager officials and, in other cases, local police looking

for bribes. He says China is actually becoming increasingly tolerant. That

may be the case -- for the quietly devout. But as the Karmapa's escape from

virtual captivity in a Tibetan monastery shows, religion in China can still

be a perilous pursuit.

Reported by Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing, Hannah Beech/Hong Kong, Michael

Fathers/New Delhi, Greg Burke/Rome and Barry Hillenbrand/Washington

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