_________________ 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
______________________________________________________________________
Issue ID: 00/03/01 Compiled by Thubten (Sam) Samdup
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, March 1, 2000
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Dalai Lama government worried over Chinese crackdown after lama
escape
2. China Detains Parents Of Escaped Lama
3. Parents of Buddhist Leader Detained
4. Gungthang Rinpochey Passes Away in Tibet
5. U.N. Rights Chief in Opens Forum in China
6. PetroChina Files for U.S. IPO
7. "Revive the West" plan heads to China's parliament
8. MONK SHARES HIS SACRED ART WITH STUDENTS RITUAL UNFOLDING
AT LIBERTYVILLE
9. Mystery of Panchen Lama's Fate Endures
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Dalai Lama government worried over Chinese crackdown after lama
escape
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW DELHI, March 1 (AFP) - The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government
expressed concern Wednesday over a Chinese crackdown following the
flight of a senior Tibetan monk to India earlier this year.
Tashi Wangdi, minister for religion and culture in the exiled Tibetan
administration, told AFP from the northern Indian hill resort of
Dharamsala that Beijing had launched "severe measures" after the escape
of the Karmapa Lama.
The 14-year-old lama -- who heads one of the four schools of Tibetan
Buddhism -- arrived in Dharamsala on January 5 after escaping from his
monastery in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
Wangdi said sources in Tibet had reported the Karmapa Lama's aged
parents, Karma Dhondup and Loga (Eds: one name), had been expelled from
Lhasa to the eastern Tibetan prefecture of Chamdo.
He said they had been kept under tight security and added two officials
in charge of security at the monastery from where the Karmapa Lama had
escaped had been arrested.
"We are obviously concerned about their condition. We hope that the
Chinese authorities would not take reprisals on the family members,"
Wangdi said.
"It is unfortunate that these people are being subjected to these kind
of restrictions and difficulties. In the long run it does not help. It
does not lead to any solutions and can only antagonise the people and
aggravate the situation."
According to the London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN), the
Karmapa Lama had been the target of an attempted assassination in the
summer of 1998, which could have prompted his escape.
Two Chinese men were found with knives and explosives in the library of
the monastery, near the room which housed the Karmapa. They apparently
admitted being paid money to kill the lama but were soon released by
Chinese authorities without trial, TIN said.
The Karmapa's escape has severely embarrassed Beijing and put New Delhi,
which gave asylum to the Dalai Lama and about 100,000 Tibetan refugees
but wants better ties with China, in an uncomfortable position.
The Karmapa is recognised by both China and the Dalai Lama, and many
Tibetan exiles feel he could succeed the Dalai Lama as head of the
Tibetan freedom movement.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. China Detains Parents Of Escaped Lama
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BEIJING, Mar 1, 2000 -- (Reuters) Chinese authorities have detained the
parents of a high-ranking Tibetan lama who escaped Tibet to India in
January, the Tibet Information Network (TIN) said.
The London-based group said in a statement late on Tuesday China also
detained a Tibetan security officer and a monk involved in security at
Tsurphu monastery following the escape of the 14-year-old 17th Karmapa
Lama to India last month.
The statement was issued as United Nations human rights chief Mary
Robinson arrived in Beijing for two days of talks, and shortly after the
United States issued a damning report on China's human rights record,
notably in Tibet.
The Karmapa Lama, the highest Tibetan lama whose authority is recognized
by Beijing and the Dalai Lama, arrived in India on January 5 after a
1,400 km (875-mile) journey across the Himalayas.
The Tibetan government-in-exile in India says he fled to avoid religious
repression and human rights abuses in Tibet.
China says the boy left Tibet to collect symbolic ritual implements
which belonged to the previous Karmapa Lama, leaving the door open to
his return.
The Karmapa's escape dealt a severe blow to the attempts of China's
Communist government to control organized religion through "patriotic"
religious figures and institutions.
