The Dalai Lama is a Political Fraud

Dalai Lama Group Admitted that It Got Money From C.I.A.

2008-04-07T21:39:00.001-04:00

source of information: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFD61538F931A35753C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

October 2, 1998

World News Briefs; Dalai Lama Group Says It Got Money From C.I.A.

The Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged today that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960's from the Central Intelligence Agency, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000.

The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said in a statement. It added that the subsidy earmarked for the Dalai Lama was spent on setting up offices in Geneva and New York and on international lobbying.

The Dalai Lama, 63, a revered spiritual leader both in his Himalayan homeland and in Western nations, fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against a Chinese military occupation, which began in 1950.

The decade-long covert program to support the Tibetan independence movement was part of the C.I.A.'s worldwide effort to undermine Communist governments, particularly in the Soviet Union and China.

(9) [How the Olympics could provide the one-chance for Tibetans to come out and protests "like one mighty force"] - 2007 Friends of Tibet Conference

2008-03-27T22:06:00.017-04:00

[Source of information:
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=17013]

In 23^rd -24^th June 2007, Friends of Tibet (INDIA) had organized a two-day Conference with 300 attendants for an Independent Tibet in Delhi to reiterate call for an independent Tibet with sharper focus.

On the concluding second day early morning, over two hundred Indians and Tibetans listened to Jamyang Norbu, noted Tibetan writer and veteran activists for Tibet’s independence, as he explained

how the next two years are crucial for Tibet, and how the Olympics could provide the one-chance for Tibetans to come out and protests “like one mighty force”. He noted that unless a mass protest occurs, Tibet would continue to slip out of the world map, leaving very little to protest for.

Saying attempts by spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to engage with Beijing were "not successful”, Mr Jamyang called for new tactics in the campaign for independence from China.

Indian supporters coming from right wing Hindu nationalist, Leftist, Liberal Leftist and Marxist and also a good dose of Gandhians and JP followers only goes on to prove the variety of Tibet supporters and backgrounds they come from. Other noted speakers on the day, Vijay Kranti, prominent journalist and a long time supporter of an Independent Tibet, Claude Arpi, French researcher and Tibet commentator, Ragav Mittal of Bajaj Foundation also argued for Rangzen. Arpi presented historical and legal documents, which proved Tibet's nationhood and contextualised the seventeen-point agreement and the Strasbourg Proposal.

He stated that companies operating in China should be targeted to force them to divest.

"though our political stand is different from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, our commitment to Non-violence is same. But non-violence without mass support will not succeed", Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan poet and activist said.

Responding to questions he said "we appeal to all parties involved to reconsider their investments in China and Tibet. Your business is destroying our country." Citing the South African example of success of mass movement, he said "Only when corporate interests of Coca Cola, IBM and scores of others were hurt then they put pressure on the white government to relent. We will now devise to do this. If our non-violence fails, we will have to find other means. The international community has the responsibility to support and make the Tibetan struggle succeed."

Everyone stood firmly on the stance of Independence of Tibet acknowledging the view Radha Bhatt expressed "Jab tak Tibbat Azaad nahin hai, India kabhi azaad nahin ho sakta. India hamesha Chin ki Dabao main rehne padega"(As long as Tibet is not free, India can never be free. India will have to forever live under Chinese pressure).

Radha Bhatt is a Gandhian, an activist who hugged trees to save them from felling during the 1980s famous Chipko Movement of North India.

The Conference was attended by many prominent journalists, lawyers, and defence strategists, and intellectuals of the country, like Parth Shah of the Centre of Civil Society, Colin Gonzalves, founder of the Human Rights Law Network, Harsh Dhobal, editor Combat Law, Madhur Santanam Sondhi, Major Gen (retd) Vinod Saighal, Dr. Trika of Core group for Tibet, Sonam Wangdue of US Tibet Committee among others.

International participants from USA, France, the UK and Poland and Indian participants from more than 20 states made to the conference. Claudia Roth, Federal Chairwoman of Green Party and Member of Federal Parliament, Germany had sent a letter of support to the conference.

Following is the full text of the Conference Resolution

The New Delhi Declaration
CONFERENCE RESOLUTION

The Conference Resolution asked for recognizing Tibet as a colony and thus, it proved that the United Nations and other bodies of the International community is compelled to remove the last vestiges of colonialism, and demand for Independence for Tibet. It cited the Resolution number "49/89 Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" of 7th February 1995 adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, which asks for "Recognizing that the eradication of colonialism is one of the priorities of the Organization for the decade that began in 1990, Deeply conscious of the need to take, speedily, measures to eliminate the last vestiges of colonialism by the year 2000, as called for in its resolution 43/47 of 22 November 1988."

The above-cited resolution, ratified even by China, makes it the "moral responsibility of the UN and the member nations of this body to call a special meeting of the General Assembly and impress upon China that in view of this Resolution, China must restore full independence to whole of Tibet i.e. all the three provinces and its people" (quoted from the Conference Resolution).

The delegation adopted a four-pronged strategy, which will guide its call for Independence for Tibet and its plan of action in the coming years:

"Realizing that Complete Independence (Poorna Swaraj) under the leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and with the help of India and other members of the freedom-loving world community is the only hope for Tibet, the Conference resolves:-

1) To call upon the Government of India to recognize the Tibetan Government-in-Exile as the sole legitimate Government of Tibet and the Tibetan people and His Holiness the Dalai Lama as its sole political and spiritual leader.

2) To call upon the United Nations to fulfill its obligation in view of its 1993 UN Declaration that there should remain no colonized country in the world by the year 2000.

3) To call upon every member of the international community to recognize Tibet as one of the last remnant of colonial rule in need of decolonization.

4) To call upon all Tibet Support Groups around the word to put back Complete Independence as their main agenda in their campaigns and observe 22 November every year as "Anti-Colonialism Day" and to run signature campaigns reminding the United Nations to implement its resolutions on Colonialism."

==================================

While that Delhi Conference was ongoing the U.S. ambassador to India was confering with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Prime Minister in exile (Kalon Tripa) , Professor Samdhong Rinpoche in Dharamsala . "The latest visit by the US official quickly follows the U.S. Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky’s similar visit to Dharamsala last November."

Color Revolution - Who's who ?

Who is Paula Dobriansky ?

Paula Dobriansky
Under-Secretary of State for Democracy & Global Affairs
a member of the neocon PNAC
has been involved in the color revolutions in eastern Europe
coined the phrase "Cedar Revolution" for the Lebanese quagmire.

In January several organizations announced a series of protests against China:

Five leading Tibetan organizations calling on exile Tibetans to take a protest march to Tibet ahead of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games today released a two-page registration-cum-declaration form to formally start registering people taking part in it.

Instead of calling for Tibetan autonomy, their declaration directly call for INDEPENDENCE FOR TIBET:

The 2008 Olympics will mark the culmination of almost 50 years of Tibetan resistance in exile. We will use this historic moment to reinvigorate the Tibetan freedom movement and bring our exile struggle for freedom back to Tibet. Through tireless work and an unwavering commitment to truth and justice, we will bring about another uprising that will shake China’s control in Tibet and mark the beginning of the end of China’s occupation.

Just like launching the notorious color revolutions, "training sessions" were given in February by several NGOs that called for the protests:

Forty grassroots activists representing twenty-five Tibetan communities all over India were given an Advanced Training on Grassroots Activism and capacity building from February 15-17, 2008 at Lower TCV School, Dharamshala. This workshop strengthened the coordination of the Tibetan People's Uprising Movement organized by five leading Tibetan NGOs; Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women's Association, Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet, National Democratic Party of Tibet, and Students for a Free Tibet (India).

Besides the heads of the five Organizations, the 3-day workshop was also deliberated by Mr. Karma Yeshi, Member, Tibetan Parliament in Exile and Editor in Chief, Voice of Tibet, Ven. Lobsang Jinpa, Editor, Sheja (Tibetan Newsletter), Mr. Tendor, Deputy Director, SFT Headquarters, New York and Mr. Lobsang Yeshi, Former Vice President, Tibetan Youth Congress. The training subjects include the Importance of Co-ordinated Movement, Contemporary Chinese Political Scenario, Strategy and Vision, Situation inside Tibet, Olympic politics, Media and Messaging, Non-Violent Direct Action and Fund-Raising Strategy.

Note these training sessions and how similar they were to those done with student movements during the color revolutions. As wikipedia notices:

Activists from Otpor in Serbia and Pora in Ukraine have said that publications and training they received from the US based Albert Einstein Institution staff have been instrumental to the formation of their strategies.

The Albert Einstein Institute has translated its two main 'color revolution' instruction books into Tibetian. One has a foreword by the Dalai Lama.

Though the CIA-Tibetan program ended in late 60's but under Reagan, a new initiative was launched and since then, the US Governments had been sponsoring the so-called Non-Governmental Organizations branded as "humanitarian" or "democracy promotion" and soaked into targeted countries that the US aimed at launching operations of "Regime Change".

A 2007 report (pdf) by the Congressional Research Service lists various U.S. organizations that currently provide U.S. taxpayer dollars to Tibetan exile
organizations stated that funding for such kind of programs against China had grown from $10 million in Fiscal Year 2002 to 23 million in Fiscal Year 2006

The report listed the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor(DRL) under "Key Actors". DRL is part of Paula Dobriansky's organization.

Congress has supported increased funding for DRL’s Human Rights and Democracy Fund (HRDF).

