tibet article
a longwinded polemical article about tibet- obviously skewed and not particularly good, but it's the only thing I've gotten emailed to me about the free tibet movement- this is the party behind ANSWER i think


China, Tibet and U.S.-sponsored counterrevolution
Tuesday, April 1, 2008

An objective look at the "Free Tibet" movement

The following is a statement from the Party for Socialism and
Liberation.

Many U.S. progressives and liberals are supporting the Dalai Lama and
the Tibetan opposition to the People's Republic of China. So are
George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, the CIA and every pro-imperialist
government and media outlet. The vast majority of the peoples of
China, including many in Tibet, oppose the U.S.-supported separatist
movement.

"Peaceful" protesters killed 19 people and burned down numerous
buildings in Lhasa. How could progressive people be on the same side
as Bush, the CIA and the ultra-right? How do we explain the paradox
of progressive people supporting a movement that is financed and
supported by the proponents of the U.S. Empire, as well as by all of
the other old European colonial powers that had divided, humiliated
and looted China for a full century prior to the 1949 revolution?

This riddle is solved by appreciating the impact of the effective CIA
propaganda supporting the Dalai Lama and the old Tibetan ruling class
that lost its power, privileges, serfs and slaves because of the
Chinese Revolution. This propaganda is echoed in the western media
constantly and it has affected liberal public opinion.

The National Endowment for Democracy funds the Dalai Lama and the
Tibetan opposition. It also funds or funded the pro-U.S. opposition
to Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the fascist opposition to former
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the opposition to the
Cuban Revolution. The NED also funded Ronald Reagan's contra war
against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

From 1995 to 2005, the NED gave $2,047,479 to opposition Tibetan
publications, radio stations, organizations and other institutes.

The Dalai Lama has a long, close history of working with the U.S.
government. In fact, he and his supporters have been on the CIA
payroll since the 1950s.

The International Campaign for Tibet, the Tibet Fund, the Tibet Voice
Project, the Tibet Information Network, the Tibetan Literary Society,
the Tibetan Review Trust Society and the Voice of Tibet all advance
the progressive- sounding call for a "Free Tibet." They are all
funded by the NED, which is itself funded by the U.S. State
Department and the CIA.

According to historian Allen Weinstein, "A lot of what [the NED does]
today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." Weinstein helped
draft the legislation that created the NED. (1)

Many progressives in the United States believe that Tibet is severely
oppressed by the government of the People's Republic of China. They
have been convinced that the Dalai Lama is a man of peace who has
been ruthlessly suppressed by China, and that he has the allegiance
of nearly all Tibetans. Most of these Dalai Lama supporters sincerely
believe in the right of self-determination and believe that the
People's Republic of China has violated this right.

Among this sector of liberal and progressive opinion, the reflex to
any struggle between China and what they perceive to be the Tibetan
people as a whole is to express profound solidarity with those they
consider to be the oppressed.

This view obscures the essential social and class dynamic in Tibet.
Influenced by this false conception, people who should know better
lose their critical faculties.

Knowing that George W. Bush is an imperialist criminal, one must
pause and ponder the question: Why did Bush award the Congressional
Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama in a highly publicized White House
ceremony in 2007? Bush would never conduct such a ceremony for a
genuinely progressive person. Bush views the Dalai Lama in much the
same way he viewed Ahmed Chalabi before the invasion of Iraq—as a
useful tool for the U.S. Empire.

Demonization campaign a prelude to imperialist intervention

The demonization of China is in full swing now. Demonization is the
imperialists' preferred tool to delegitimize their targets and
prepare the ground for a destabilization campaign and possible
military intervention.

The demonization tactic has been consistently applied preceding
regime changes, coups and invasions: the invasion of Panama in 1989,
Iraq in 1991 and 2003, Haiti in the first half of 1990s, the aerial
destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999, the military coup in Venezuela in
2002, and the new threats against Iran. The pattern is crystal clear.

Although our organization has profound political differences with
many of the policies of the Chinese Communist Party, especially its
promotion of capitalist-style market practices, we feel that it is
necessary to expose the hidden and not-so-hidden efforts of the Bush
administration, the CIA, the Democratic Party and other centers of
political power to destabilize and dismember the People's Republic of
China. Most Chinese people recognize that this effort, if successful,
would hurl both China and Tibet backward.

Some in the liberal camp might argue that, though U.S. motives may be
impure and even imperialist toward China and Tibet, this does not
diminish the legitimacy of Tibet's fight for independence.