TIN said the Karmapa had shown increasing unwillingness to conform to
the government's demands and consistently refused to recognize a boy
appointed by Beijing as the Panchen Lama, the second highest Tibetan
religious figure.
Many Tibetans regard Beijing's choice of the Panchen Lama as a fake and
recognize another boy, who was picked by the Dalai Lama and has since
disappeared.
TIN said Chinese authorities had taken the Karmapa Lama's elderly
parents from their home in Lhasa and moved them to Changdu prefecture in
eastern Tibet, where they were being held under close surveillance.
The whereabouts of the two detained security workers from the monastery
was unknown, TIN said.
A Changdu government official told Reuters the Karmapa Lama's parents
had been moved there for their own protection, but declined further
comment.
Local officials said they knew nothing of the other two reported
detentions.
TIN said China had launched a full investigation into the Karmapa Lama's
escape, which threatened a diplomatic tangle between China and India
after exiled Tibetans urged Delhi to grant the boy political asylum.
The Dalai Lama has asked India to protect and shelter the boy but Indian
officials say he has not formally applied for asylum.
The boy left Tibet by vehicle with four companions, but often walked
off-road to avoid police checkpoints, TIN said. After crossing the
border into northern Nepal, the boy flew by helicopter to the western
Nepali city of Pokhara, it said.
Initial reports said the boy made most of the journey to India on foot.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Parents of Buddhist Leader Detained
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By RENEE SCHOOF
BEIJING, Wednesday March 1 2000 (AP) - China has detained the parents of
a 14-year-old Buddhist leader as part of a widening investigation into
the Karmapa's January escape from Chinese-ruled Tibet to India, a
monitoring group reported Wednesday.
In recent weeks authorities have closed the Karmapa's monastery to
visitors, detained two security workers, replaced monks who managed the
Tsurphu monastery and questioned others, warning them to improve their
``political attitudes,'' the London-based Tibet Information Network
said, citing sources it did not identify.
Authorities took the Karmapa's parents, Dhondup and Loga, from their
home in Lhasa and put them under close surveillance in Chamdo, a region
in eastern Tibet where they previously lived as nomadic yak herders, the
group said.
The report came on the day U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson
opened a conference in Beijing on protecting human rights in Asia. It
also followed the recent release of a U.S. State Department report on
human rights abuses in China, including Tibet.
A Chinese government spokesman in Lhasa denied the Tibet Information
Network report, calling it ``rumors.'' The spokesman, who gave his name
as Zhangxi, said the Karmapa's parents and people at his monastery had
not been detained and Tsurphu remained open.
The flight of the 17th Karmapa Lama was an embarrassment for China,
underscoring its inability to cultivate leading Buddhist figures to help
legitimize its often brutal 50-year rule over Tibet.
Since arriving in India Jan. 5, the Karmapa has spoken out about Tibet's
lack of religious freedom, warned that Tibetan culture is faced with
extinction and paid tribute to the Dalai Lama - the exiled spiritual
leader Beijing reviles.
In the months before he fled, the Karmapa had grown unwilling to meet
Beijing's demands for demonstrations of allegiance and had come to fear
his safety, the Tibet Information Network reported.
The Karmapa refused to denounce the Dalai Lama or publicly recognize a
boy the Chinese government appointed as the Panchen Lama, another
supreme Tibetan Buddhist figure, the group said. Another boy the Dalai
Lama named as the Panchen Lama has not been seen in public in nearly
five years and is believed to be under house arrest.
Last year, monks discovered two Chinese men hiding under blankets in the
library of the Karmapa's monastery in what the pair admitted was a
for-hire attempt to kill the lama, the report said.
In his escape, the Karmapa left Tsurphu by vehicle with four companions,
but at times they got out to hike and climb in the mountains to avoid
checkpoints, the report said.