Appropriations for HRDF grew from a yearly average of $13 million in FY2001-FY2002 to $33.7 million in FY2003-FY2005.

Congress provided $63 million for HRDF in FY2006. China programs account for about 25% of spending from its Democracy Fund.

Most DRL funding goes to U.S.-based NGOs, including universities, while some subgrants go to PRC “partner NGOs.”

A footnote explains:

Because of political sensitivities, DRL does not disclose the names of its grant recipients.

(8) IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY-US Govt. funded NPO had channeled $303,000 to "Operation Tibet" in 2006

2008-03-27T19:22:00.019-04:00

1. Introduction:

NED (National Endowment for Democracy) , what is it ?

( source of information: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=NED)

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Washington D.C-based non-profit funded by the U.S. national budget, boasts that it is "supporting freedom around the world."

Carl Gershman has been President since April 1984.

NED's website describes its mission as being "guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures, and values." NED, which is publicly funded, "makes hundreds of grants each year to support pro-democracy groups in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East." [1]

According to the New York Times: "The National Endowment for Democracy is a quasi-governmental foundation created by the Reagan Administration in 1983 to channel millions of Federal dollars into anti-Communist 'private diplomacy.'" [2]

NED funding mostly flows through the four foundations listed below; these in turn are active in influencing "civil society" and electoral processes around the world, in a process sometimes referred to as "cloak and ballot" operations. While NED remains accountable to the U.S. Congress and has to publish its disbursements, this doesn't apply to the organizations that it in turn finances.

Other groups undertaking similar activities around the world based in other developed countries include: the Australian Centre for Democratic Institutions (CDI); the Westminster Foundation; the Canadian International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development: and the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy.

Another similar US group was also formed in 1984 called the Center for Democracy.

National Endowment for Democracy: People

Founding

NED was founded during the Ronald Reagan presidency in 1982, and shaped by an initial study undertaken by the American Political Foundation. [3]

NED was created with a view to creating a broad base of political support for the organization. NED received funds from the U.S. government and distributes funds to four other organizations - one created by the Republican Party, another by the Democratic Party, one created by the business community and one by the "labor" movement (N.B.: the names of these organizations have changed over time):

International Republican Institute (IRI)
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI)
Chamber of Commerce's Center for Private Enterprise (CIPE)
AFL-CIO's American Center for International Labor Solidarity

Although publicly funded, the activities of these four institutes are not reported to Congress. According to William Robinson, "NED employs a complex system of intermediaries in which operative aspects, control relationships, and funding trails are nearly impossible to follow and final recipients are difficult to identify."

In a March 2005 interview, former CIA officer Philip Agee discussed the thinking behind NED's establishment: (Dennis Bernstein, "Philip Agee, Former CIA agent speaks on Venezuela", Flashpoints, March 14, 2005)

During the late 1970s there was new thinking at the highest levels of the U.S. foreign policymakers, and they reconsidered whether these ugly murderous military dictatorships of the 1970s were really the best way to preserve U.S. interests in these countries – U.S. interests being defined traditionally as unfettered access to the primary products and raw materials, to the labor and to the markets of foreign countries. This new thinking led to the establishment in 1983 of the National Endowment for Democracy. They had chosen the German pattern in which the major political parties in Germany have foundations financed by the federal government. They did more or less the same thing with the establishment of the NED as a private foundation – there is really nothing private about it, and all its money comes from the Congress.

But then there were the other core foundations – this was the fundamental mechanism for promotion of democracy around the world, but in actual fact, when they say the promotion of democracy, or civic education, or fortifying civil society, what they really mean is using those euphemisms to cover funding to certain political forces and not to others. In other words, to fortify the opposition of undesirable foreign governments as in the case of Venezuela, or to support a government that is favorable to US interests and avoid of coming to power of forces that are not seen as favorable to US interests. This will be the case since the early 1990s in Nicaragua because all those programs that were started in order to assure the defeat of Daniel Ortega in 1990 continued, and they continued to make sure that Sandinista Front was not reelected again after their defeat in 1990 – and that has been the case. These programs go on in various different countries and they require quite a bit of research. ... I am sure that one could find these programs in Mexico, Colombia, Peru probably, Brazil, and other countries outside the Latin American region.

Involvement in Foreign Political Processes

NED regularly provides funding to opposition candidates in elections in countries other than the USA. According to Allen Weinstein, one of the founders of NED, "A lot of what we [NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA" (Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, 2000, p. 180).

NED has principally supported candidates with strong ties to the military and who support the rights of U.S. corporations to invest in those countries with minimal restriction. The NED has not supported candidates who oppose investments by U.S. corporations or who promise restrictions on investment rights of U.S. corporations.

Tom Engelhardt notes that "we've seen "the Rose Revolution" in Georgia, "the Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, and now "the Tulip Revolution" in Kyrgyzstan, all heavily financed and backed by groups funded by or connected to the U.S. government and/or the Bush administration." He then quotes Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times, who writes:

"The whole arsenal of US foundations -- National Endowment for Democracy, International Republic Institute, International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), Eurasia Foundation, Internews, among others -- which fueled opposition movements in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine, has also been deployed in Bishkek [Kyrgyzstan]... Practically everything that passes for civil society in Kyrgyzstan is financed by these US foundations, or by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). At least 170 non-governmental organizations charged with development or promotion of democracy have been created or sponsored by the Americans. The US State Department has operated its own independent printing house in Bishkek since 2002 -- which means printing at least 60 different titles, including a bunch of fiery opposition newspapers. USAID invested at least $2 million prior to the Kyrgyz elections -- quite something in a country where the average salary is $30 a month." [4]

National Endowment for Democracy: Grants By Country

Revolving Doorways

The close alignment of the NEDs activities with US foreign policy interests comes as no surprise, especially when you consider the revolving doorways between the US Government and the NED Board of Directors, some of the most notable of which include:

"...former US Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger (Nixon) and Madeleine Albright (Clinton), former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci (Reagan), former National Security Council Chair Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter), former NATO Supreme Allied Command in Europe, General Wesley K. Clark (Clinton), and the current head of the World Bank, Paul Wolfowitz (George W. Bush). Another notable, Bill Brock, served as a US Senator, a US Trade Representative, and US Secretary of Labor, and then Chairman of the Board of NED." [5]

Fostering "Free Press"

In late 2004, Adam Wild Aba wrote, "The new intelligence law also directs the State Department to promote a free press and the development of 'professional journalists' in the Muslim world. It says free press is a must as part of the overall public diplomacy strategy for the Middle East, according to the State Department’s statement. Under the law, the National Endowment for Democracy shall fund a private-sector group to establish a free-media network to help participants share information concerning development of free media in 'societies in transition'." [6]

NED also supports the nonprofit organization Internews which encourages media worldwide to "promote democracy". In 2004, Internews had a budget of $27 million, 80 percent of which came from the U.S. government.

"Marguerite H. Sullivan is Director of the Center on International Media Assistance at the National Endowment for Democracy."

Covert embedded reporters

Several articles about the political process in Haiti, Iraq, and the Palestinian-occupied territories have appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and other mainstream US media. The impression is given that the articles are from bona fide journalists, but it transpires that several of them are paid by the NED or its affiliated organizations. The case of Regine Alexandre is particularly interesting. She wrote articles for the New York Times, AP, and commented on NPR. It transpires that she is on the NED payroll, and the NED confirmed this fact. However, when confronted with this information both the NYT and NPR failed to respond or take this seriously.

Source: Anthony Fenton and Dennis Bernstein, "AP reporter RéGINE is wearing two hats," Haiti Action.net, December 29, 2005.

Conducting polls

NED (or its satellite organizations) has been active in conducting election exit polls in Serbia, Ukraine, Venezuela. These results were used on occasion to cast doubt on the actual election results, and thus deligitimize the winner of the election, and thus create pressure for an election re-run. [7]

In December 2004, the NED-association organization International Republican Institute conducted a survey in Iraq to determine the popular intent to vote. It found that 75% of Iraqis would opt to vote, thus lending some legitimacy to the electoral exercise. However, IRI didn't poll the key cities where the insurgency is strong, i.e., Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul. [8] Such surveys lend legitimacy to so-called demonstration elections, and discredit those opposed to the elections.

Critiques and Support

On the right, NED has been criticized by the Cato Institute which issued a briefing which states, "NED, which also has a history of corruption and financial mismanagement, is superfluous at best and often destructive. Through the endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements." [9]

On its website, NED notes the criticism but responds that "over the years mainstream conservative activists have been among the most outspoken advocates on behalf of the Endowment. Endorsements of NED have been offered by the leadership of such stalwart conservative organizations as the Heritage Foundation and Empower America, and favorable editorials have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and National Review." [10]

In his 2004 State of the Union Speech, Bush proposed doubling funding for NED and called for a greater focus on "its new work on the development of free elections, and free markets, free press, and free labor unions in the Middle East. And above all, we will finish the historic work of democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, so those nations can light the way for others, and help transform a troubled part of the world." [11]

In March 2006, a number of activists (including amongst many others Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal, Michael Parenti and David Harvey) launched a new US project called the International Endowment for Democracy which critiques the activities of the NED.