Progressives should think this through. For more than a century,
Washington has sought to build a world empire. Its foreign and
military policies focus exclusively on achieving and maintaining its
global aspirations. It is not tenable for progressives to view the
issue of self-determination in the abstract; we must account for the
strategic designs of imperialism.

The historical analogy of Cuba's war for independence from the
Spanish Empire comes to mind. The U.S. military invaded Cuba in 1898
under the pretext of supporting Cuba's independence from Spain. Soon,
the U.S. government's own imperialist goals were revealed as it
turned Cuba into a protectorate, seized Puerto Rico from Spain and
invaded the Philippines.

Mark Twain and the other leaders of the Anti-Imperialist League in
the United States exposed the true nature of the U.S. project to
incorporate Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines into a new U.S.
sphere of influence. Progressives in the United States would be well
served by remembering this legacy and applying it to U.S.
imperialism' s unfolding struggle to "liberate" Tibet from China.

Mark Twain and his colleagues were deeply sympathetic to the cause of
Cuban independence from Spain but they still militantly opposed the
U.S. intervention. They understood it was a cruel and cynical U.S.
ploy to conquer Cuba. Unlike the current struggle by the Dalai Lama
and the Tibetan Youth Congress, Cuba's independence movement was led
by genuine revolutionaries like José Martí.

José Martí, the "Apostle of Cuban Independence, " represented the
slaves, ex-slaves, workers and peasants against their Cuban bosses
and tormentors, as well as the foreign colonizing power. The Dalai
Lama, on the other hand, is the voice and figurehead for the ruling
elites who lived off of the labor of serfs—modern- day land-slaves.
Martí fought the foreign occupier while the Dalai Lama was a well-
paid cog in Britain's colonial machine in Asia.

Myths and facts of pre-revolutionary Tibet and the Dalai Lama

The popular presentation of old Tibet is the Hollywood version of
reality. It is both Orientalist and racist. Old Tibet is viewed as a
nation founded on peace and spiritual harmony, populated by gentle
monks who lived humbly side-by-side with a rustic peasant population
at one with nature. In this mythical depiction, the brutal communist
government of China is cruelly occupying this idyllic Shangri-la.

There are more than 15,500
Tibetan-language teachers in the
Tibet Autonomous Region.
Tenzin Gyatso, known as the Dalai Lama, heads the Tibetan opposition
movement financed and cultivated for more than 50 years by
Washington. He is the religious leader of Tibetan Buddhism and former
ruler of Tibet—the "god-king" of the Tibetan feudal system until 1959.

Prior to 1959, 95 percent of the people lived in shocking, slave-like
conditions, while an extremely repressive aristocracy "lived in
opulent splendor. … Among the populace, a common appellation for the
rich was `ones whose lips are always moistened by tea.'" (2)

A 1940 survey showed that "38 percent of the households never got any
tea, but either collected herbs that grew wild or drank `white tea'—
boiled water. … 51 percent could not afford to use butter (tea and
yak butter were main staples), and 75 percent of the households were
forced at times to resort to eating grass cooked with cow bones and
mixed with oat or pea flour." (3)

Education was almost non-existent, and what existed was exclusive to
the nobility. Health conditions were abysmal, with an estimated 90
percent of the people suffering venereal disease and about 30 percent
infected with smallpox. (4) In 1959, infant mortality was 430 deaths
per 1,000 births and average life expectancy was 35.5 years. (5)

Of a serf's production, 50 to 70 percent was owed to his manorial
master, in addition to forced labor called "ulag." Dozens of taxes
had to be paid, including butter tax, meat tax, wool tax, woolen
cloth tax and a tax on tsampa—a staple food usually made from barley—
to support the monasteries. Prayer festival taxes, hay taxes, utensil
taxes, meat taxes, past-due taxes, corvée taxes in the form of labor,
military taxes and others had to be paid to the government. Many
additional taxes were paid to the feudal lord.

The extremely high number of manor estates and monks—who performed no
work but lived from others' labor—was an enormous drain on society.
Out of the 37,000 inhabitants in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, 16,000 were
monks. The Drepung monastery alone had "185 manors, 20,000 serfs, 300
pastures and 16,000 herdsmen." (6)

Profoundly superstitious beliefs, complete religious control by
Tibetan Buddhist lamas over the masses and severe punishment,
including death, for any type of disobedience effectively kept the
people from rebelling or questioning their condition.