Once across the Himalayas in Mustang, a remote Tibetan area that is part
of Nepal, the Karmapa flew by commercial helicopter to the Nepalese city
of Pokhara and from there he went to Dharamsala, India, seat of the
Dalai Lama's exiled government, the report said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Gungthang Rinpochey Passes Away in Tibet
---------------------------------------------------------------------
DHARAMSALA, March 1, 2000 (Norbulingka Institute) - Gungthang Rinpochey,
the present incarnation of Könchok Tenpai Dronmey (1762-1823) and second
ranking Lama of Labrang Tashi Kyil, one of the most important
monasteries in Amdo, northeast Tibet, passed away in Tibet, 29th
February 2000. He was in his early seventies. He had been confined in
hospitalever since he spoke out in public a decade ago at the conference
called by the Chinese government in Beijing to discuss the recognition
of the reincarnation of the Panchen Rinpochey. Gungthang Rinpochey was
resolute in his declaration that it is the time-honoured responsibility
of the Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas to recognise each other's
reincarnations. Since then, although he retained the post accorded to
him by the Chinese authorities, he was removed from access to power.
Gungthang Rinpochey is quoted as having stated clearly in public in 1990
that as a Tibetan he naturally yearned for freedom in Tibet, but that it
was not an issue that could be forced, because of the relative
powerlessness of the Tibetans. He pointed out that the PLA itself is ten
times the size of the entire Tibetan population. He said that Tibetans
could beg for freedom but the Chinese would not grant it. Therefore, he
advised young Tibetans to study their own culture and try to advance
themselves in professional ways. However, he declared that he believed
Tibet would eventually be free, because Tibetans are blessed by the
enlightened leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Like so many monks and lamas in Tibet, Gungthang Rinpochey spent twenty
years in prison, undergoing torture and hard labour during the early
part of the Chinese occupation. He returned to Labrang following his
release and took up the post the Chinese authorities offered him in the
hope that he would be able to use it for the benefit of Tibet and
Tibetans. He remained a monk throughout his life.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
5. U.N. Rights Chief in Opens Forum in China
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jeremy Page
BEIJING, Wednesday March 1 (Reuters) - United Nations rights chief Mary
Robinson opened a regional forum on human rights in Beijing Wednesday
amid renewed criticism of China's own abuse of civil liberties.
Robinson was due to meet Chinese Vice Premier Qian Qichen Thursday for
talks on human rights designed to help clear the way for China to sign
key international rights pacts.
Her visit comes just days after an annual State Department report said
China's human rights record ``deteriorated markedly'' in 1999, citing
suppression of religion, jailings of dissidents and political purges in
Tibet.
Rights groups reported this week that Chinese authorities beat to death
a member of the banned Falun Gong movement, refused to deliver medicine
to a sick dissident in jail, and detained the parents of a Tibetan lama
who escaped to India.
Robinson did not specifically refer to China's human rights record in a
speech at the opening of the regional forum, but urged all participants
to implement international rights pacts.
``We entered this century with an extensive array of international human
rights norms and standards which governments have signed up to,''
Robinson said.
``The challenge is to implement them at a national level by embedding a
culture of human rights based on knowledge, understanding and
participation by those whose human rights are being secured.''
China Yet To Ratify Pacts
China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which guarantees basic freedoms of religion, speech and
assembly, as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.
But it has yet to ratify either pact and must harmonize its legislation
to meet the international norms they enshrine.
``China's ratification and application of the Covenants would extend
their protection to a quarter of the world's population. There can be no
more concrete reaffirmation of the universality of the human rights
enshrined in the Covenants,'' Robinson said in a statement last week.
Robinson highlighted sexual, religious and racial discrimination as
major problem areas in Asia.
``There is persistent, and in some cases, escalating discrimination
against minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants,'' she said.
Rights groups have alleged that human rights abuses are extensive
against natives of China's remote western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet,
where ethnic minority groups are campaigning for independence.
