The Dalai Lama’s Talk for World Peace
July 16, 2011While in Washington, DC for an 11-day Tibetan Buddhist Kalachakra ceremony, which ended today, the Dalai Lama gave a public talk on the West Lawn of the Capitol building last Saturday, July 9th (MC'd by Whoopie Goldberg). Entitled "A Talk for World Peace", I put together about 10 minutes of video that relate more or less to my documentary in progress, CIA in Tibet: how to deal with your enemy, change in China and the world, violence vs non-violence, and democracy.
If you'd like to also watch the full length of the Dalai Lama's talk and Q&A (about 80 minutes), you can find it here, or here along with various other events.
Bhusang: Surviving War and Prison
June 26, 2011In wake of the recent release of several Chinese dissidents from prison – artist Ai Weiwei, three of his associates, journalist Wen Tao, and activist Hu Jia – I thought I’d share a related story from one of the Tibetan veterans I interviewed, Bhusang. Imprisoned in Tibet from April 1961 to October 1978, Bhusang was a resistance fighter trained by the CIA at Camp Hale, Colorado and the only survivor of his team soon after they were dropped back into Tibet. For more background on him, see “Democracy for Breakfast: Ode to Bhusang” and "Battle for Lhasa".
The interview took place on the 8th and 9th of November, 2009, in his small room just below the Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India. Bhusang passed away only four months later, so we were lucky and privileged to be able to record some of his stories while we could. I’m not yet able to subtitle this interview on video as I’ve had limited funds to get exact translations for most of Bhusang, as well as other Tibetan-language interviews that count more than 40 hours at this point. I’m planning on getting on that this summer, and will soon be starting a kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds to go towards finishing translations, a little more production, and post-production. As I have more translations done, I can start working with them in the feature editing, as well as share more bits on this blog. Look for an updated fundraising video and trailer coming up soon.
The transcription below consists of the questions I asked the interview’s interpreter, Tenzin Norkyi, and her translation at the time – a rough summary of Bhusang’s replies.
Bhusang after the interview, Nov 9, 2009
HOW DID THE CHINESE CAPTURE HIM?
He was part of seven Tibetans trained in the US [Camp Hale, Colorado] that fought and were killed in Markham [Eastern Tibet]. The only thing the Chinese feared is the Americans, and because they had trained with the Americans, they are their double enemy. After fighting a long time in Markham, they were outnumbered and surrounded by around noon on April 15th, 1961.
They had parachuted close to Markham on March 15th, 1961. First of all, they were dropped in the wrong place. From there, the problems started. One good thing is the team leader, Yeshi, was from the area. But the first people they met thought Yeshi was in India, and had no idea he was trained by the US so they didn’t believe him. The locals didn't trust that they weren't Chinese spies and wouldn't give them any food or sell anything to them. Soon, the Chinese heard about them.
Once the secret was out that they were there, after a few days they met the people they were looking for. They told them about how the Americans would supply weapons, money, and help them fight. They discussed plans for what to do.
Soon after, the Americans dropped weapons and supplies, so four of Bhusang’s team, plus six other teams, went to get them. By then the Chinese had already pressured the family they first met to give them all their details; that they trained with the US, and were there to fight. So the Chinese started coming to Markham.
When Bhusang and his team reached Markham, there were a lot of other groups there to fight the Chinese. They started fighting at 6am on April 15th and by the time they realized they needed to retreat, the Chinese had surrounded them; thousands and thousands, too many to count, herds like cattle. After most others were killed, he and three others were the only ones left of his team. They decided to each face north, south, east, west and keep shooting until they had no more bullets left, then take their suicide pills the Americans gave them in case of capture.
Two of the others took the cyanide pills. Bhusang put his in his mouth while the Chinese were shouting, “Surrender”. At the same time there were two girls crying a lot. They came to fight because their families had been killed and they had no one left. As the girls surrendered, Bhusang was knocked unconscious, hit on the head by a PLA soldier before he could bite down on the pill. Of his seven-man team, Bhusang was the only survivor.
