from: Tibet Information Network, 5 Dec 95

The Chinese authorities have initiated a public denunciation campaign against a former Tibetan abbot, the first such move in Tibet in 15 years, indicating that preparations are under way for a major purge of pro-Tibetan cadres and religious leaders in Tibet. The campaign is linked to a new attempt by the authorities to eradicate the influence of the Dalai Lama from Tibetan Buddhism as well as from politics, and includes hints of a possible withdrawal of religious freedoms.

Tibetan religious leaders at all levels have been told this week to prepare written and oral statements criticising the Dalai Lama and attacking Chadrel Rinpoche, the former abbot of Tashilhunpo. The statements are described as tests of their loyalty at what is called "this critical juncture", according to Chinese media reports from Tibet.

The tests of the Tibetan leaders, which are likely to be followed by a purge of those who cannot prove their loyalty to the authorities, are included within the propaganda offensive supporting the appointment of a rival child to the position of Panchen Lama, the highest Tibetan leader to remain in Tibet after the Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1959.

The intense propaganda output over the Panchen Lama dispute, which reached a peak with the naming of the Chinese-supported appointee in Lhasa on Wednesday 29th November, has served to divert attention from the escalating attack on Tibetan cadres and traditional leaders, and has provided new opportunities for their loyalty to be assessed.

- First Denunciation of a Tibetan Leader since 1980 -

The launching of the attack against Chadrel Rinpoche last month signals the first known public campaign against a senior Tibetan figure in Tibet since at least 1980. In that year the Chinese reformer Hu Yaobang introduced a liberalisation policy in Tibet based on promoting former Tibetan aristocrats and lamas to high status positions and permitting Tibetan religion to flourish in return for loyalty to Beijing.

The Panchen Lama selection this week, together with the anti-Chadrel campaign, symbolises the end of China's policy of concessions towards Tibetans and has led to widespread disillusion among cadres and officials in Lhasa, according to reports from the Tibetan capital. "People who have pinned their careers to the service of the state on the understanding that they can modify it to local conditions are finding that the policy they had always relied upon was false," said one western Tibet analyst who was in Lhasa last week.

"What has happened with the Panchen Lama reincarnation is a final breach of their trust. I heard several people talk about friends or relatives who had been loyal to the cause and were now disgusted," added the observer, who asked not to be named.

On 4th November, nearly six months after he disappeared, Chinese officials stated for the first time that the disgraced abbot had committed an offence. They did not criticise him by name until Thursday 30th November.

Until now the Chinese Government has said that Chadrel Rinpoche was not in detention and on 21st August described him as receiving medical treatment in an unspecified hospital. The abbot, who disappeared in May three days after the Dalai Lama announced the name of the new Panchen Lama, is accused of communicating with the exile leader about which child to identify as the reincarnation.

- Identifying Nationalist Cadres -

The Chinese authorities first expressed public concern about the loyalty of Tibetan leaders in October 1991, but the evidence of a major effort to deal with the problem emerged only last Sunday 24th November when a top religious leader, Phagpalha Gelek Namgyal, told "upper strata" Tibetans that they would be judged by their performance in criticising the Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan leaders have been told they must perform well on four questions - "exposing and criticising the Dalai", "criticising the crimes" of Chadrel Rinpoche, "resolutely negating the so-called reincarnated boy" identified by the Dalai Lama as the new Panchen Lama, and accepting the Chinese approved method of selecting lamas.

Their performance on these issues "is a major political question that serves as the main basis for determining whether the political orientation, stand and viewpoint of cadres ... and Political Consultative Conference members is correct," Phagpalha told a meeting of members of the Consultative Conference, which includes all prominent lay and religious figures in Tibet.

"At the same time, it also serves as the main basis for determining whether patriots are worthy of the name," he told the meeting, saying that all Consultative Conference members would have to give written and verbal statements "condemning the Dalai", according to a Tibet TV broadcast monitored by the BBC.

"The people will judge your practical performance in this serious political struggle," he said, using language which is much stronger and more threatening than previous statements.

