Global Day of Action – DC
November 8, 2011Last Wednesday, November 2, the Tibetan Youth Congress and other Tibetan advocacy groups staged worldwide rallies to protest Chinese repression and occupancy of Tibet, particularly the recent crackdown on Kirti Monastery in Ngaba and the resulting self-immolations. Since last March, 11 monks and nuns have set themselves on fire in protest of Chinese rule (including a nun on Nov. 3, since this protest). The first one was in 2009, making a total of 12 Tibetans who've felt the only way to be heard was to make such a shocking sacrifice. For more details, check International Campaign for Tibet's fact sheet.
Here's a video from the protest in Washington, DC, which began at the Chinese Embassy and ended at the White House. Speakers include the president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, Tsewang Rigzin; two members of the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress in Minnesota, President Jigme Ugen and Sangay Taythi; as well as Jamyang Norbu, noted writer/activist/blogger (and in previous postings here and here).
Gompo Tashi’s Letter to Eisenhower, 1959
March 10, 2011
CLICK HERE to download the 9-page letter, a list of gifts also given, and the US memo that acknowledges the delivery to the Embassy.
The term "Do-med" is used often in the letter, so I asked Jamyang Norbu, noted author and activist for Tibetan independence, for clarification. He explained that the term refers to the Eastern Tibetan province of Kham, where many of the fighters in the Chushi Gangdruk were from. Along with the letter -- delivered to the US Embassy in New Delhi, India on December 13, 1959 while Eisenhower was visiting India -- Gompo Tashi also offered a few gifts to the president which included a full traditional Khampa outfit; the exact one he's wearing in the photo above. (Tashi himself was from the Lithang region of Kham.)
According to Norbu -- who had briefly been a member of the resistance forces based in Mustang and knew some of the Chushi Gangdruk leaders close to Gompo Tashi -- the above picture was taken in a photo studio in Kalimpong, India to document the outfit just before he and others left for New Delhi to give it to Eisenhower. Norbu added, "The spectacles were a studio accessory meant to make the subject look more educated or refined". The photograph is printed in Gompo Tashi's memoirs Four Rivers, Six Ranges: Reminiscences of the Resistence Movement in Tibet, published posthumously in 1973 by the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Unfortunately the gifts weren't found at the Eisenhower Library. If anyone out there has any information regarding their whereabouts, please let me know through the "contact me" link in the right column.
Jamyang Norbu recently posted another significant archival letter on his blog, this one from the Dalai Lama to President Kennedy sent the following year.
Airborne Leaflet Propaganda Campaign 1960-1961
March 7, 2011As mentioned in the last post, propaganda played an important role in the CIA's Tibetan operation. To continue with that theme, I'm showing a bit of my interview with Ken Knaus from March 2008, when we headed up to his office to take a look at the propaganda booklets that were dropped into Tibet in 1960-1961. Knaus, author of "Orphans of the Cold War", began working on the Tibetan Task Force in 1958, was an instructor at Camp Hale, and the operation's project manager from 1961 to 1965. He oversaw the making and distribution of these booklets.
Psychological tactics of this kind have often been used in historical military operations. According to Wikipedia (quoting from "Cassell's History of the Wars Between France and Germany, 1870-1871"): “Airborne leaflets have been used for military propaganda purposes at least since the 19th century. One early example is from the Franco-Prussian War when in October 1870 during the Siege of Paris a French balloon coming from the city dropped government proclamations over Prussian troops that stated the following (in German): ‘Paris defies the enemy. The whole of France rallies. Death to the invaders. Foolish people, shall we always throttle one another for the pleasure and proudness of Kings? Glory and conquest are crimes; defeat brings hate and desire for vengeance. Only one war is just and holy; that of independence.’ ”
In recent news, reports say that the South Korean military has been dropping leaflets, DVDs and flash drives into North Korea, where communication is tightly controlled and leaves many citizens unaware of world affairs. The propaganda, dropped by balloons, apparently describes the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa in a call for North Koreans to also rise up against their oppressors.