It is no coincidence that the recent chain of events leading up to
the present turmoil began on March 10. On that day in 1959, the Dalai
Lama and the feudal nobility launched an armed rebellion in Tibet in
opposition to major social changes introduced shortly after the
triumph of the Chinese Revolution.

Tibet and China before the 1949 revolution

In present-day China, the Han nationality makes up 91 percent of the
population. The remaining 9 percent adds up to 105 million people of
55 different nationalities, including 16 million Zhuang, 10.6 million
Manchu, 8.3 million Uyghur, 8.9 million Miao, 8 million Tujia, 7.7
million Yi and 5.4 million Tibetan.

Roughly half of the Tibetan nationality lives within the borders of
the 470,000 square miles that make up the Tibetan Autonomous Region
of China. The remaining Tibetan population lives in the provinces of
Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan. There are also Tibetans in India,
Bhutan and Nepal.

Tibet has long been recognized as part of China. The relationship
goes back until at least the 13th century, in an arrangement whereby
the Tibetan rulers exercised local autonomy while the central Chinese
government conducted Tibet's foreign affairs and defense. In 1906,
Britain signed a formal recognition of China's sovereignty over Tibet.

During an exchange of diplomatic statements between Britain and the
United States in 1943, Washington stated: "For its part, the
Government of the United States has borne in mind the fact that the
Chinese constitution lists Tibet among areas constituting the
territory of the Republic of China. This Government has at no time
raised a question regarding either of these claims." (7)

Before the Chinese Revolution, Tibet's lamas and nobility accepted
the political arrangement with China's dynastic rulers—and later
British colonizers in the early 20th century—as long as the Tibetan
rulers could lord over the Tibetan masses unimpeded. Only when the
prospect of socialism threatened their privilege, which was founded
on the exploitation of the peasantry, did the Tibetan ruling class
decide to break ties with China.

In September 1949, fearful of the impending revolution and a
challenge to their power, the Tibetan leaders immediately expelled
China's mission in Lhasa on instructions of longtime British agent
Hugh Richardson.

Revolution brings change to Tibet

The aim of China's October 1, 1949, revolution was the emancipation
of all the people of China, including the 55 smaller nationalities
within Chinese territory.

The government's initial attitude toward Tibet was one of extreme
caution on the matter of reforms. The government was cognizant of the
profound control that Tibetan rulers wielded over the serf
population, as well as the historic resentment of the Tibetan
nationality towards the Han nationality.

The 1951 "Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet"
signed by the new revolutionary government and local Tibetan leaders
provided for economic development, education and health care
programs.

At first, the old, reactionary social relations were not disturbed.
The pact established that "the local government of Tibet shall carry
out reform voluntarily, and, when the people demand a reform, shall
settle it through consultation with the Tibetan leaders."

Public social projects were inaugurated immediately. The first two
roads ever built in Tibet began construction in 1950 and took almost
five years to complete. One crossed 14 mountain passes over 1,500
miles from Ya'an in Sichuan province to Lhasa. One truck could
transport in two days what it used to take 12 days for 60 yaks to
haul. Schools and hospitals were built. (8)

But by 1959, the ruling priesthood, still owners of virtually all the
country's wealth, strongly opposed any attempt to reform their
system. Counterrevolutionar y bands opposed to change waged
paramilitary attacks.

Despite the obstacles imposed by the Tibetan ruling circles, the
central government continued the development projects. It firmly
believed that the impoverished Tibetan masses, gaining from the
progress, would eventually take part in their own emancipation.
There were tremendous difficulties, as one directive from the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist Party to the reformers showed in
the early 1950s:

"As yet, we don't have a material base for fully implementing the
Agreement, nor do we have a base for this purpose in terms of support
among the masses or in the upper stratum. To force its implementation
will do more harm than good. Since they are unwilling to put the
agreement into effect, well then we can leave it for the time being
and wait. ...

"Let them go on with their insensate atrocities against the people,
while we on our part concentrate on good deeds—production, trade,
road-building, medical services, and united front work (unity with
the majority and patient education) so as to win over the masses and
bide our time before taking up the question of the full
implementation of the Agreement. If they are not in favor of the
setting up of primary schools, that can stop too." (9)

After eight years of harsh opposition by the feudal lords, the new
Chinese revolutionary leadership took direct action in 1959 to
overturn the serf system.