The decision to launch a drive against pro-Tibetan cadres was made by Party leaders at the Third National Forum on Work in Tibet, a top level meeting held in Beijing in July 1994. "A few Party members and cadres at grass-roots levels do not even have a clear attitude towards separatists ... If we let these phenomena drift then the strength of the separatists may grow stronger and there will be serious consequences", warned the leaders in their decision, issued in a relatively mild public form as a book entitled "the Golden Bridge" on 1st October 1994.

Internal documents show that about the Third Forum ordered officials to first identify unreliable cadres by imposing a ban on religious possessions. "All Party members, especially leading members, are not allowed to put up religious symbols, Dalai photos and altars in their house, and should not have prayer rooms", executive deputy Party Secretary Raidi told a Tibet party meeting on the Third Forum on 5th September 1994, according to an internal transcript of his speech.

The ban on religious symbols and Dalai Lama photographs was a device to identify suspects, but initially it could only be applied to party members, who make an express commitment to atheism. By the autumn of 1994 the same test had been extended to include most government officials, who are allowed to be religious but who are now told that worship of the Dalai Lama is a political question because of his opposition to the government.

This week's announcement by Phagphalha means that the testing process has been extended to Consultative Conference members, most of whom are not Party members and who include all the main religious leaders as well as lay officials.

Since religious leaders cannot be banned from having religious symbols, the Panchen Lama dispute may have been over-played partly in order to provide an opportunity to test them. The Chinese needed to reject the Dalai Lama's solo decision on the Panchen Lama succession in order to re-establish their claim to sovereignty over Tibet, but they could have avoided further confrontation by including the Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the child named by the Dalai Lama, in their final selection ceremony, which involved a lottery of three candidates.

Indications of China's underlying objectives came last week with the attack on six year old Gendun Choekyi Nyima for having once drowned a dog, and with the denunciation of Chadrel Rinpoche. Neither of these moves was necessary to establish China's candidate as the new Panchen Lama, and the denunciation of Chadrel could embarrass Beijing, since it implies that they were misleading journalists when they said he was ill in hospital.

The Panchen Lama dispute included what may have been an earlier attempt to push pro-nationalist Tibetan leaders into the open by making them denounce the Dalai Lama's decision to name the reincarnation. By August almost all Tibetan leaders had acceded to Chinese demands that they criticise the Dalai Lama's stance on the dispute, but their criticism was limited to procedural technicalities: only one said that the child identified by the Dalai Lama was not the real reincarnation. The criticism of the child and the abbot has provided Beijing with campaign targets about which Tibetan leaders may find it harder to equivocate.

- Religious Freedom Conditional -

The attempt to identify nationalists among the cadres and leaders of the Tibetan community is part of a wider Chinese effort to overcome support for the Tibetan independence movement. "We must wage a resolute struggle against the Dalai and clear out his influence in all areas", said Phagpalha, indicating what appears to be the official description of China's latest policy objective in Tibet.

The slogan represents a new development for the Chinese, who previously have sought to overcome the Dalai Lama in political affairs. The new campaign is unique because it aims to eradicate his role from religion as well. "Only by adopting a clear-cut stand ... to totally wipe out his influence can Tibet enjoy long-term stability and can Tibetan Buddhism establish a normal religious order", according to a statement by Xinhua on 29th November.

The speeches, all using the pejorative form "Dalai", describe the exile Tibetan leader as "the biggest obstacle to the establishment of a normal order for Tibetan Buddhism". His actions are described as "running counter to the dignified and deeply-felt religious rituals of Buddhism" and as "an out- and-out calamity for Tibet and religion."

The apparent aim to remove the Dalai Lama from Tibetan Buddhism is paralleled by a revised position on religious belief, with the Chinese authorities now suggesting that only supporters of the state have the right to be religious believers. "A qualified believer should, first of all be a patriot", Xinhua said on Wednesday, the day the China-backed Panchen Lama was named. "Any legitimate religion invariably makes patriotism the primary requirement for believers," it continued.

The new statements on religion include what could be seen as a threat to withdraw the current freedom to practice religion in Tibet. "If [the Dalai Lama's] words are followed, Tibetan Buddhism will be led onto a path of going against the interests of the people and the laws of the country, thereby endangering its due position and future in Chinese society", said Xinhua, according to the BBC Monitoring Service on 2nd December. China imposed restrictions on the spread of religion in November 1994, but this is the first time there has been a hint of a possible withdrawal of religious freedoms. --- end ---