He was kept in a Markham prison for a week after that. There was a big hall and you could see thousands and thousands other prisoners, many of which had been fighting that day. He was put into a black dark cell. He got better food than the rest; three times a day. The rest would get only a small amount of tsampa [Tibetan staple of roasted barley flour] in the morning and a little thukpa [noodle dish] in the evening. Other than that they had nothing else to eat and everyday were made to do hard labor building roads. After that he was transported to a prison in Chamdo. There was always a Chinese guard by his cell throughout the day and night. They beat him until he crumbled. Because of the medicine they gave him, he couldn't talk, and he was tortured often. On May 18th, he was taken from Chamdo to Lhasa. When he was transported from one prison to another, there was one Chinese jeep ahead of them, one behind and four policemen with him. They were very suspicious; thinking the Americans would do something, try to rescue him, since he was trained in America. He was stripped of all American clothes he had. All the time his arms and legs were bounded together.
When they got to the army camp prison in Lhasa, the police took off his shackles and the new prison guards put their own chains on him, and took him inside. There he saw that all the prisoners were abbots and lamas, no lay people. Since he had previously been a doctor in Lhasa's Tibetan Army, he knew some people there – one was an uncle.
Most of the time he was kept in a small room where he was with another inmate, a Chinese Kuomintang [Nationalist Party] who was captured trying to escape to India. In every cell there were eight rules. (1) Whatever work you do, you have to get permission from the officials. (2) You cannot move, you have to stay sitting down, you cannot get up and look around. (3) You can never talk to anyone, except when a Chinese officer talks to you. (4) You cannot give anything to others, and you cannot take anything from others. (5) You cannot draw or write anything on the wall, or even touch or make a scratch on the wall. (6) You cannot listen to anything happening around you. (7) You cannot look around when you are going out to work or whatever situation. (8) He can't remember.
There were 2 high lamas and a General, they were the only ones not made to work. All the other lamas had to work. Cleaning, or any sort of work. Guards would always be around watching them.
Interview with the Dalai Lama: 1960
January 17, 2011On this day of honor for Martin Luther King Jr, an iconic figure in the African-American civil rights movement and staunch advocate of non-violence, I was inspired to find a video clip of the Dalai Lama, another iconic man of peace and leader of human rights for his people. Searching through my archive footage, I came across a film made in 1960 called "Fifteen Minutes in India" where the Dalai Lama is interviewed by a man referred to by the (unknown) narrator as Prince Panu of Thailand. Unfortunately I have no information other than the title, the date, and that it was filmed in New Delhi, India. That said, the ten minute interview excerpted here is the essential part and is probably the first time it's ever been seen since then. In it, the Dalai Lama shares his feelings and wishes in the wake of his escape from Tibet and the atrocities done to his people under Chinese occupation.
Though he thanks the world for their attention to this tragedy, the oppression suffered by Tibetans — those under Chinese rule and the refugees who have lost their homeland — still exists today. While the CIA secretly funded the Dalai Lama's government in exile and continued to support the Tibetan resistance until the Nixon administration, no substantial political aid was given to Tibet by the US. In 1959, former CIA Officer Ken Knaus and the Dalai Lama's brother, Gyalo Thondup, helped get a resolution passed in the United Nations that called for the respect of fundamental human rights of the Tibetan people. They got two more resolutions passed in 1961 and 1965 that supported human freedoms in Tibet as well as their right to self-determination. But the US was never willing to openly support Tibetan independence; the one thing that would’ve made any real difference.
Leave it to say that the Tibetan issue has been off the table in US-China relations since the Nixon Administration, and the issue of basic human rights in China has essentially been sacrificed in favor of economic stability. In February 2009, when the question was raised whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would press the issue in her visit to China, she infamously replied, "We know what they are going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders. We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis." In anticipating Chinese President Hu Jintao's first state visit to the US this week, it's been reported that President Obama will make room for discussing human rights in his public appearance with Hu, as well as during private meetings. We'll see if that happens and what, if anything, comes from it.
