Published by: World Tibet Network News Monday - September 15, 1997

President, International Campaign for Tibet House Committee on International Relations Committee

Hearing on Religious Persecution, September 10, 1997

Thank you Chairman Gilman and distinguished members of the Committee for the opportunity to address the issue of religious persecution in Tibet and to speak in support of Congressman Wolf's legislation.

I wish to take this occasion to thank Congressman Wolf for his determination to overcome the obstacles before him and make a serious effort on behalf of the Tibetan people. His recent trip has drawn substantial attention to China's repressive policies in Tibet, and I am confident that his findings will impact the agenda in the upcoming Clinton-Jiang summit.

Also, during the month of August, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile enthusiastically welcomed an official Congressional delegation to Dharamsala, India, headed by Chairman Gilman, with Congressmen Ackerman and Faleomavaega. Previous to their visit, the delegation met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and expressed their strong support for a negotiated settlement to the Tibetan issue.

Let me say, finally, that I am honored to share a panel with Bill Bennett, Gary Bauer, and the other men and women of high principle gathered here today.

My name is Lodi Gyari. I am President of the International Campaign for Tibet, a Washington-based organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights and democratic freedoms for the people of Tibet. I am also Special Envoy of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and I have served in both the Tibetan Parliament and Cabinet in exile in Dharamsala, India.

I was born in Tibet and spent my childhood in traditional monastic study. It is common in my faith for young boys to enter the monastery quite early. I was only four when it was determined that I was a reincarnate lama or rinpoche, and I was taken from my family to be schooled in the philosophies, sciences of the mind, and ethical insights of Tibetan Buddhism. It may sound harsh to send away such a young child but, to the contrary, Tibetan families congratulate themselves as fortunate to have such a rebirth in their midst and I too was then quite pleased with myself.

I must say that it continues to be a source of bewilderment for our Chinese brothers and sisters that in spite of considerable outward poverty, Tibetans see themselves as a fortunate people on a profoundly meaningful personal evolution toward the ultimate goal of Buddhahood.

As you can see, I wear no monks robes today. I long ago determined that I could better serve His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people as a lay practitioner and public servant. Had I remained in Tibet after the Lhasa uprising in 1959, I cannot say what path I would have chosen. But as it happened, I was among the 80,000 Tibetans who followed His Holiness into exile in India that year. We are now 133,000 in exile, and new refugees are arriving in India and Nepal every week, in not every day.

Mr. Chairman, the Chinese conquest of Tibet in 1949-50, and the history of Chinese rule in Tibet since that time has been a tragedy for Tibetan and world civilization and a crime of cultural genocide against the Tibetan people. It continues today, nearly 50 years after the People's Liberation Army began its so-called "peaceful liberation" of Tibet, as an integral part of China's mission to eradicate Tibetan culture, not only as something "religious" and "feudal", but more importantly as something distinctly non-Chinese.

If current Chinese policies continue, the tense situation that already exists inside Tibet could erupt and spread to other regions and would present China and the international community with a far bigger and dangerous problem. The Muslim Uygur people of Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang), the Muslim Hui minority, the Inner Mongolians and other non-Chinese peoples continue to be handled with increasingly repressive sinocization policies instead of political solutions.

A prime example of the sinocization policy is the case of the child Panchen Lama. China's abduction of the 6-year old Panchen Lama is not simply an act of retribution by an atheistic state against the free practice of religious freedom. Rather, it can be more accurately attributed to "Chinese reincarnation politics," and it reveals what is likely to be China's end policy on dealing with the Dalai Lama. The Chinese have only to await his death and then use their puppet Panchen Lama to force a successor upon the Tibetan people.

However, the new generation of Tibetans, Huis, Uygurs and Mongols are coming to understand that they do not have to endure the tremendous persecution and discrimination they have suffered, and continue to suffer. They are now emerging ideologically sharpened, conscious of their own rights and eager, like the Chinese, for the rule of law. For these young people, the rejection of Chinese authority can inspire acts of rebellion, as was recently the case in Xinjiang province. But for young Tibetans, it often leads them to Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

In fact, the numbers of new arrivals in India from Tibet are of great concern. The Tibetan exile community, already overcrowded and lacking resources, is finding it increasingly difficult to care properly for so many young people seeking freedom in exile. It is our hope that with proper healthcare, schooling and training -- opportunities denied them inside Tibet -- these young Tibetans will one day return home where they will fortify a national identity at risk of total elimination under Chinese occupation policies.

The continuing exodus of Tibetans is troubling for another reason that is particularly germane to the subject before us. It appears that the number of monks and nuns fleeing Tibet is remarkably high and climbing. The numbers are not difficult to interpret as they can be directly attributed to the increasingly harsh restrictions on religious freedom imposed by the Chinese authorities and the brutalities inflicted on those monks and nuns who refuse to comply with the Chinese government directives.

=46or example, in the spring of 1995, the Chinese government launched a "strike hard" anti-crime campaign throughout China. In Tibet, the campaign is used as a ruse to enforce stricter controls in monasteries, long regarded by the Chinese authorities as hot-beds of dissent and, quite correctly, as the very core of the Tibetan identity. Work teams made up of officials from the Public Security Bureau , the Religious Bureau, and the Monastery Management Committee -- organizations peopled by communist cadres -- are sent into monasteries to implement the campaign. Their implicit directive is to divide the monasteries along political lines by creating powerful incentives for those who strike the right ideological tone and punishing by expulsion those who do not.

