“Democratic Imperialism”: Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy

While in recent years far more information has been made available concerning the CIA’s violent linkages with Tibetan forces, to date only one article has examined the connection between Tibet’s current independence campaigners and an organization that maintains close ties with the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“The seminal book exposing the NED’s ‘democratic’ modus operandi, is William I. Robinson’s (1996) Promoting Polyarchy, which as it’s title suggests, lays out the argument that instead of promoting more participatory forms of democracy, the NED actually works to promote polyarchy. Robinson argues that the NED’s active promotion of polyarchy or low-intensity democracy “is aimed not only at mitigating the social and political tensions produced by elite-based and undemocratic status quos, but also at suppressing popular and mass aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life in the twenty-first century international order.””

JEREMY Cronin’s attempt at “Debunking the Dalai Lama” (March 30) makes use of the tools of classic Chinese propaganda.

For one thing, his scant and skewed relation of the historical facts will not stand up under scrutiny. Of note is his assertion that the Dalai Lama fled Tibet before the brutally suppressed uprising of March 10 1959.

In fact, the Dalai Lama left Tibet on the night of March 17, after thousands of Tibetans had surrounded his summer residence to protect him from a Chinese assassination plot. By this time, Chinese artillery fire was being directed at the residence.

Which leaves me wondering – were there 60tons of treasure or not?

Suddenly the Dalai Lama emerged from behind me, wearing the skullcap and prayer shawl, on the way to his next meeting. “I am a Tibetan Jew! A Tibetan Jew!” Pleased as punch he was.

Why I am not a Buddhist – meeting between 3 Israelis and H.H. the Dalai Lama

In 1911, when China’s last dynasty was overthrown, all Chinese officials were expelled from Tibet. The 13th Dalai Lama proclaimed what many Tibetans consider an independence declaration – though no one in the international community recognised Tibet at the time.

In the 1930s, the Chinese Communist Party, still embroiled in a protracted civil war, recognised in principle the right to Tibetan self-determination. In the late- 1940s, this principle seems to have been dropped quietly . In 1950, a year after victory, the People’s Liberation Army overran Tibet’s eastern province.

Tenzin Gyatso, who had by then become Dalai Lama, signed an agreement acknowledging China’s sovereignty over Tibet. He made no attempt to rally the Tibetan people to defend their independence. The ruling elite was reassured by China’s promise not to tamper with the theocratic political system underpinned by feudal oppression.

But the presence of Chinese troops in eastern Tibet fanned patriotic sentiments. These were exploited by landlords fearing that, sooner or later, the Chinese would implement land reform. The CIA air- dropped arms into Tibet and trained Tibetan irregulars.

In 1959, there was an uprising in the capital, Lhasa. It was brutally suppressed by the Chinese, with tens of thousands of deaths. The Dalai Lama had conveniently fled into India before the uprising, taking 60t of treasure with him. None of the major protagonists emerged with much glory from this episode.

The democratic credentials of the Dalai Lama, living in Indian exile for the past five decades, remain suspect. Without consulting Tibetans, he openly abandoned the demand for independence in 1987, a shift he first secretly communicated to Beijing in 1984. The autonomous region of Tibet is one of the poorest parts of China. Whether as a result of deliberate policy, or because of market forces, ethnic Chinese now outnumber Tibetans in the territory.

* as recommended by Chief Rabbi Lord Sax in the Report of the Board of Deputies to the Council for Foreign Relations on Imbalances in Land and Resource Utilization in the Middle East

Michael Parenti on the Tibetan Regime under the DL:

Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs. These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas…The Dalai Lama himself ‘lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.’

“There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care, They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land–or the monastery’s land–without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location.

“As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.” [4]

[4] Michael Parenti, “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth,” Michael Parenti Political Archive, http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html