As for any hope of political support for Tibetan rights — whether it be independence or genuine autonomy within China, as the Dalai Lama currently calls for — as long as China's power continues to be influential, they're likely to be on their own. Fortunately for Tibetans, the Dalai Lama continues to be a spiritual beacon that attracts worldwide, if not political, attention to his people's cause. In their ongoing struggle with what is now the second largest power in the world, there is no doubt that Tibet faces overwhelming odds. But Tibetans can look to history and find countless struggles similar to their own, and remember that whenever the people have kept fighting for their rights, they have eventually won them. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr, "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle." And in the words of the Dalai Lama in this interview, "In the present circumstances, I have only my hope. It is a small hope, but it is indestructible. I hope that we can persist against overpowering might until justice at last prevails".
Interview Excerpts: Jamyang Norbu
October 13, 2010Jamyang Norbu is a noted author, blogger and activist in the forefront of the Tibetan struggle for independence from China. While he has many supporters, he is also controversial within the Tibetan community for criticizing the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration for eventually taking a "middle way" position of accepting Chinese rule, seeking only autonomy within it.
Norbu began working in the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in 1968, and was part of the Tibetan resistance in Mustang, Nepal from '71 to '72, just when the CIA was beginning to pull their aid. Mainly charged with getting intelligence on China, he also helped raise funds to keep the resistance alive until the Dalai Lama finally put an end to the Mustang base in 1974. Among other involvements in Tibetan activism, culture and academia, he was a president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, director of Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, and co-founder of the Amnye Machen Institute for advanced studies on Tibet.
He currently lives in the US, blogging on jamyangnorbu.com and rangzen.net (rangzen is Tibetan for independence), and writing his latest book, a literary history of Tibet's fight for freedom. Here are some excerpts from my interview with him on August 29.
CIA Impact on Tibet? Part 2: Lhasang Tsering
June 30, 2010Arriving after the CIA had pulled their support, Lhasang Tsering was a member of the armed resistance force in the Mustang, Nepal operation from 1973 to 1974, its final year. Later in Dharamsala, India, he was the Principal of the Tibetan Children's Village, briefly served in the Tibetan Government in Exile, was President of the Tibetan Youth Congress, and one of the co-founders of the Amnye Machen Institute. Currently, he is a Poet/Writer, and owns a bookshop.
A passionate and outspoken voice in the Tibetan community, here he shares his viewpoint in a continuing series of answers to the question: "What impact do you think the CIA had on Tibet's resistance against China?".
Ken Knaus on Meeting the Dalai Lama
May 21, 2010In excerpts from his interview on March 13, 2008, Ken Knaus, former CIA officer on the Tibetan Task Force, recounts his 3 meetings with the Dalai Lama over a period of 42 years. As an extension of his commentary in the last post, "Phala, the Dalai Lama and the CIA", Knaus' continuing story gives a deeper look at the conflict of violence for the Dalai Lama.
While some parts of the video here will probably be shown in the eventual feature documentary, most of what you'll see will only be seen on this blog. Interview excerpts like these, which you'll see more of in future posts, is for me one of the best things about Kefiblog--the ability to share all the good stuff the feature won't have time for.
The Dalai Lama Appeals to the World
April 11, 2010A few weeks after the Dalai Lama arrived in India, he began meeting with the press to tell of the atrocities that happened to his people in Tibet. There are many more details during this period than this short video can go into, but this gives a general overview of his actions to reach out to the world and give attention to his country's plight.
Many thanks to Time, Inc, for their permission to show the cover of the April 1959 issue of Time magazine. Click HERE to download the full article. Also many thanks to Bruce Walker, one of the trainers and CIA case officers for the Tibetan Task Force, for lending me this pacific edition copy.
NOTE: The ability to comment is finally up, so please feel free to give any feedback. I'd love to hear any constructive comments for this or any of the posts. We're still working out the kinks, so for this top post, you need to click on the headline to get to the landing page, where you can post a comment.
Music by Joel Langley at Green Goose Music
The Dalai Lama’s Gift
April 3, 2010The day before the Dalai Lama reached India's border, he granted an audience with the CIA's two radio operators, Athar and Lhotse. Athar's daughter, Doma Norbu, tells the story of her father receiving a humble gift of thanks from his God-King, something Athar treasured his entire life.
Note: Doma didn't know the exact date of this day, but knew it was very soon before reaching the border. Between this and the information in Kenneth Conboy's book, "The CIA's Secret War in Tibet", March 30, 1959 is probable, but not definite.
Music by Green Goose Music