The campaign's sinister methodologies include vitriolic diatribes against the Dalai Lama and "patriotic re-education." Monks are forced in private interrogations to take oaths against the Dalai Lama and Tibetan separatism and to swear allegiance to a unified China. Those who are seen to have placed their loyalty to the "nation" above their religion are rewarded with favors, such as unrestricted travel. Monks who perform in an "unsatisfactory" manner are ostracized and ordered to leave the monastery. We know that hundreds of monks and nuns have been forced out in recent years, although it is common practice to leave their names on the monastery's roster thus at once giving the impression that the monastery is full to capacity and that there is no room for novice monks.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to share with you one vignette about what is going on in these monasteries as we speak. A copy of a study document issued by a local re-education team in Lhokha, Tibet on 25 May 1997 was recently obtained by the Tibet Information Network in London. The document lists 24 questions to be put to the monks and shows that question number two requires the monks to list "the four aspects of the Dalai as defined by Comrade Li Ruihuan," member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and chief party official in charge of religious affairs.

The correct answer to question two, which the monks are supposed to have memorized, is; The Dalai is: (1) "head of the serpent and the chieftain of the separatist organization conspiring for independence for Tibet," (2) "an unmistakable tool of the international forces opposed to China," (3) "the root cause of social instability in Tibet, and (4) "the biggest obstacle to the establishment of normal order in Tibetan Buddhism."

Even as the Chinese authorities continue to face strong resistance to their "patriotic education" campaign, leading to the closure of some monasteries, and the permanent construction of police stations in others, they are ratcheting up their attacks against Tibetan Buddhism and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The official Chinese newspaper Tibet Daily has called on the Tibetan people to embrace atheism. It recently reported that "Many people have been fettered by religion and cannot break free of its bewitchment. To carry out atheistic education is a necessary condition for opposing the Dalai Lama's disastrous teachings aimed at causing chaos in Tibet and splitting the motherland."

The language employed by the official press in Tibet is eerily reminiscent of the anti-religious diatribes of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when religious persecution in China and Tibet reached its peak. Reflecting Karl Marx's celebrated maxim that religion is the opiate of the people, Tibetan Buddhism is criticized for completely infiltrating Tibet's economic and social life and interfering with politics which, the editors of Tibet Daily claim, is neither in China's interests nor the interests of Tibet's modernization.

China's escalating attack on religion in Tibet is, I believe, attributed to the convergence of several factors. Foremost among these factors is the international respect and prestige awarded to His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Since his first visit to the West in the 1970's, His Holiness' reputation as a man of peace has grown steadily. He has received numerous awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize for "his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people's struggle to regain their liberty."

Although China has shown itself to be relatively immune from international criticism, pervasive and unbridled support for the Dalai Lama inside Tibet could hinder China's assimilation plans. Thus, the anti-Dalai Lama Chinese press campaign, and the stripping of his photographs from temples and monasteries.

A related strategy is to focus official criticism of what China calls "separatist" forces on the Tibetan clergy. China's hope is to limit the attribution of Tibetan nationalism to monasteries and nunneries which they claim are directly or indirectly controlled by the "Dalai clique". While it is true that many monks and nuns are highly politicized, their resistance to Chinese rule is shared by the general populace. In direct contradiction to China's claim that separatist tendencies have been nurtured by the Dalai Lama with the complicity of certain Western countries, in fact, Tibet's heightened sense of nationalism is directly attributed to the fact and methodologies of China's colonial rule.

It is important to understand that these methodologies go far beyond religious persecution. China has implemented control in Tibet through, to quote Congressman Wolf, "boot heel subjugation" under the combined forces of the People's Liberation Army, the People's Armed Police, and officials of the Public Security Bureau. Tibetans, like many of their Chinese brothers and sisters, are denied every fundamental freedom imaginable -- freedom of speech and press, freedom of assembly, freedom from political and extra judicial killing, torture and degrading treatment, the denial of fair trial, discrimination, right of association, forced labor, forced abortion and sterilization, and so on.

Such is the climate of control in Tibet, and it is followed on with economic exploitation, and a policy agenda of rapid assimilation which seeks to overwhelm the Tibetan people with Chinese settlers, denies schooling in the Tibetan language and penalizes Tibetans illiterate in the Chinese language.

In fact, to single out the issue of religious persecution in Tibet plays into the hands of the Chinese government which, as I have said, seeks to portray monks and nuns as the "backbone" of a separatist movement headed by the Dalai Lama. I would caution you, Mr. Chairman, to shine the spotlight with a broader sweep.

The number of persons in Tibet and in China detained or serving sentences for "counterrevolutionary crimes" or "crimes against the state" or for peaceful political activities number in the thousands. They have been arrested for hanging posters, issuing petitions or open letters calling for constitutional and government reforms and greater democracy.

Tibetan Fulbright student Ngawang Choephel, who has received great attention from this Congress, did nothing but record traditional Tibetan music, and for this offense he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Freedom, including religious freedom, for the Chinese and Tibetan peoples will come only with the end of authoritarian rule. The passage of the freedom from Religious Persecution Act could send a message to Beijing that its hollow claims of religious freedom discredit the Communist Party and its leadership. Until there is a some measure of accountability extracted from that leadership, there will be little hope for change in China's offensive strategy to destroy Tibet. President Clinton has a great opportunity during the summit to place squarely the responsibility for China's oppressive policies on the shoulders of Jiang Zemin as he takes up the full mantle of leadership after the Party Congress and the passing of Deng Xiaoping.

Let me end by reiterating that repression in Tibet would be diminished and not eliminated by returning religious freedom to the Tibetan people. The future of Tibet depends on negotiations between the Chinese leadership and the Dalai Lama or his representatives. Together, they can return real freedom, based on genuine self-rule, to the people of Tibet.

The legislation before you is a timely and welcome effort, and I express my thanks and commendations to those gathered here and the large Christians constituencies they represent. It must be combined with strong U.S. Government representations in support of negotiations to be effective for my people.