China Rejects Criticism
Chinese officials strongly reject criticism of their human rights
record, pointing instead to the rapid increase in standards of living
across China over the past two decades.
``Countries have different national conditions, therefore, it is only
natural that they have differences in their approach to the promotion
and protection of human rights,'' Qian said at the forum's opening.
``To develop the economy, eradicate poverty, promote development and
realize prosperity is the common task confronting the Asia-Pacific
countries,'' he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said Tuesday basic human rights
were guaranteed under Chinese law, and accused the United States of
overlooking its own human rights abuses.
Robinson's trip comes three weeks before the start of the annual U.N.
Commission on Human Rights session at which the United States has
pledged to back a resolution criticizing China.
All such attempts to censure China have failed since 1990, the first
session after the killings of student protesters in and around Beijing's
Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
New Reports Of Abuses
As Robinson prepared for her meeting with Qian, several new reports of
human rights abuses in China emerged.
The wife of jailed political activist Xu Wenli staged a 24-hour hunger
strike Tuesday to protest against the refusal of prison guards to
deliver medicine to help treat Xu's hepatitis.
A 60-year-old member of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement died
after beatings by Chinese police, the Hong Kong-based Information Center
of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said Monday.
And The Tibet Information Network said Tuesday Chinese authorities
detained the parents of the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama who fled Tibet to
India in January.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
6. PetroChina Files for U.S. IPO
---------------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON, February 29, 2000 (Reuters) - PetroChina Co. Ltd., China's
largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, filed with U.S.
securities regulators to offer stock to the public and list shares on
the New York Stock Exchange.
The company, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.
(CNPC), hopes to raise as much as $5 billion in a twin listing in the
United States and Hong Kong, although it did not state how many shares
it plans to sell or for how much in a prospectus it filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Those details are expected in future filings.
PetroChina plans to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund its
capital spending and investments, reduce short-term and long-term
borrowings and for general corporate purposes.
An energy industry analyst close to the deal said most of funds
generated from the offering will be used to reduce the company's debt,
which he valued around $20.5 billion.
The analyst also noted that the move toward a public offering comes at a
time when traditional stocks including those in the oil sector, languish
as investors focus on the more glamorous technology and
telecommunications sector.
``It's a tough market right now for oil stocks. No one wants to talk
about any deal that's not tech or telecom,'' the analyst said, adding
that it was still too early to gauge the market's reaction to the
planned public offering.
The Beijing-based company had about $15.2 billion in revenue and
registered $2.8 billion in net income during the nine-month period ended
Sept. 30, the filing showed.
Two years ago, the Chinese government signed off on a massive
restructuring plan for the country's oil and gas industry to improve
efficiency and competitiveness.
As part of the restructuring, PetroChina was created as a joint stock
company in November 1999 and holds most of CNPC's assets, liabilities
and interests in domestic exploration and production, refining and
marketing, chemicals and natural gas businesses.
It operates 29 refineries throughout China, 17 chemical plants and owns
and operates about 6,900 miles (11,100 km) of pipelines, most of which
are used for natural gas. The company had about 480,000 employees as of
Sept. 30.
CNPC will remain the majority shareholder of PetroChina after the
offering, the filing said.
However, the offering was not without controversy as some activists have
already launched a protest campaign.
The Students for a Free Tibet organization has claimed that the IPO will
be used to finance the extraction from Tibet oil and gas resources and
would contribute to the further colonization of Tibet as more gas
workers would move into the area.
Outside the New York headquarter's of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(GS.N),
the lead underwriter in the United States for the IPO, more than 100
Tibetans and supporters marched Tuesday in a traditional funeral
procession in an attempt to warn investors about the risks of the
offering.
``With the Chinese government reneging on its (trade) commitments,
violating trade agreements, and ignoring international human rights
law, this is a bad time to invest in any state-owned enterprise, let
alone one that contributes directly to the exploitation and colonization
of Tibet,'' said Lhadon Tethong of Students for a Free Tibet.