Funding

NED receives an annual appropriation from the U.S. budget and, while a non-governmental organization, is subject to Congressional oversight. In the financial year to the end of September 2002 NED's budget was US$48.5 million. [12]

In December, 2005 PhD researcher Sreeram Chaulia noted that:

"...97 percent of NED’s funding comes from the US State Department (through USAID and before 1999, the USIA), the rest being allocations made by right-wing donors like the Bradley Foundation, the Whitehead Foundation and the Olin Foundation.(http://www.ned.org/publications/04annual/auditors04.pdf see)" [13]

Officers

Vin Weber Chairman
Thomas R. Donahue Vice-Chair
Julie Finley Treasurer
Matthew F. McHugh Secretary
Carl Gershman President

Directors of the Board 2006

Affiliated Contractors

While most of NED's funding is directed towards the four affiliated core foundations, these in turn hire a variety of "consulting" companies. In the past, these have included:

Albert Einstein Institution - involved in most Eastern European countries
Delphi International Group - involved in Nicaragua
Development Alternatives Inc. - involved in Venezuela
IFES - involved in Haiti, Pakistan, Afghanistan
Penn, Schoen and Berland - Specializes in surveys and "exit polls"; involved in most Eastern European countries and in Venezuela

Contact information

1025 F Street NW, Suite 800
Washington DC, 20004
Phone: (202) 378-9700
Fax: (202) 223-6042
Web: http://www.ned.org

The following is NED's self-introduction found in its website:

The struggle to advance human rights and political freedom in Tibet continues to be driven in large measure by the efforts of the exile Tibetan community under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. The Endowment's Tibet program, which concentrates its resources on the exile community, focused on three areas of activity: information and media, institution and civil society building, and democracy and human rights education. NED-supported Tibetan-language media outlets such as the Tibet Times newspaper and the Voice of Tibet radio provide an independent source of information to the Tibetan people. And, through a mini-grants program, the NED helped strengthen grassroots democracy and civil society in Tibetan communities throughout India. ( source: http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/highlights-asia06.html)

=============================

A list of NED (National Endowment for Democracy) 's

Tibetan Operations 2006 (Total Bill : 303,000 USD ) :

China (Tibet):

Gu-Chu-Sum Movement of Tibet

$40,000*

To document the situation of political prisoners in Tibet and provide support for political prisoners in Tibet and former political prisoners in exile. Gu-Chu-Sum will organize lectures and workshops, publish a magazine, maintain a human rights research desk, and support former political prisoners in exile through various activities ranging from job training to adult education.

International Campaign for Tibet

$53,000

To increase understanding between Tibetans and Chinese by providing greater access to information about Tibet. The organization will facilitate interaction between Tibetan and Chinese officials, academics, and the public through meetings, conferences, and the publication of a Chinese-language newsletter and website.

Khawa Karpo Tibet Cultural Centre Charitable Trust

$20,000

To provide news and analysis to the Tibetan public and promote greater discussion and debate on current issues related to Tibet and Tibetans. Khawa Karpo will publish the Tibetan-language newspaper, Bo-Kyi-Bang-Chen (Tibet Express), three times per month, establish two branch offices to facilitate news collection and distribution, maintain a trilingual website, and organize a three-day workshop on the role of media.

Longsho Youth Movement of Tibet

$15,000

To build leadership skills, promote cultural and political awareness of Tibet, and encourage greater civic engagement among Tibetan youth. Longsho will establish a branch office in Northeast India, conduct a training-of-trainers workshop, and organize leadership camps to strengthen awareness of Tibetan culture and religion and foster democratic values among Tibetan youth.

Tibet Museum

$15,500*

To preserve and present material related to modern Tibetan history and to educate visitors about the Tibetan culture and people. The Tibet Museum will continue to maintain and operate its Dharamsala-based museum, "Demton Khang," promote a touring exhibition, organize seminars and lectures, and maintain a website.

Tibetan Literacy Society

$28,500*

To provide the Tibetan public independent and accurate information on developments in Tibet and in the exile community, and to promote open discussion among intellectuals and a general readership on civic issues, including human rights and democracy. The Tibetan Literacy Society will publish and distribute throughout the Tibetan community in exile and in Tibet Bod-Kyi-Dus-Bab (Tibet Times), a Tibetan-language newspaper published three times a month.

Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre

$20,000*

To strengthen local Tibetan assemblies, the first level government of the Tibetan government-in-exile. The organization will conduct a workshop for members of the local assemblies, facilitate their attendance during a session of the national parliament, and encourage discussion of the functions and procedures of the parliament among local assembly members.

Tibetan Review

$26,000*

To promote freedom of press and understanding of democratic concepts in the Tibetan exile community. Tibetan Review, a monthly English-language news magazine, will provide Tibetans in exile and the international community with Tibet-related news and insightful opinion pieces and editorials, featuring articles written by prominent journalists, academics, and others interested in Tibetan issues.

Tibetan Women's Association

$30,000*

To promote the social, political, and economic empowerment of Tibetan refugee women and raise awareness of human rights violations against women in Tibet. TWA will publish a bi-weekly newsletter, an annual magazine, and a memoir by one of Tibet's most famous female former political prisoners. TWA will also expand outreach efforts internationally and to regional chapters and strengthen its organizational capacity through trainings and workshops.

Tibetan Writers Abroad PEN Center

$10,000*

To preserve Tibetan literature and culture and protect and support Tibetan writers in Tibet. The Tibetan PEN Center will translate essays and other written materials into Tibetan, much of it originally published in Chinese; publish a collection of writings by its members; and conduct an extensive research project on Tibetan writers imprisoned in Tibet.

Voice of Tibet

$35,000*

To encourage and sustain independent public opinion inside Tibet and to familiarize Tibetans with the ideals of democracy and human rights. The Voice of Tibet, an independent, Tibetan-language shortwave radio station, will continue to broadcast regular news about Tibet, the Tibetan exile community, and the Tibetan government-in-exile to listeners in Tibet and in exile in neighboring countries.

Source : http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-asia06.html#chinaTibet

(7) An Open Archive from the US Dept. of State Clearly Documented CIA's Tibetan Operations

2008-03-27T11:18:00.015-04:00

FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES
1964-1968
Volume XXX
China

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Washington, DC

Questions Pertaining to Tibet

337. Memorandum for the Special Group/1/

Washington, January 9, 1964.

/1/Source: Department of State, INR Historical Files, Special Group Files, S.G. 112, February 20, 1964. Secret; Eyes Only. The source text bears no drafting information. Memoranda for the record by Peter Jessup of February 14 and 24 state that the paper was considered at a Special Group meeting on February 13 and approved by the Special Group on February 20. (Central Intelligence Agency, DCI (McCone) Files, Job 80-B01285A, Box 1, 303 Committee Meetings (1964))

SUBJECT

Review of Tibetan Operations

1. Summary--The CIA Tibetan Activity consists of political action, propaganda, and paramilitary activity. The purpose of the program at this stage is to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China.

2. Problem--To explain Agency expenditures in support of the Tibetan program.

3. Background and Objectives--At a 13 December 1963 meeting "The Special Group approved the continuation of CIA controlled Tibetan Operations [1 line of source text not declassified]." Previous operations had gone to support isolated Tibetan resistance groups within Tibet and to the creation of a paramilitary force on the Nepal/Tibet border of approximately 2,000 men, 800 of whom were armed by [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] airdrop in January 1961. In 1963, as a result of the [2 lines of source text not declassified] and as a result of the cited Special Group meeting, the Agency began a more broadly based political program with the exiled Tibetans. This included bringing 133 Tibetans to the United States for training in political, propaganda and paramilitary techniques; continuing the support subsidy to the Dalai Lama's entourage at Dharmsala, India; continuing support to the Nepal based Tibetan guerrillas; the reassignment of a part of the unarmed guerrillas to India for further training; and the [6 lines of source text not declassified]. Operational plans call for the establishment of approximately 20 singleton resident agents in Tibet [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] two road watch teams in Tibet to report possible Chinese Communist build-ups, and six border watch communications teams [1 line of source text not declassified]. The [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] will stay in direct touch with Dharmsala and will conduct political correspondence with Tibetan refugee groups [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] to create an increased Tibetan national political consciousness among these refugees. The [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] was established in October 1963, and the communications center serving it, [1 line of source text not declassified] is presently being built with a completion date scheduled in February 1964.

One of the most serious problems facing the Tibetans is a lack of trained officials equipped with linguistic and administrative abilities. The Agency is undertaking the education of some 20 selected Tibetan junior officers to meet this need. A United States advisory committee composed of prominent United States citizens has been established to sponsor the education of these Tibetans. Cornell University has tentatively agreed to provide facilities for their education.

The Agency is supporting the establishment of Tibet Houses in [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] Geneva, and New York City. The Tibet Houses are intended to serve as unofficial representation for the Dalai Lama to maintain the concept of a separate Tibetan political identity. The Tibet House in New York City will work closely with Tibetan supporters in the United Nations, particularly the Malayan, Irish, and Thai delegations.

The cost of the Tibetan Program for FY 1964 can be summarized in approximate figures as follows:

a. Support of 2100 Tibetan guerrillas based in Nepal--$ 500,000

b. Subsidy to the Dalai Lama--$ 180,000

c. [1 line of source text not declassified] (equipment, transportation, installation, and operator training costs)--$ 225,000

d. Expenses of covert training site in Colorado--$ 400,000

e. Tibet Houses in New York, Geneva, and [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] ( 1/2 year )--$ 75,000

f. Black air transportation of Tibetan trainees from Colorado to India--$ 185,000

g. Miscellaneous (operating expenses of [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] equipment and supplies to reconnaissance teams, caching program, air resupply--not overflights, preparation stages for agent network in Tibet, agent salaries, etc.)--$ 125,000

h. Educational program for 20 selected junior Tibetan officers-- $ 45,000

Total--$ 1,735,000

4. Coordination--This Tibetan operational program has been coordinated with the Department of State for a number of years. Specific operational activity has been coordinated with the Department of Defense and the [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] as necessary.