The Dalai Lama set the date of March 10, 1959, for a reactionary
uprising. The Chinese People's Liberation Army stayed in the barracks
for ten days while the Dalai Lama's forces attacked, winning over the
people by revealing who the real aggressor was. Because the uprising
lacked popular support and was confined to the area around Lhasa, it
was quickly defeated.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for exile in India, eventually landing in
Dharamsala. There, he developed a close and long relationship with
the CIA. His two brothers had already been working actively with the
CIA since the late 1950s.

The Dalai Lama's treasures preceded him out of the country, as well
as the wealth of the nobility who joined him in India. Smaller
numbers went to Bhutan and Nepal.

Tibetan progress since the 1949 revolution

The obstacles of poverty, illiteracy, isolation and deeply
superstitious beliefs made it difficult to bring even minimal
development to Tibet.

Farmer Nuosang in his newly-built
house. By 2010, new housing will
have been constructed for 80
percent of farmers' households.
The Chinese government, which has a long experience in handling the
issues confronting national minority peoples in a multi-national
state, has also dealt with the problem of chauvinism and racism
emanating from the Han population and the government itself.

Members of the Han nationality living or stationed in Tibet exhibited
chauvinism in their relations with the Tibetans at times. Ignorant of
the Tibetan language, culture and religion—the latter deeply
permeated into all facets of life—the cadre had to be intensively
trained at the initiative of the Communist Party leadership.

In "The Making of Modern Tibet," A. Tom Grunfeld writes: "They were
taught to respect local customs and etiquette, never to defile
temples and holy sites, and to never criticize the Dalai Lama or
religious practice. They were told not to bring up communism and
class struggle. They arrived carrying whatever provisions they could,
and paid for everything they purchased. They paid wages to the
Tibetans who worked for them and practiced egalitarianism among
themselves to set an example." (10)

Although not all statistics compare to those in the more developed
areas of China, progress made during the last 50 years has
revolutionized life for Tibetans.

Infant mortality has dropped from 430 deaths per 1,000 births, to a
range of 6.61 to 24.5 per 1,000 in 2002. Where only 2 percent of
school-age children in the 1950s were in school, today the figure is
85.8 percent; however, there is still a need to increase secondary-
level educational levels. The region's 6,348 hospital beds and 8,948
medical personnel exceed China's national per-capita average. (11)

Before the revolution, the masses had no elections or political life.
In 1965, the First People's Congress of Tibet was held, which led to
the founding of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Regional
People's Government. There are 70,000 elected representatives on all
levels of government in the TAR.

Beijing is intensifying its development programs in Tibet, with
substantial investments in housing, medical care, infrastructure and
restoration of cultural sites.

The Ninth People's Congress of the TAR put forth a housing plan for
farmers and herders—the backbone of Tibet's economy—that will build
52,000 housing units in 2008. By 2010, new housing will have been
constructed for 80 percent of farmers' households. (China Radio
International, March 22)

In 2006, the annual income of farmers and herders grew 13.1 percent,
the fourth double-digit growth in as many years.

Tourism has increased greatly, especially with the construction of
two main railroad lines from central China—the world's highest in
elevation. Four million tourists traveled to Tibet in 2007, up 60
percent from 2006, adding substantially to the region's income.

Tibetan exiles and the CIA

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the CIA trained hundreds of
counterrevolutionar y exiles in sabotage and terrorism. This took
place on bases from Saipan to Virginia, including the main center of
Tibetan operations: Camp Hale, in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

U.S. intelligence documents, which were released in the late 1990s,
document the close relationship between the CIA, the Tibetan exile
movement and the Dalai Lama personally: "[F]or much of the 1960s, the
CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a year for
operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 for
the Dalai Lama." (12)

Imperialist support for the Tibetan "independence" movement is
reminiscent of their support for Cuban counterrevolutionar y forces
that fled to exile in Miami after the island's 1959 liberation from
U.S. neo-colonial rule.

Soon after Fulgencio Batista's overthrow, the CIA trained several
thousand Cuban reactionaries in bombings, assassination and other
terror tactics in the name of "freedom" and "democracy." The
terrorist project, codenamed JM WAVE, became the largest operation in
the CIA's history.

Cuban extremist exiles in Miami claim to speak for Cubans who live in
Cuba as they work to destroy the social gains that the vast majority
of Cubans support. Similarly, the Tibetan reactionary opposition
exiled in Dharamsala fights to overturn the social gains of Tibetans
living in Tibet.