Ma Fucai, 53, is PetroChina's chairman and also serves as president of
CNPC, a position he has held since April 1998.
The prospectus filed Tuesday with the SEC listed a $100 million figure
as the maximum amount to be raised in the offering. However, that was
done solely to calculate the regulator's registration fee. Companies
often increase the amount in subsequent filings.
PetroChina plans to list H shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and it
has applied to list American Depositary Shares on the NYSE under the
symbol ``PTR'' (PTR.N) once it goes public.
China International Capital Corp. and Goldman Sachs Asia LLC are the
joint global coordinators and bookrunners. Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.,
Credit Suisse First Boston and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette are other
underwriters for the IPO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. "Revive the West" plan heads to China's parliament
----------------------------------------------------------------------
by Paul Eckert
BEIJING, March 1 (Reuters) - Twenty years after Deng Xiaoping launched
China's economic reform drive under the slogan "to get rich is
glorious," his successors are struggling to spread the wealth to the
country's poorest pockets out West.
But now the Communist Party has declared developing the backward western
provinces an "arduous historical mission" with implications for national
economic growth, poverty eradication and social stability --
particularly in restive border regions.
A plan to spend billions of dollars to boost growth in the hinterland is
expected to be the centrepiece of this year's two-week session of the
National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, which opens on
Sunday.
Many of the nearly 3,000 NPC delegates come from landlocked provinces
which have largely missed out on the dynamic growth enjoyed in rich
coastal areas since the 1980s.
The legislators will hear from Premier Zhu Rongji of an ambitious
"Revive the West" plan to invest in highways, railroads and other
infrastructure in 10 interior provinces.
State media say the government will also offer tax holidays and other
preferential policies to lure foreign investors to 19 inland provinces
-- breaks better than those given in the special economic zones Deng
used to jump-start reform.
ECONOMIC GAPS, POLITICAL CONCERNS
Deng's policy of letting eastern areas get rich first worked wonders in
an arc from Dalian in the northeast through eastern Shanghai to bustling
Guangzhou in the south, helping lift more than 200 million people out of
dire poverty.
"But income inequality has increased rapidly and income gaps between
rich and poor, urban and rural, and coastal and inland are growing," the
World Bank said in a new rural study which put China's income
distribution among the world's most inequitable.
In 1998, per capita gross domestic product in Shanghai, China's richest
area, was 28,236 yuan ($3,410). In arid Gansu, one of the targets of
Zhu's plan, it was just 3,470 yuan.
The 10 western areas targetted for development -- Chongqing
municipality, Gansu, Guizhou, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet,
Xinjiang and Yunnan -- account for 56 percent of China.
Their population of 300 million accounts for about one quarter of
China's total and official estimates show the hinterland accounts for 90
percent of the 42 million Chinese who live below the government's
absolute poverty level of $60 a year.
The East-West gap has spawned sporadic unrest among farmers whose
incomes have stagnated. It risks greater trouble among separatist-minded
ethnic groups such as Buddhists in Tibet and Moslem Uighurs in Xinjiang,
who are poor and resent Chinese rule.
Beijing also cannot ignore local leaders who want a bigger piece of the
economic action, said a Western diplomat.
"It's less a question of the government fearing a revolution about to
occur in the Western provinces than placating a lot of local
bureaucratic interests, NPC delegates and local governors unhappy at the
unevenness of development," the diplomat said.
IS GOVERNMENT LARGESSE ENOUGH?
Zhu has made his ally, Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, head of a task force
comprised of 17 ministries and charged with setting western development
strategy.
Since January, Beijing has rolled out a series of lending, investment
and infrastructure-building schemes for western China.
-- The central bank announced plans to lend 80 billion yuan this year to
help finance 176 infrastructure projects in Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and
Tibet.