5. Recommendations--Barring sudden developments inside Communist China and Tibet, expenses for this long-range, politically-oriented Tibet program are not expected to exceed this amount in the foreseeable future. In fact, there are a number of probable economics, [1-1/2 lines of source text not declassified] for example. Nonetheless, this program will continue to require fairly large expenditures over a long period of time to keep the possibility of a non-Communist government alive to the Tibetan people. We recommend continuance of this program.

338. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in India/1/

Washington, December 29, 1964, 1 p.m.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 19 TIBET/US. Confidential; Limdis. Drafted by John W. Kimball of IO/UNP; cleared by Sisco, Officer in Charge of Indian Affairs David T. Schneider, Louise McNutt of FE/RA, Henry W. Allen of SCA/ORM, Bundy, Komer, and the President; and approved by Marshall Green. Repeated to USUN.

1292. Please convey following message from President Johnson to Dalai Lama in reply to Dalai Lama's letter of November 18./2/

/2/Not printed. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Special Head of State Correspondence File, Tibet--Dalai Lama)

Begin text

Your Holiness:

I thank you for your gracious letter of November 18, 1964.

As you point out, the United States Government is deeply concerned with the abrogation of the basic human rights of the Tibetan people and the progressive elimination of their distinctive cultural and religious heritage by the Communist Chinese.

The United States welcomed the opportunities in previous years to assist in bringing the plight of the Tibetan people to the attention of world opinion through the United Nations. As Your Holiness is aware, the United States has also assisted directly in programs to alleviate the material hardships of the Tibetans who have been forced to leave their homeland.

Your Holiness may be assured that the deep and abiding interest of the United States in the welfare of the Tibetan people will continue. My Government welcomes the initiative of the Governments of El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the Philippines to place the Tibetan question on the agenda of the Nineteenth Session of the United Nations General Assembly. We wish, of course, to see the Tibetan item succeed in the United Nations, and we will do everything appropriate to support it.

With assurances of my highest esteem.

Sincerely yours,
Lyndon B. Johnson. End text.

Embassy should indicate to Tibetans that Dept expects no publicity on exchange of correspondence. Embassy may at its discretion inform appropriate GOI officials of substance President's letter.

Rusk

339. Telegram From the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of State/1/

New York, November 30, 1965, 0229Z.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 19 TIBET/UN. Confidential. Repeated to New Delhi, Manila, Managua, and San Salvador.

2354. Tibet. Gyalo Thondup called on Goldberg and Congressman O'Hara Nov. 29. Thondup said Dalai Lama is anxious keep Tibetan issue alive and to forefront of world opinion; sees no better way accomplish this than through GA debate, though he recognizes GA debates and reses unlikely produce concrete results. Thondup said Tibetans are, however, in somewhat of quandary as to how they best proceed this year. On one hand, Tibetans own convictions re status of Tibet, plus desire give hope and encouragement to people within Tibet, lead them to prefer GA debate which would end with res recognizing political aspects of Tibetan problem through references to self-determination and independence.

On other hand, Tibetans well aware of attitude of GOI which, for two years, has assured Tibetans it willing give full and active support to res emphasizing human rights aspects of Tibetan problem. However, GOI has been very hesitant, and is more so than ever at present moment, to support res touching on political side of Tibetan problem. Would, therefore, appreciate US advice.

Goldberg assured Thondup (and asked that this be conveyed to Dalai Lama) that US Govt and people deeply concerned re plight of Tibetan people, recognize Tibetan problem has both human rights and political aspects, and prepared support appropriate res touching on both. Nevertheless, must recognize that Afro-Asian attitude has been disappointing this year in many respects (e.g. ChiRep vote and inscription of Tibetan item); Africans are unusually preoccupied with problems of own continent; and many AAs seem anxious avoid taking stand on issues which entail degree of confrontation with Communist China.

In planning strategy, therefore, Goldberg said care must be exercised not to seek res which would fail to carry or carry with only weak vote. Attitude of Asian states with sizeable Buddhist populations of central importance. This particularly true of India, partly because of its positions in AA world, partly because it is closest to and has most intimate knowledge of Tibetan problem. It is unlikely that at present time many AAs willing go much further on Tibetan res than Indians prepared to lead.

Thondup said US support and help with other delegations will be essential for any res. Goldberg said US, of course, would render appropriate help but reiterated view that essential thing for Tibetans is to get active support of Indians and other Asians. MisOff added that US help, if too obvious, would tend damage rather than improve prospects for good vote because it would lend credence to those who contend Tibetan item is essentially US-inspired "cold-war" item./2/

/2/Telegram 1412 to USUN, December 6, stated that while the Department had been concerned that "too active" lobbying on the Tibet item might be disadvantageous, additional effort might be desirable to overcome "apparent apathy enveloping item in GA." It instructed USUN to broaden its approaches to Western European and African delegations and to include such delegations as Jordan and Iran. (Ibid.)

Thondup then presented us with text of draft res which, he said, was drafted by Tibetans in New Delhi and approved by GOI (text which Thondup has not yet discussed with Phils and other co-sponsors, sent septel). Thondup expressed concern that res might be interpreted as retreat from 1961 res. Goldberg said it did not appear to be retreat since it reaffirmed both previous reses in preamble, and spoke of "denial of the fundamental freedom" which Tibetans have always enjoyed in operative section.

After leaving Goldberg, Thondup told MisOff he was assured in New Delhi that GOI would instruct its UN del to give "full and active support" to this res, including speech in debate and promoting support among other dels. Thondup said Indian Mission confirmed receipt of such instructions earlier in day.

Goldberg

340. Memorandum of Conversation/1/

Washington, December 17, 1965.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 19 TIBET. Confidential. Drafted by Koren.

SUBJECT
Tibet

PARTICIPANTS
Mr. Gyalo Thondup
Dep. Under Secretary U Alexis Johnson
Amb. H. L. T. Koren, INR

Mr. Thondup said that the Indian attitude regarding the Tibetan question had changed, and, largely because of India's new situation vis-a-vis Communist China, India was now being more forthcoming and helpful. However, the difficulty was that India was weak militarily and hard-pressed, and therefore, reluctant to be truly forthcoming. They were supporting, although not sponsoring, the human rights resolution on Tibet now before the General Assembly. What the Tibetans wanted was support in a political sense and to have a case made for their political freedom. For instance, when approached for support, the Afro-Asians asked what the Tibetans really gained from a resolution on human rights. The Afro-Asians felt that a political resolution looking to independence was what was needed, a resolution dealing with fundamental freedom for Tibet. However, the Indians were unwilling to take this step and the current resolution, which was first aimed at fundamental freedom, was watered down at their insistence to fundamental freedoms. Prime Minister Shastri and the majority of his ministers as well as the Indian people were for the Tibetan cause. But in their present situation, they were not ready to take a position of leadership. They needed to be urged by the U.S.

Therefore, Mr. Thondup wished to pass on to Mr. Johnson the Dalai Lama's request that the U.S. re-examine its position and encourage India to take a political, rather than a purely humanitarian position regarding Tibet. Mr. Thondup went on to say that for Communist China Tibet was a weak spot militarily, spiritually, and morally. He felt that the U.S. had a right to ask for a stronger Indian position and hoped that Ambassador Bowles might take this up with Prime Minister Shastri. The near-term objective was to establish a government-in-exile under the Dalai Lama in India.

Mr. Johnson said that Taiwan posed something of a problem for us. It was not a question that Taiwan's influence with us was strong, but it was a factor that we must consider. Mr. Thondup felt that the Nationalist Chinese should take a more progressive attitude, but in talking to them he found them difficult and hampered by a hundred years of tradition and the present dominance of the conservative group. The younger officials were not so hidebound, but the present Chi-Nat stance was that once they were back on the Mainland, they would support self-determination for Tibet. There followed a brief discussion of the status of Tibet in recent history, whether it had been, in fact really independent.

Mr.Thondup said, in summary, that in future efforts it was best to avoid the question of past independence and to rally support for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people in their independence struggle. He made a strong plea for U.S. help as well as advice on how to pursue their goals. Mr. Johnson noted that the question of government-in-exile was somewhat difficult for us at the present time, because we had resisted all pressure for a Cuban Government-in-exile in this country. He promised to discuss Mr.Thondup's plea with his colleagues who had been following Tibetan matters much more closely recently than he and we would pass our considered view to him, most likely through Ambassador Bowles.

341. Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in India/1/

Washington, March 22, 1966, 1:53 p.m.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 30-2 TIBET. Confidential. Drafted by Arthur Dornheim of FE/ACA and Herbert G. Hagerty of NEA/SOA; cleared by NEA Deputy Assistant Secretary William J. Handley, Richard K. Stuart of INR/DDC, and in draft by Officer in Charge of Republic of China Affairs Norman W. Getsinger, Kimball of IO/UNP, and NEA/SOA Deputy Director David T. Schneider; cleared by U. Alexis Johnson. Repeated to USUN, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Kathmandu.

1766. For Ambassador.

1. In conversation with Deputy Under Secretary Johnson December 17, Gyalo Thondup conveyed Dalai Lama's request that USG re-examine its position and encourage India to take a political rather than a humanitarian position regarding Tibet. In this connection, Thondup said Dalai Lama's near-term aim is to establish government-in-exile in India. Mr. Johnson commented that Dept would pass USG views to Thondup most likely through you.

