World Tibet Network News Thursday, April 09, 1998

London, 6 April (TIN) - China's most senior Tibetan official, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme, has responded to the publication by TIN of the 10th Panchen Lama's 70,000 character petition with a strong denial of its accuracy. Eighty-eight year old Ngabo is a figure of great symbolic significance to the Beijing authorities because he was the Tibetan signatory to the "17-point agreement on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" in 1951 which was intended to give legitimacy to Chinese rule. His comments, in an interview with a British journalist, indicate that the Chinese authorities are aware of the publication of the book, which had not been seen outside inner Party circles before. The version of history presented by Ngabo follows the official Party line and shows that his own position on Tibet has not changed.

In the interview, Ngabo gave a further suggestion as to the whereabouts of Gendun Choekyi Nyima, the eight-year old boy who was recognised by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995. "He is studying, maybe in Gansu province," Ngabo told Jasper Becker of the South China Morning Post. Previous reports have indicated that he is either in Beijing or in his home village of Lhari in the Tibet Autonomous Region prefecture of Nagchu.

After the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, the 10th Panchen Lama was the most senior religious leader remaining in Tibet and head of the Tibetan government. In 1961, he presented his confidential report to China's top leaders on the mass arrests, excessive punishment and executions of Tibetans that followed the 1959 Uprising. In the petition, he gave a graphic description of the starvation that was widespread in eastern Tibet during the early 1960s as a result of the Chinese policy known as the Great Leap Forward. "In some places, many people directly starved to death because the food ran out; therefore in some places there was a phenomenon of whole families dying out," he wrote in his petition. "These were abnormal deaths all caused by lack of food, and in fact they should all be counted as having starved to death. There has been an evident and severe

reduction in the present-day Tibetan population."

In the interview with Jasper Becker in Beijing, Ngabo Ngawang Jigme claims:

"I can tell you for sure that not a single man died of hunger in Tibet. I heard that some people died in Qinghai but I don't know how many." In his reference to Tibet, Ngabo is referring only to the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Chinese authorities have stated that the TAR was not affected by the famine, and that only Qinghai and some parts of Sichuan were affected.

Although famine was not widespread throughout the Tibet Autonomous Region at the time, there were still many deaths from starvation according to Tibetan refugees and other sources. In his autobiography 'Fire Under the Snow', the 65-year old monk Palden Gyatso remembers that during that period in Drapchi prison, Lhasa, the authorities did not want to admit that anyone had starved. When a prisoner died of starvation it was said merely that: "the breath had left him", recalls Palden. A report by the Economic System Research Institute in Beijing in the early 1980s found that 900,000 people died during the famine in the Panchen Lama's home province of Qinghai - 45% of the population - and 9 million in Sichuan, according to Jasper Becker in his book 'Hungry Ghosts'. Ngabo Ngawang Jigme's son, Jigme Ngabo, who defected 13 years ago and who now lives in America, said that his father had underestimated the extent of the famine. "It is difficult to obtain official statistics on the famine, there were many deaths due t

o starvation," said Jigme Ngabo, who heads the Tibet section of Radio Free

Asia.

Ngabo's comments on the famine are a criticism of the information in the Panchen Lama's petition, but he does not challenge its authenticity or express any criticism of its publication. He also claims that he had urged the Panchen Lama not to write the report, as it would leave him open to attack from the authorities. "I suggested to him that if he had any complaints on the work in Tibet he should go straight to the central government leaders to make an oral report," he said. "I told him not to write the report as it could provide grounds for them to attack him. I told him quite frankly but he turned a deaf ear to me."

Although Ngabo is known to be a member of the Communist Party, he denied membership of the Party during the interview. Ngabo was one of the few members of the Communist Party in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution, when he served on the Tibet Revolutionary Committee, made up solely of Party members. Today, as vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an institution consisting of representatives of non-Party organisations which support the Party, Ngabo is a figurehead who has privileges and social prestige but little real power.

Dalai Lama 'violated law'

During the interview, which was conducted in Tibetan, Ngabo criticises both the Dalai Lama and Chadrel Rinpoche, the leader of the search team for a new Panchen Lama who was sentenced to six years imprisonment in 1997. He admitted that he told the Rinpoche to contact the Dalai Lama and ask him to select a candidate. "But the Dalai suddenly announced that his candidate was the real reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. This is completely against the rules." Chadrel Rinpoche was detained soon afterwards in May 1995. Unofficial sources reported last year that he was being held in a special prison for high-level officials in Trochu, Sichuan, 250 km north-west of Chengdu.

The Chinese authorities said that the 59-year old abbot had been found guilty of "seriously jeopardising the national unification and unity of ethnic groups, damaging the stability and development of Tibet and committing the crime of splitting the country". Ngabo does not directly accuse the Rinpoche of splittism, but his comments indicate that he is following the official line in his support for the validity of the 'Golden Urn' procedure which China insists must be used to select a new Panchen Lama, thereby denying the Dalai Lama's role in the process. The Golden Urn method, which involves the drawing of lots, was used for the selection of Gyaltsen Norbu, the boy chosen by the Chinese authorities as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama has traditionally used divination to choose the reincarnations of high lamas. Ngabo told Becker that: "I told Qiaozha (Chinese for Chadrel Rinpoche) that to make it

perfect, he could write letters to the Dalai to have him draw lots and select one candidate. But the Dalai Lama suddenly announced that his candidate was the real reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. This is completely against the rules; even if he were in Tibet, he did not have the authority to do so."

Ngapo defends his friendship with the Panchen Lama in an attempt to refute previous rumours of a rift between them. "I've never criticised him - I don't have grounds to do so," Ngabo told Becker. "A decision was made in 1964 that I would assume his post as the acting director of the preparatory committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region. When they asked my opinion, I told them that I could not do it. There are only two living Buddhas in Tibet and the Dalai Lama had run away to the other side of the Himalayas. I appealed resolutely against the Panchen Lama's dismissal." Ngabo has previously denied allegations that he failed to support the Panchen Lama after the petition was written in 1962.

Ngabo, who was appointed as governor of Kham in eastern Tibet at the time of the Chinese invasion in 1950, has been a controversial figure in Tibetan history following his signature of the 17-point agreement, which surrendered Tibet to the Chinese. Many Tibetans despise him as a traitor, as he was depicted in the Hollywood film 'Seven Years in Tibet'. In his first on the record comment on the Hollywood film, he told Becker that this portrayal was the "fabrication of the film producers". "I only met Heinrich Harrer a couple of times," Ngabo said. "Apart from the fact that Harrer taught the Dalai Lama English, none of the other details tally with the facts."