-- Railway Minister Fu Zhihuan unveiled plans to spend 100 billion yuan
from 2001-2005 to extend railway tracks in western provinces by 20
percent to 18,000 km (11,180 miles) and cut travel time to remote
provincial capitals.
-- The State Council said foreign companies investing in the 10 western
provinces and nine poorish central ones would get tax breaks beyond the
many they now enjoy. The perks included a halving to 15 percent of
corporate taxes for three years after the end of their initial tax
holiday, effective January 1, 2000.
One European business source in Beijing said tax holidays alone would
not remove the many reasons why in 1998, for example, western provinces
got only three percent and central provinces took in 10 percent of
China's total foreign direct investment of $45.6 billion, while 87
percent went to coastal provinces.
"It's hard enough doing business and making money in the most open parts
of China," said the executive, who cited bureaucratic red tape,
infrastructure shortfalls, grim living conditions and official
resistance as reasons Western firms shun western China.
Politically, the spending scheme for western China -- which the State
Ethnic Affairs Commission has called a "rare historic opportunity to do
good ethnic work" -- may buy some peace, but risks raising resentment
among minorities, the diplomat said.
"The Tibetans, for example, quite strongly resent seeing their only real
city -- Lhasa -- turned into another ugly Chinese city, which is what
has happened," th diplomat said.
($1.0 - 8.28 yuan)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
8. MONK SHARES HIS SACRED ART WITH STUDENTS RITUAL UNFOLDING
AT LIBERTYVILLE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By Laurie Grano
Special to the Chicago Tribune
March 01, 2000
The Venerable Ngawang Chojor sat crouched under the fluorescent lights
in a warm classroom at Libertyville High School this week, intent on his
sacred art and seemingly oblivious to the shuffling press of curious
teens.
A Tibetan monk dressed in traditional saffron and maroon robes, Chojor
painstakingly measured brightly colored sand granules through a narrow
metal funnel called a chak-phu, which he rubbed with another chak-phu,
tracing intricate religious symbols onto a blue board as if icing a
cake.
So delicate is his art, he wears a mask over his mouth and nose to guard
the developing pattern from his breath.
The monk is at the school this week embarking on a five-day-long
creation of a brilliant circular sand painting called a mandala. The
ceremony ends Friday afternoon, when the mandala will be
"deconstructed," its parts dismantled, swept into an urn and poured into
nearby Butler Lake, unleashing what Buddhists believe are healing
powers.
Room 11, an art room at the high school, is far different from the
quiet, richly decorated temples in which the ancient meditative ritual,
considered by Buddhists to be a steppingstone to enlightenment, is
usually performed.
Art teacher Linda McDonald and social studies teacher Mary Price planned
the visit with the help of a contact at the Field Museum in Chicago,
where Chojor constructed a mandala last year, and the Tibet Center in
Chicago.
"Kids have been in this room every minute," Price said. "And after the
kids see the mandala, they come back to check his progress. They're now
calling him `our monk.' "
Community High School District 128 will host a community reception in
honor of Chojor's visit from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the high school,
officials said. The visit is paid for by the Adult Education Program and
grant money, officials said.
Chojor, 67, is a teaching monk who at 13 entered the personal monastery
of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.
Chojor communicated through an interpreter.
"He is very happy and he expresses thanks to Libertyville High School
for allowing him to show how to make a mandala," said interpreter Kumud
Kaushal after an opening ceremony Monday. At the ceremony, Supt. David
Clough presented Chojor with a silk scarf as about 75 art and history
students looked on.
"He is welcoming everybody to come here so he can teach through his
art," Kaushal said.
Before embarking on the mandala, Chojor recited a mantra about "his
happiness in making the mandala and his prayer that life will be long,"
the interpreter said.
Jason Morgan, a 17-year-old senior from Libertyville, was one of the
students attending the opening ceremony.
"I think it's really cool," Morgan said. "It's a different culture, and
it's always interesting to see how different people do different
things."