2. We have re-examined our position and have concluded that from our point of view, there would be little to be gained from such a change in status of the Dalai Lama, that in fact there might be some losses in supporting any change his status, that in terms our current bilateral relations with India we are unenthusiastic about adding this sensitive item to agenda of things we are pressing GOI on, and that in any event, we do not wish to become involved in the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile moves.

3. At your convenience, you are requested to call in Thondup and say you have been instructed to reply to his remarks to Deputy Under Secretary Johnson on December 17 last.

4. Your comments should be in following vein:

A. USG has given careful consideration to Dalai Lama's views. We are particularly mindful of special attention which GOI has already devoted to problems of Tibetan refugees, when the needs of its own people are so very pressing. In these circumstances USG would be most reluctant to be the first to approach GOI, the host government, to ask it to adopt a new attitude toward Dalai Lama.

B. Beyond this, as a practical matter, we feel that Dalai Lama should weigh all aspects of question before making any move this direction. Trying to look at it not only from our own angle but also from that of Indians and of Tibetans themselves, we see very little if any practical advantage deriving to anyone from such a change in status of Dalai Lama. either in terms of his dealings with UN, with his friends, with GRC, or in terms Chicoms. If anything, we see some distinct disadvantage in terms of possible jeopardy such status would place existence of present Offices of Tibet in other countries which now formally recognize Communist China, e.g. UK, Switzerland, and possible establishment of future such offices.

5. In general you should assure Thondup that USG is determined to persevere in its efforts achieve a just and peaceful solution of Tibetan problem./2/

/2/Telegram 2614 from New Delhi, March 29, reported that on March 28 the Chargé had orally conveyed the Department's response to Gyalo Thondup. (Ibid.)

Rusk

342. Memorandum for the 303 Committee/1/

Washington, January 26, 1968.

/1/Source: Department of State, INR Historical Files, Tibet, 1967-1968. Secret; Eyes Only. The source text bears no drafting information. A March 4 memorandum from Battle to Bohlen describes it as a CIA memorandum. (Ibid.) It was discussed at a March 19 meeting of the 303 Committee. According to Peter Jessup's memorandum for the record of the meeting, CIA representative James Critchfield stated that "achievements inside Tibet were minimal--outside more substantial." He observed that "the Tibetans by nature did not appear to be congenitally inclined toward conspiratorial proficiency." Jessup records no action by the 303 Committee at the meeting. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, 303 Committee)

SUBJECT
Status Report on Tibetan Operations

1. Summary--The CIA Tibetan program, parts of which were initiated in 1956 with the cognizance of the Committee, is based on U.S. Government commitments made to the Dalai Lama in 1951 and 1956. The program consists of political action, propaganda, paramilitary and intelligence operations, appropriately coordinated with and supported by [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. This program was last reviewed and endorsed by the Committee on 20 February 1964. Current activities have been coordinated with and have the approval of [1 line of source text not declassified], Mr. William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Mr. Lucius Battle, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs.

2. Program Objectives--In the political action and propaganda field, Tibetan program objectives are aimed toward lessening the influence and capabilities of the Chinese regime through support, among Tibetans and among foreign nations, of the concept of an autonomous Tibet under the leadership of the Dalai Lama; toward the creation of a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Tibet; and the containment of Chinese Communist expansion--in pursuance of U.S. policy objectives stated initially in NSC 5913/1./2/ [6 lines of source text not declassified]

/2/The text of NSC 5913/1, approved September 25, 1959, is printed in Foreign Relations, 1958-1960, vol. XVI, pp. 133-144. Also see the record of the NSC discussion of NSC 5913 on September 17, 1959, ibid., pp. 116-127.

3. Appraisal of Current Programs--The cultural revolution in China expanded into Tibet bringing with it tremendous disturbances including the disruption of internal transportation, communication, travel and, to a significant extent, peace and order. Unfortunately there are no apparent signs that the Tibetan people are capitalizing upon this internal chaos to seek further autonomy. Chinese security has shown no signs of deterioration and their control over Tibet, both political and military, remains as pervasive as ever. Tibetan leadership has been purged, leaving the Chinese in direct control of the local administration, and a large number of underground assets have been uncovered and neutralized.

The Tibetan program has a potential for operational success based on a reservoir of trained agent material, the location in a safe-haven of the Dalai Lama together with the nucleus of new young leaders, widespread sympathy for the Tibetan cause, indications of a more positive Indian attitude toward the political aspirations of the Tibetan government, and evidence of considerable disarray among the Chinese stationed in Tibet.

a. At present there are no radio teams remaining inside Tibet. Radio teams continue to function [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] although much of their information comes from the debriefing of traders and refugees. Singleton resident agent operations in Tibet, regarded as being the long-range replacement of the black radio teams, have not progressed as planned due to continued tightening of Chinese security in the border areas. Intelligence reporting from all sources deals primarily with military, political and construction activities along the Tibetan border.

b. The Tibetan paramilitary unit, a remnant of the 1959 resistance force, is dispersed in 15 camps [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. The Tibetan leadership views the force as the paramilitary arm of its "government-in-exile" [2 lines of source text not declassified]. Because of the diplomatic sensitivity occasioned by the presence of the Tibetan force [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] it has been enjoined from offensive action which might invite Chinese [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] retaliation. Joint efforts to disperse the force to other uninhabited areas [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] have not been successful because of Chinese [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] reaction or of difficulties in resupply.

c. [1 line of source text not declassified] responsible for radio contact with and operational direction of the radio teams, the paramilitary resistance force, and the support mechanism [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] continue to serve their intended purpose with a minimum of problems.

d. Bi-lateral CIA-Tibetan intelligence collection operations into Tibet, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] have increased significantly, both in number and in value during the past few years.

e. Activities designed to develop a dynamic political program [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] to weld the refugee communities into a cohesive whole under the leadership of the Dalai Lama and his brother, Gyalo Thondup, continue. These include:

(1) The Geneva, New York and [less than 1 line of source text not declassified] "Tibet houses" continue in operation. The Geneva office serves as the coordinating point for the resettlement of some 500 Tibetan refugees in Switzerland and other European countries and maintains contact with the international agencies concerned with Tibetan relief. Although time has dimmed some of the effectiveness of its pleas, the New York office continues to lobby among the U.N. delegations for legal and moral support for the Tibetan cause, guided in their efforts by a sitting former U.S. delegate to the U.N. who is also a well-known international lawyer. [2 lines of source text not declassified]

(2) The covert training program conducted in the U.S. under which some 250 Tibetans were trained, ended in November 1964.

(3) Twenty selected Tibetan junior officers studied at Cornell University, over a three year period. Due to the Katzenbach strictures, this program was concluded in July 1967; CIA is considering a continuation of the program, on a limited scale, [less than 1 line of source text not declassified].

(4) The Tibetan organizational party, the Cho Kha Sum, (i.e. the Defense of Religion by the Three Regions: Kham, Amdo and U-Tsang), which was established in India in April 1964 by Gyalo Thondup, now has an active press and publications arm. While the future potential of the party is still in question, the Tibetans are making an effort to mold it into an effective organization, aimed at halting a drift towards disunity among the refugees, developing a political consciousness and a political program with which to challenge the Communist efforts inside Tibet.

4. Significant Previous 303 Committee Approvals--

a. September 1958--initial endorsement of CIA covert support to Tibetan resistance;

b. 20 May 1959--initial approval of covert support to the Dalai Lama;

c. 14 February 1961--endorsed continuation of the covert program;

d. 13 December 1962--approved training of Tibetan guerrilla force;

e. 20 February 1964--reviewed and endorsed continuation of covert program;

f. 9 April 1965--approved relocation of Tibetan paramilitary force;

g. 8 July and 25 November 1966--endorsed the covert paramilitary program [1 line of source text not declassified].

These landmark reviews were interspersed with status reports and briefings of the Committee, in one period at monthly intervals. The basic decisions listed above in several instances were reviewed with Higher Authority.

5. Coordination--

a. Department of State--Since the project's inception, appropriate officials of the Department have approved various elements of the program. Department officers who have been briefed on aspects of this project include Elmer Falk and Clement J. Sobotka, Director and Deputy Director, respectively, of the Office of Refugee and Migration Affairs; Harald Jacobson, Director, Office of Asian Communist Affairs; William Gleysteen, Deputy Director, Office of U.N. Political Affairs; William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and Lucius Battle, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs.

b. Ambassadors--The past and present Ambassadors to Nepal and India have approved the Tibetan program, [1 line of source text not declassified].

c. [2-1/2 lines of source text not declassified]

6. Projected and Planned Programs--

a. On the political front during 1967, the Dalai Lama began what is hoped will be a long-range program of projecting himself and Tibetan affairs on an international basis. He is contemplating visits to Ceylon, Burma and Cambodia, having visited Japan and Thailand in late 1967. Invitations have also been extended from several European countries having active Tibetan refugee programs or interests.

b. Gyalo Thondup, acting for the Tibetan partnership in our liaison with the Indians, has proposed the establishment of a Tibetan Operations Center to represent Tibetan interests [less than 1 line of source text not declassified]. This Tibetan center would conceivably provide greater efficiency in the Tibetan handling of existing operations and in the relegation of operational tasks to Tibetan assets. [1 line of source text not declassified]

c. Some elements of the basic covert program remain to be implemented. They include: the deployment of landline wiretap teams to selected priority targets within Tibet; the activation of special refugee debriefing teams; a census of some 70,000 Tibetan refugees spread throughout India and its neighboring countries which may locate additional operational assets; and the resupply of arms and ammunition to the Mustang force.