The objectives for the booklets dropped into Tibet -- in many ways like South Korea's reported campaign -- were primarily to spread anti-communist sentiment, counter PRC propaganda, promote reasons to fight for freedom against oppression, show how to conduct political and guerrilla warfare operations, and persuade more Tibetans to join the resistance against China. Here's the brief explanation written on the first page of Knaus’ copies shown in the video: "A collaborative effort by the Camp Hale trainees on a booklet which spells out the reasons why the Tibetans are rebelling against the Chinese efforts to destroy Tibet as a nation and a culture with examples of how other nations obtained their independence and of friendly countries which are supporting the Tibetan cause. It was dropped into Tibet at the authors' request when they returned there on their missions."
CLICK HERE to download some of the pictures that have been translated (in chronological order from one of the booklets). Many thanks to Ken Knaus for sharing the booklets for scanning and to Doma Norbu for helping with the translation. Click the picture below to watch Ken Knaus showing and discussing his copies.
Revolt & Propaganda in “Unconquerable Tibet”
February 25, 2011
As revolution fever whips through North Africa and the Middle East, I thought I’d post an archival film called "Unconquerable Tibet". It's also timely as we approach the 52nd anniversary of March 10th, a day the Tibetan exile community commemorates as Tibetan National Uprising Day. That landmark revolt against the People's Republic of China wasn't the first or the last display of Tibetan rebellion by far; protests continue today (albeit unarmed since the 70s) within Tibet and the worldwide diaspora.
Looking through some US government documents from the ‘50s, I came across an interesting memo titled, “Peking Publicity for Tibetan Rebellion and Unrest”. I’ll post it in full next month, but for now here’s the final passage, dated just a few months before the March 1959 revolt began: (Note: the opening paragraph is the US intro.)
January 1, 1959 – The Tibetans persisted in their opposition to Communist reforms and in their desire for independence; a New Year’s statement by a leading official of the Chinese Communist Party control committee for Tibet admitted continued Tibetan resistance which, as usual, he attributed to imperialist influence.
An energetic effort should be made to struggle against the enemy and to expose the schemes and subversive activities carried out by all the reactionaries and imperialists. This must be done for the defense of our country. Under the guidance of imperialism and some special service agents of the Chiang [then the leader of the Republic of China/Taiwan] clique, a small number of reactionaries are carrying out a series of subversive activities to deceive the Tibetan people under the flag of nationalism and emancipation. For this reason, we must heighten our vigilance against imperialism and all reactionaries and be prepared to deal a fatal blow to them.
While that has a familiar ring to it these days, the difference for Tibetans in 1959 is there was no world watching. There was no press allowed in Tibet then (and very little now, for that matter). Few Tibetans had cameras then to document what was happening. So no one was there, that I have record of, to film what sounds like a massacre from first-hand accounts. The men I interviewed who were there all tell the same story: the rebels were crushed with overwhelming force. By March 28, 1959, the PRC had claimed the Dalai Lama a fugitive and Tibet officially under China’s rule. The party line claimed they were liberating the Tibetans from imperialist influence. Their tune changed in 2009 when China began touting March 28 as “Serf’s Emancipation Day”.
Propaganda was also, of course, a significant part of the CIA’s Tibetan Task Force (as with all US operations). Today’s video is a good example of US anti-Communist propaganda, made in 1959 following the March revolt in Lhasa. Produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA), here is “Unconquerable Tibet”.
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".
Wei Jingsheng: Interview Excerpts
December 15, 2010With all the news recently about Liu Xiaobo, an advocate for freedom in China which just won him the Nobel Peace Prize, and also condemned him to an 11-year sentence in Chinese prison last December, I put together some excerpts from an interview with another famous Chinese dissident: Wei Jingsheng. Arguably the most well known activist for Chinese Democracy outside of China, Wei was arrested in 1979 on charges of counterrevolution and spent 18 years in jail. Since his release in 1997 through a US-China exchange, he's lived in Washington DC and has continued to fight in exile for democracy, freedom and human rights in China, as well as throughout Asia. The author of "Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writings" and numerous articles, Wei has won many awards for his activism, including seven nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
On August 7, 2008, I interviewed Wei Jingsheng outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC where he was part of a protest against the Olympics being held in Beijing. Attended predominantly by Tibetans, they were accompanied by Chinese, Taiwanese, Uyghur, Inner Mongolian, North Korean, and Vietnamese groups who support human rights and freedom in China.
(Note that this is a loose translation taken from the interview's interpreter Huang Ciping, Director of the Wei Jingsheng Foundation.)