Chojor's mandala, measuring 3 feet square, is about what one monk can
finish in five seven-hour days, McDonald said. Other mandalas can be
much larger, often created by many monks working together, she said.
"The ritual really celebrates the impermanence of everything," McDonald
said. "It goes far beyond color, organization and geometry. There is a
real intellectual philosophy behind it."
Religious persecution by the Chinese Communist government since 1959 has
forced tens of thousands of Buddhists to flee Tibet, most prominent of
whom is the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who travels the world
advocating freedom for Tibet.
Chojor left in 1959 and currently lives with relatives in Madison, Wis.,
McDonald said.
"I believe the richness of the Tibetan culture should be preserved,"
McDonald said. "It is important to support them."
Junior Angela Messerli, 16, of Libertyville agrees with McDonald so
wholeheartedly she is starting a Libertyville High School chapter of the
national Students for a Free Tibet, which will work to educate
classmates of the Tibetans' plight, she said.
"You can stand here and watch something so beautiful being created . . .
yet they are being horribly treated and kicked off their own land,"
Messerli said.
Looking at the mandala, Messerli remarked:
"It's not just a piece of blue board--it's something so spiritual we
cannot even fathom what it means to him."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
9. Mystery of Panchen Lama's Fate Endures
---------------------------------------------------------------------
By Geoffrey Smith, The Washington Times
The Washington Times
Thursday, February 24, 2000
When the Dalai Lama of Tibet chose Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the next
Panchen Lama in May 1995 after an arduous and complex search bound by
centuries of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, he never could have guessed
what would happen next.
Nor would he have wanted to.
The 6-year-old boy was kidnapped from his home in Tibet within days of
the Dalai Lama's announcement. The communist Chinese government placed
him and his family under house arrest and then took him to a
still-unknown destination.
The resulting tumult that swept through the Tibetan community and those
with an interest in Tibet is the topic of a new documentary making its
Washington debut tonight at 7 at the D.C. Jewish Community Center. This
is only the film's second showing in the United States.
Titled "Tibet's Stolen Child" the film tells of the boy's abduction
through the lens of other human tragedies from around the world. The
film's writers assert that the boy's story interests the world, not just
Tibet.
Produced by Garthwait & Griffin Films in conjunction with the
International Campaign for Tibet, the film was written and produced by
husband and wife Robin Garthwait and Dan Griffin, who have collaborated
on other films about Tibet, including the documentary "Missing in Tibet"
(1997) which tells the story of a Tibetan Fulbright scholar sentenced to
18 years in a Chinese prison.
The Panchen Lama has been described as the moon to the Dalai Lama's
sun. Together, they form the spiritual center of Tibetan Buddhism. The
Panchen Lama, or "great scholar." is primarily a religious leader, while
the Dalai Lama is a religious and secular figure.
Narrated by Patrick Stewart and featuring appearances by a bevy of Nobel
Peace Prize laureates, including the Rev. Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama
and Elie Wiesel, the film at one point asks the question: "Why is the
Chinese government interested in he Panchen Lama?"
The answer, the film says in complex and goes to the core of the
historical relationship between Tibet and China.
On the surface, however, it is strange that the officially atheistic
Chinese government would be interfering in the selection of one of
Tibetan Buddhism's highest lamas, especially given the government stated
dislike of religious practice.
"I think the issue of the Panchen Lama really centers around the issue
of [Chinese] control," says Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School
of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and a widely
regarded speaker and journalist on the People's Republic of China.
Geoffrey Smith is an intern on the international desk of The Washington
Times.
___________________________________________________________________________
Send articles to: wtn-editors@tibet.ca
Subscriptions to: listserv@lists.mcgill.ca (SUB WTN-L [your name])
Cancellations to: listserv@lists.mcgill.ca (SIGNOFF WTN-L)
WTN Archived at: http://www.tibet.ca
___________________________________________________________________________