7. Costs--At the time of the February 1964 review by the Committee, the projected annual cost for all Tibetan operations was $1,735,000. With the discontinuation of the training programs in the U.S., [1 line of source text not declassified] a reduction of $570,000 in this estimate for FY68 has been achieved. The remainder of $1,165,000 has been programmed in the CIA budget for FY68 for the activities described in this paper. Of this amount $650,000 was approved by the 303 Committee on 25 November 1966 in its review of the [less than 1 line of source text not declassified].

343. Memorandum of Conversation/1/

Washington, December 6, 1968.

/1/Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 19 TIBET. Confidential. Drafted by Dougall.

SUBJECT
Call on Mr. Rostow by Mr. Gyalo Thondup, Brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

PARTICIPANTS
Mr. Eugene V. Rostow, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Mr. Gyalo Thondup
Mr. Reynold A. Riemer÷M
Mrs. Kathleen C. Dougall, EA/ACA

1. Mr. Thondup stated that he had been instructed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to express His Holiness' gratitude to the United States Government for its assistance to Tibetan refugees--specifically the surplus food and the monetary assistance. Mr. Rostow replied that we appreciate this message deeply, and that Mr. Thondup can assure His Holiness that we will not forget the plight of the Tibetans.

2. Mr. Thondup said he had another matter to take up. He said it would be very essential and useful if India would take the initiative in the United Nations on a resolution concerning Tibet. He said he has been trying to convince India that it is in its own interest, as well as in the interest of the people of Tibet, to do this. The Indians, he said, are afraid of the Chinese Communists. His Holiness, he said, feels that US indirect encouragement to India to take the initiative on a resolution would be helpful and His Holiness asks the advice and help of the United States on this subject. Mr. Thondup said that the Tibetan people still want to fight the Chinese Communists and that Tibet, "a small nation," is very dependent on large nations to keep the issue alive. Whatever the United States can do would help a small people's struggle for independence.

3. Mr. Rostow said that he had talked about Tibetan matters with a high ranking member of the Indian Foreign Office in New Delhi earlier this year. He said that he will ask the views of the Indian Ambassador here in regard to a UN resolution but that India has its own policy and may not respond to suggestions.

4. Mr. Thondup said that he is afraid of the Soviet Union's position on a UN resolution, also. In 1959 the Soviet Union was bitterly opposed to the resolution and has voted against such resolutions all along, but since last year he thinks the Soviet Union has shown a slight change. He has had private meetings with Soviet officials and was told that "Tibet and Sinkiang are not the interest of India but of the Soviet Union."

5. In response to the fear expressed by Mr. Thondup as to the effect on Tibet of an accommodation the United States might make with the Chinese Communists, Mr. Rostow stated that we seek to bring the Chinese Communists into the family of nations but that we would not make any accommodation with the Chinese Communists at the expense of Tibet.

6. Mr. Thondup stated that there are nearly 900 Tibetan students in Europe and that a visit of His Holiness to Europe is being planned. American friends, he said, always ask why he does not come to the United States. Mr. Thondup said he did not know the reaction of the United States to a private visit of His Holiness to this country. Mr. Rostow said he would have to inquire and added that this would be a matter for the new Administration. Mr. Thondup commented that His Holiness is not an ordinary visitor and would have to make a courtesy call on the President. He expressed his gratitude to Mr. Rostow for inquiring on this subject.

7. Mr. Thondup commented at some length on events in Tibet. He said the situation now is "quite quiet" since the establishment of the Revolutionary Committee for Tibet in September. Two rival organizations are fighting each other and pressing Tibetans to join. The Tibetans, however, are taking a neutral position. There are many killings of Chinese by other Chinese. The Cultural Revolution has affected many military leaders in Tibet. Many have been dismissed; many are new. There is new leadership among the military and in the Party. The Chinese have purged all Tibetan collaborators. Some were killed, some were imprisoned, and some were tortured and released. The elderly people hate the Chinese, and the younger people are now bitter because all important posts are occupied by Chinese, not Tibetans. The Tibetans want to fight, but this is a very wrong position. Events of 1959 are an example. It is only suicide to fight the Chinese.

8. Mr. Thondup said the Chinese system in Tibet is a complete failure. The six million (sic) people in Tibet are not convinced the Chinese are doing anything for them. It is very hard for the Chinese to get used to the altitude and the type of food available in Tibet. There are food shortages because of the difficulty of bringing food long distances to Tibet. The Chinese bring in military and other supplies instead. The Chinese troops do not want to stay in Tibet.

Source:

http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/vol_xxx/337_343.html

(6) The Dalai Lama & Democracy : Words v.s. Deeds

2008-03-25T01:11:00.001-04:00

The Dalai Lama & Democracy:

Words v.s. Deeds

Selective Quotes of the Dalai Lama on Democracy :

" Although none of our Buddhist societies developed any-thing like democracy in their systems of government, I personally have great admiration for secular democracy. " "Although the Tibetans outside Tibet have been reduced to the status of refugees, we have the freedom to exercise our rights. Our brothers and sisters in Tibet, despite being in their own country do not even have the right to life. Therefore, those of us in exile have had a responsibility to contemplate and plan for a future Tibet. Over the years, therefore, we have tried through various means to achieve a model of true democracy. The familiarity of all Tibetan exiles with the word 'democracy' shows this."

"No system of government is perfect, but democracy is closest to our essential human nature. It is also the only stable foundation upon which a just and free global political structure can be built. So it is in all our interests that those of us who already enjoy democracy should actively support everybody's right to do so."

"The peaceful revolutions in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have taught us many great lessons. One is the value of truth. People do not like to be bullied, cheated or lied to by either an individual or a system. Such acts are contrary to the essential human spirit. Therefore, those who practice deception and use force may achieve considerable short-term success, but eventually they will be overthrown."

" Truth is the best guarantor
and
the real foundation
of
freedom and democracy."

~ Dalai Lama ~

Source:

URL: http://www.dalailama.com/page.164.htm

Buddhism and Democracy, by the Dalai Lama, Washington, D.C., April 1993

The Dalai Lama's "Family Business" - The Tibetan Government-in-Exile

"Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.

An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.

A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile's planning council and its Department of Health.

A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile's Department of Information and International Relations.

Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.

The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama's family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile."

(Source: The Role of the CIA:

Behind the Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak,

by Michael Backman,

URL: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8426)

(5): The Dalai Lama's CIA Connection

2008-03-25T00:51:00.001-04:00

Ironically, Dalai Lama who headed the so-called "Free-Tibet" movement, is himself not so free from the CIA manipulation ever since he fled China in the 50's.

The "Money-Matters" of the Dalai Lama & his Government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s. It is important to understand this longer than half-a-century relationship between the Dalai Lama and the US intelligence agency in analyzing the recent turmoil in Tibet.

From the late 50's until 1974, the Dalai Lama had been on the CIA's payroll, reportedly receiving 180,000 USD a year. Besides that, his government set up in exile in Northern India had also received US$1.7 million a year from the CIA. The money was paid for guerrilla operations against the Chinese.

Today, his government-in-exile's funding comprises seven departments and several other special offices including charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia.

The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.

Many donations are channeled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multi-million-dollar organization that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.

Part of its funding comes from the US State Department's Bureau for Refugee Programs

What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?

“If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.

He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.”

(Source: The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak,

by Michael Backman,

URL: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8426)

"The Dalai Lama has become whoever we want him to be, a cuddly projection of our hopes and dreams. This enthusiasm, though, has not translated into any tangible political benefit for Tibetans. He has been seen on advertisements for Apple computers and SalesForce.com software; significantly, he was not paid for either of these uses of his image. Some books purportedly written by the Dalai Lama are scarcely by him at all, but have his face on the cover to increase sales."

"In reality, Tibetan Buddhism is not a values-free system oriented around smiles and a warm heart. It is a religion with tough ethical underpinnings that sometimes get lost in translation. For example, he condemns homosexuality, and all oral and anal sex. His stand is close to that of Pope John Paul II, something his Western followers prefer to ignore. His US publisher even asked him to remove the injunctions against homosexuality from his book, Ethics for the New Millennium, for fear they would offend US readers, and the Dalai Lama acquiesced."

“US enthusiasm for the Dalai Lama is not the same as genuine political support for Tibet. No US government will place sympathy for Tibetans above US strategic and economic interests. China is too large a power to be pushed around, and has always been vociferous in its refusal to listen to advice about Tibet.”

"Some Tibetans believe that overseas campaigning makes the Chinese Government, with its xenophobic fear of foreign interference, create stricter controls over them."