This time, the U.S. imperialists would dominate Tibet instead of the
British. China has made it clear that it will defend its territorial
integrity.

Tibetan right-wing groups could not exist without U.S. and European
financing or the support of organizations such as Reporters Without
Borders and Human Rights Watch. Actor Richard Gere, chair of the
International Campaign for Tibet, has given a high profile to the
issue.

Today's Tibetan "independence" movement

In 1989, a U.S.-influenced public campaign to elevate the Dalai Lama
as leader of a Tibetan government-in- exile began to accelerate and
continues to the present. The Dalai Lama was granted the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1989. As a prelude to the present unfolding events, George
W. Bush awarded him the Congressional Gold Medal in October 2007
despite protests from China.

The Dalai Lama claims to seek dialogue with China for discussions on
autonomy, but that would only be the first step toward an eventual
breaking away from China.

Tibetan counterrevolutionar y forces lay claim not only to the
470,000-square- mile territory of the TAR, but also to much of four
surrounding provinces that would triple the TAR's political territory
to 1.5 million square miles.

There are new formations in the Tibetan right-wing opposition
movement, such as the Tibetan Youth Congress. These younger activists
demand immediate separation from China, while the Dalai Lama claims
to be only for autonomy. These are only minor tactical differences in
what amounts to an internationally financed and coordinated
counterrevolutionar y campaign.
The method of operation, financing and putsch-style mobilizations are
very similar to other U.S. plots targeting governments for overthrow.

The recent riots in Tibet, reminiscent of the "color revolutions"
that took place in former socialist states like Yugoslavia (2000),
Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005), bear the
markings of a CIA-directed offensive.

Attacks on 17 Chinese embassies and consulates—as well as on the
Olympics ceremonies in Greece—is more evidence of a high level of
central coordination and planning.

Tibetan "self-determination " under the present circumstances

In the current epoch, it is not possible to speak of independence in
an abstract sense. Since the triumph of the first socialist
revolution in Russia in 1917 and the subsequent development of a
socialist camp—including China—imperialist influence has not
permitted any state or nationality to remain neutral.

Every national struggle today contains within itself a class
struggle. Tibet is not simply a nationality united by religion,
culture and history. There are two classes deep in struggle.
One of these classes is the former ruling landlord class, which never
gave up its dream to reconquer its privilege. It is backed by U.S.
imperialism, whose ultimate objective is breaking up China.

The other is the vast majority of Tibetans, who—despite the
shortcomings and mistakes of the central government—have greatly
benefited from the Chinese Revolution, which ended feudalism not only
for Tibetans but for all of China's peoples.

If the Tibetan separatists succeed, Tibet will become a vassal state
under the control of the United States. Washington will have dealt a
major blow to China and taken one more step toward the full overturn
of the Chinese Revolution. For Tibet, this would not
be "independence" at all, but a return to feudal and neocolonial
servitude.

It might seem hard to stand up in the United States against the
maturing campaign against China. The media blitz, disinformation and
well-crafted propaganda that is being pumped by the corporate-owned
media is designed to delegitimize China while building credibility
and sympathy for those favored by imperialism. This is all the more
reason for progressive people and opponents of imperialism not to
buckle under the pressure.

Bush, the Pentagon and the Democratic Party leadership would prefer
nothing more than U.S. students forming "Free Tibet" committees and
protesting against China's fictitious "cultural genocide" in Tibet
while Washington continues its very real war and occupation of Iraq.
The death of one million Iraqis does qualify as real genocide.

The people of China, including those in Tibet, cannot be assisted by
imperialist sanctions, covert operations and military intervention.

Notes:

1. Washington Post, September 22, 1991. Cited in William Blum, Rogue
State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower (2000), 180.
2. A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet (Armonk, New York;
London, England: M.E. Sharep, Inc., 1996), 16.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid, 21.
5. "Tibet's March Toward Modernization, " Information Office of the
State Council of the People's Republic of China, November 2001,
Beijing.
6. Ibid.
7. Grunfeld, 258.
8. Ibid, 121.
9. Anna Louise Strong, When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet (Peking: New
World Press, 1965), 45. Cited in Grunfeld, 112.
10. Grunfeld, 61.
11. "Tibet's March Toward Modernization. "
12. J. Mann, "CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s," The
Age (Melbourne, September 16, 1998). Cited in "`Democratic
Imperialism: ' Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for
Democracy," Michael Barker (Global Research, August 13, 2007).