(Source: Cuddly Dalai Lama is Our Fantasy Creation,

by Patrick French, a former director of the Free Tibet Campaign in London,

URL: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/23/1064082990875.html)

An Examination of the connection between Tibet’s current independence campaigners and an organization that maintains close ties with the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED):

A Brief History of CIA-Tibetan Relations

In 1951, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered Lhasa (Tibet’s capital) and proceeded to force the Dalai Lama’s government to sign a “Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”, which effectively ratified the Chinese occupation of Tibet. This action combined with the ensuing Chinese repression of Tibetan activists subsequently inspired a popular revolution, which owing to its anticommunist orientation drew upon strong support from the CIA.[2] As Jim Mann (1999) notes, “during the 1950s and 60s, the CIA actively backed the Tibetan cause with arms, military training, money, air support and all sorts of other help.”[3] Furthermore, as Michael Parenti (2004) has observed at the same time:

“… in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role in that group. The Dalai Lama’s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup, established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951 [although CIA aid was only formally established in 1956]. He later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits parachuted back into Tibet.”[4]

Indeed, according to formerly secret US intelligence documents (released in the late 1990s), it turned out that “[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”.[5] By 1969, however, it appears that covert support for the Tibetan cause had either served its geopolitical purpose (or it was decided that these operations were simply no longer effective), and the CIA announced the withdrawal of its aid for the Tibetan revolutionaries. That said, support for the Tibetan freedom fighters was still provided by the Indian and Taiwanese governments “until 1974, two years after President Richard Nixon normalized U.S. relations with China” (as were the U.S. subsidies for the Dalai Lama, which also continued until 1974): however, thereafter – especially once the Dalai Lama urged the fighters to put down their weapons – the violent resistance collapsed and the “CIA quietly paid to resettle the survivors”.[6] With the apparent end of CIA operations in Tibet, John Kraus (2003) observes that although:

“…President Ford ended the U.S. government’s involvement with Tibet as part of its Cold War strategy. The next phase of the U.S. relationship with the Dalai Lama and his people was to be cast in terms of a contest between human rights and political engagement with China.”[7]

Thus Kraus adds that in 1979 the Dalai Lama was “finally granted a visa by President Jimmy Carter… to visit the United States” and the “Tibetan cause then found new sponsors in a bipartisan group of senators, members of Congress, and congressional staff assistants who worked with the Dalai Lama’s entourage to focus the attention of successive U.S. administrations and a responsive world community on the Tibet situation”. As this article will demonstrate, a large part of this freedom work is presently being actively supported by the NED, so the following section will now examine this organization and it anti-democratic history.

The National Endowment for Democracy: Revisiting the CIA Connection

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was established in 1984 with bipartisan support during President Reagan’s administration to “foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities” around the world.[8] Considering Reagan’s well documented misunderstanding of what constitutes democratic governance,[9] it is fitting that Allen Weinstein, the NEDs first acting president, observed that in fact “A lot of what we [the NED] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.[10] So for example, it is not surprising that during the 1990 elections in Nicaragua it is has been estimated that “for every dollar of NED or AID funding there were several dollars of CIA funding”.[11]

By building upon the pioneering work of liberal philanthropists (like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations’) – who have a long history of co-opting progressive social movements – it appears that the NED was envisaged by US foreign policy elites to be a more suitable way to provide strategic funding to nongovernmental organizations than via covert CIA funding.[12] Indeed, the NED’s ‘new’ emphasis on overt funding of geostrategically useful groups, as opposed to the covert funding, appears to have leant an aura of respect to the NED’s work, and has enabled them, for the most part, to avoid much critical commentary in the mainstream media.

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.” His book furnishes detailed examples of how the NED has successfully imposed polyarchal arrangements on four countries, Chile, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Haiti; while similarly, Barker (2006) has illustrated the NED’s anti-democratic involvement in facilitating and manipulating the ‘colour revolutions’ which recently swept across Eastern Europe. More recently, both Barker and Gerald Sussman (2006) have provided detailed examinations’ of how the NED works to promote a low intensity public sphere (globally) through its selective funding of media organizations.[13] This article will now extend these three initial studies by critically examining the NED’s support for Tibetan media projects from 1990 onwards.

‘Democacy Promoters’ and Tibet

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) was founded in 1988 and is a non-profit membership organization with offices in Washington, DC, Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Their website notes that they “fundamentally believe that there must be a political solution based on direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and his representatives and the People’s Republic of China.” ICT received their first NED grant (of the 1990s) in 1994 to:

“…enhance Chinese knowledge of Tibet by contributing articles about Tibet to newspapers and magazines within China and abroad; translating books about Tibet into Chinese; and facilitating a series of discussion meetings among key Chinese and Tibetan figures, focusing on bringing Chinese journalists and pro-democracy leaders together with Tibetan leaders in exile.”

Since then, the ICT has received regular support from the NED, obtaining subsequent grants in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 (all for media work except the 1997 grant). Like many groups that obtain NED aid, ICT are not afraid to boast of their ‘democratic’ connections, and in 2005 they even awarded one of their annual Light of Truth awards to the president of the NED, Carl Gershman. Furthermore, the year before (in 2004) ICT gave the same award to both Vaclav Havel (who had received the NED’s Democracy Award in 1991, and serves on the advisory board of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition), and also to one of the earliest ‘democracy promoting’ organizations, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. (For a summary of the key ‘democratic’ connections of the Project on Justice in Times of Transition and all the other groups mentioned in this article see, Barker (2007) Hijacking Human Rights: A Critical Examination of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Branch and their Links to the ‘Democracy’ Establishment. Due to this article’s heavy reliance on internet sources most links have been omitted from the paper, however, a fully referenced paper can be obtained from the author upon request.)

Some of ICT’s directors are also integral members of the ‘democracy promoting’ establishment, and include Bette Bao Lord (who is the chair of Freedom House, and a director of Freedom Forum),[14] Gare A. Smith (who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and CEO of InterAction), and finally, Mark Handelman (who is also a director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, an organization whose work is ideologically linked to the NED’s longstanding interventions in Haiti).[15] The ICT’s board of advisors also presents two individuals who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang Xiao (who is the former executive director of the NED-funded Human Rights in China).[16] Like their board of directors, ICT’s international council of advisors includes many ‘democratic’ notables like Vaclav Havel, Fang Lizhi (who in 1995 – at least – was a board member of Human Rights in China), Jose Ramos-Horta (who serves on the international advisory board for the Democracy Coalition Project), Kerry Kennedy (who is a director of the NED-funded China Information Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who is an international patron of the British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson Society – see Clark, 2005), and until her recent death, the “mid-wife of the neocons” Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (who was also linked to ‘democratic’ groups like Freedom House and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies).[17]

Next up is the Tibet Fund, who first received NED aid in 1990 to “produce audio cassettes that will bring world and Tibetan news into rural communities in Tibet.” They then received continued NED support for this work in 1994 and 1996, whereupon the distribution of the audio tapes was extended to Tibetan exile communities in India and Nepal as well as those in Tibet. In 1996, the Tibet Fund also received NED aid on behalf of the Tibet Voice Project, “for an educational initiative based in Dharamsala, India, aimed at raising the social, political, economic and environmental awareness of Tibetans through audio-visual media.” The NED notes that:

“Particular emphasis will be given to speeches of the Dalai Lama on the topics of democracy and human rights. In Dharamsala, it will continue a series of lectures and films emphasizing social issues, politics, the economy and environment for new refugees and Tibetans in exile; and will organize grassroots level dialogues between Tibetans in exile and Indian youth to increase awareness and support for the Tibetan cause in India.”

The Tibet Fund’s work with the Tibet Voice Project was continued in 1998, and the Fund also received NED aid to run “an electronic media workshop for Tibetan journalists, and to introduce a bi-monthly Chinese language news magazine about Tibet.” Tenzing Choephel is the Tibetan scholarship program co-ordinator for the Tibet Fund, and it important to note that he previously helped “lay the foundation of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy [a group that was founded in 1996 and received NED funding in 1999], where he worked as an Office Administrator / English Researcher for three years in Dharamsala.” Finally it is interesting to observe that three people who are involved with the International Campaign for Tibet are linked to the Tibet fund, these are Lodi G. Gyari (who is the the executive chairman of the board of the ICT, and an emertius director of the Tibet Fund), Gehlek Rinpoche (who serves on ICT’s advisory board, and is a director of the Tibet Fund), and Tenzin N. Tethong (who serves on ICT’s advisory board, and is a founder and emeritus director of the Tibet Fund).

Another group that has received strong NED backing is the London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN), who between 1999 and 2004 received annual NED grants (excepting 2000) to “provide comprehensive, accurate information about political, social, and economic developments in Tibet to Tibetan audiences, the international community, human rights groups, and the media.” TIN was cofounded in 1987 by Nicholas Howen (who is now the secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists) and Robert J. Barnett. Robert J. Barnett was the Director of TIN between 1987 and 1998 and now works at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, alongside fellow faculty member Andrew J. Nathan (who is an editor of the NED’s Journal of Democracy, and also serves on the advisory board for the NED-funded Beijing Spring magazine). It is important to note that between 1998 and 2002 – the time coinciding with the start of the NED’s support for TIN – the organization was directed by Richard Oppenheimer who incidentally had just spent 22 years working for the BBC World Service. In 2002, Oppenheimer was then replaced by the world famous Tibetologist, Thierry Dodin, who left TIN in 2005 when it was announced that TIN “had to close down for lack of funds”, and he subsequently went on to direct the TibetInfoNet.[18]

The Tibetan Literary Society received NED aid between 2000 and 2005 to publish the Bod-Kyi-Dus-Bab (Tibet Times), a Tibetan language newspaper which was founded in 1996 and is published three times a month in Dharamsala, India. In 1998 and 1999 the newspaper itself also received direct support from the NED. Another group to receive NED support is the Tibet Multimedia Center, which received three grants from the NED between 2000 to 2002 to:

“…provide objective information about Tibet for Tibetans in the country and in exile as well as for audiences in China. The center will produce audio and videocassettes, organize debates among Tibetan high school students in exile and publish a Chinese language magazine to educate the Chinese public about the situation in Tibet and the struggle for human rights.”

Between 1999 and 2005 the Tibetan Review Trust Society received four grants to publish the Tibetan Review, a monthly English-language news magazine based in New Delhi, India, “that covers Tibet-related news and analysis.” The Tibetan Review was founded in 1968 and it’s precursor was Lodi G. Gyari’s (see earlier) The Voice of Tibet: in the early 1970s the Tibetan Review was published by Tenzin N. Tethong (who at the time headed the International Campaign for Tibet), and after passing through the hands of a number of other Directors it is now being edited by Pema Thinley (who is the former Executive Editor of Tibetan Bulletin, the “official journal of the Central Tibet Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama”).

Finally, in 2001 and 2002, the Voice of Tibet – a Tibetan-language shortwave radio station which was founded in 1996 – obtained NED aid to provide “regular news about Tibet, the Tibetan exile community, and the Tibetan government-in-exile, for listeners in Tibet and in exile in neighboring countries.” According to their website “[e]very day Voice of Tibet broadcasts a 30 minutes news service in the Tibetan language and a 15 minutes news service in Mandarin Chinese.” Voice of Tibet was founded by three Norwegian NGOs; the Norwegian Human Rights House, the Norwegian Tibet Committee and Worldview Rights. The final group is particularly interesting as it is also known as the Points of Peace Foundation, which is a “human rights organisation based in Stavanger, Norway, with a mandate to support Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in urgent need of media, dialogue and communication assistance in their home countries and internationally.” Crucially, the Points of Peace Foundation’s advisory board includes Jose Ramos-Horta, John Hume (who is a former patron of the British version of the NED, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy), Aung San Suu Kyi (who is a member of the international advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, and is an honorary director of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance), Wangari Maathai (who is a member of the international advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, and is a trustee of World Learning), Mairead Corrigan Maguire (who is a member of the international council of advisors for the International Campaign for Tibet), and Muhammad Yunus (who is on the advisory board of Stockholm Challenge, where he sits alongside NED director Esther Dyson, and US Institute for Peace advisory board member John Gage). (Two other groups to receive NED aid for communication work in Tibet since 1990 for which no further information could be ascertained include the Tibet Justice Center (which received a single grant in 2002), and the Tibet Museum (which received NED support in both 2004 and 2005).)

Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker@griffith.edu.au

References

[1] McGranahan, C. “Tibet’s Cold War: The CIA and the Chushi Gangdrug Resistance, 1956–1974.” Journal of Cold War Studies, 8 (3), (2006), p.105.

[2] Conboy, K. and J.Morrison. The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002.

Deane, H. “The Cold War in Tibet.” Covert Action Information Bulletin 29 (Winter 1987): 48-50.

Knaus, J. K. Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.

[3] Mann, J. “CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s.” The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sept. 1998. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[4] Parenti, M. “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (Updated).” Jul. 2004. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[5] Mann, J. “CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s.” The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sept. 1998. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[6] Knaus, J. K. Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.

Salopek, P. “The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet.” Seattle Times, 26 Jan. 1997. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[7] Knaus, J. K. “Official Policies and Covert Programs: The U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the Tibetan Resistance.” Journal of Cold War Studies, 5 (3), (2003), p.78.

[8] Reagan, R. W. “Address to Members of the British Parliament.” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 8 Jun. 1982. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[9] Rasmus, J. The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive Against American Workers and Unions from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. San Ramon, CA: Kyklos Productions, 2006.

[10] Ignatius, D. “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups.” The Washington Post, 22 September 1991.

[11] Robinson, W. I. and J. Gindin. “The Battle for Global Civil Society.” Venezuelanalysis.com, 13 Jun. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[12] Barker, M. J. “Taking the Risk Out of Civil Society: Harnessing Social movements and Regulating Revolutions.” Refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Newcastle 25-27 September 2006. 21 Jun. 2007. .

Roelofs, J. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.

[13] Barker, M. J. “The National Endowment for Democracy and the Promotion of ‘Democratic’ Media Systems Worldwide.” Communication for Development and Social Change: A Global Journal (In Press).

Barker, M. J. “Democracy or Polyarchy? US-Funded Media Developments in Afghanistan and Iraq Post 9/11.” Media Culture Society (In Press).

Sussman, G. “The Myths of ‘Democracy Assistance’: U.S. Political Intervention in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe.” Monthly Review, Dec. 2006. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[14] Barker, M. J. “A Force More Powerful: Promoting ‘Democracy’ Through Civil Disobedience.” State of Nature, Mar. 2007. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[15] Fenton, A. “Canada’s Growing Role in Haitian Affairs (Part I).” Znet, 21 Mar. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. .

[16] For a detailed examination of both individuals strong ties to the NED see Barker, M. J. “Promoting a Low Intensity Public Sphere: American Led Efforts to Promote a ‘Democratic Media’ Environment in China.” A paper to presented at the China Media Centre Conference (Brisbane, Australia: Creative Industries Precinct, 5-6 July 2007).

Also of interest is Barker, M. J. “Hijacking Human Rights: A Critical Examination of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Branch and their Links to the ‘Democracy’ Establishment.” Znet, August 3, 2007. .

[17]Grandin, G. Empire's workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.

[18] Robert, P. “Tibet Information Network Closes as Funds Dry Up.” Tibet Information Network, 13 Sep. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. .

Source:

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

by Michael Barker

URL:http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530

=================================

Video:

The CIA in Tibet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOhDBo6x2ZY

"CIA's Secret War in Tibet"

[We only lived to kill Chinese," recalled one Tibetan veteran. "Our hopes were high." One of the trainees, Gyato Wangdu (who would later become the last commander of the Chushi Gandrug), asked CIA operations officer Roger McCarthy for "a portable nuclear weapon of some kind...that the trainees might employ to destroy Chinese by the hundreds." The CIA declined, but McCarthy noted that Wangdu "did take to demolition training with renewed enthusiasm" and became quite taken with bazookas and mortars. ]

Source: "CIA's Secret War in Tibet"

By Joe Bageant

URL: http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3025986.html

(4): The Dalai Lama's Unholy Alliance

2008-03-25T00:45:00.001-04:00

The Dalai Lama's Unholy Alliance

Can one believe in God / Jesus Christ but at the same time also recognize the "Holiness" of the Dalai Lama's religious position on earth ?

[A Christian (born-again?), a Lama and a Jew in disguise of a Roman Catholic]

A Jew posing as a worshiper in the Roman Catholic Church - Nancy Pelosi - Speaker of the House; and a (born-again?) Christian - George W. Bush - master of the White House, are not even blushed by their sins every time when they addressed to the Dalai Lama with words like " His Holiness". The worst part is that they actively embrace with the Dalai Lama and promote Tibetan Buddhism across the United States but at the same time, they ban their Christian brothers and sisters from promoting Christianity on their homeland. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>

[Say Yes To Buddha; Say No to Christ ?]

Last year, a group of Christians in Bloomington, Indiana who had stood up to object the city's promotion of Buddhist religious articles display as part of its publicity before the visit from the Dalai Lama without any balancing Christian items to act this way, was accused by the city attorney as "using their beliefs as a [political tool]. After city officials refused to respond to the group's multiple telephone and email requests about the procedure used to erect the Buddhist display, a volunteer Christian team took a limestone sculpture of the 10 Commandments to the city hall for installation and declared in a statement that these commandments are their symbol of peace, and they want to include them with the city's display to promote religious enlightenment. They also wanted to be clear that they do not agree with the ideology of the Dalai Lama or Buddhist beliefs because they were Christians and believed in one God, their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A pastor at pentecostal Faith Assembly told that media that the Dalai Lama had lost his voice in his country but they (the Christians) didn't want to lose their voice in their country.

Source:

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Bloomington bans Bible,
but welcomes Buddha
Mayor: Display is to honor
'His Holiness the Dalai Lama'

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58216

Skull Cup as a Tibetan religious "art"

In Tibetan sculptures and paintings, skull cups are often seen in the hands of wrathful Buddhist deities, usually held at the level of the heart and often paired with the curved knife or chopper. The weapon slays demonic enemies, and the cup is the oblation vessel in which the blood and organs are collected as the deity's sustenance. Descriptions of the contents of a wrathful deity's kapala include warm human blood, blood and brains, blood and intestines, human flesh and fat, the heart or the heart and lungs of an enemy, the heart of Mara and the blood of Rudra.
Less often, non-wrathful Buddhist deities are depicted with a skull cup, which holds less violent contents. Padmasambhava, for example, holds a skull cup described as an ocean of nectar, in which floats a longevity vase.

Skull Cups in Tibetan Ritual

Ritual skull cups are traditionally formed from a human skull that has been cut into shape, lined with a metal rim and ornamented. Many skull cups are simply made out of a precious metal in the form of a cranium. They are usually elaborately decorated with artistic designs and Buddhist symbols like lotuses and vajras. Many are fitted with ornamented lids and have feet or a separate base in the form of human skulls.

As the libation vessel of a Vajrayana Buddhist, the skull cup can be seen as a parallel of the clay pot (kumbha in Sanskrit) of the Vedic sacrifice, the alms bowl of the Buddha, and the sacred water vase (kalasha in Sanskrit) of the bodhisattvas. In addition, as a receptacle for sacrificial offerings presented to wrathful deities, the skull cup parallels the tray of auspicious substances like jewels, flowers, or fruit presented to peaceful deities. In its most benign symbolism, as the begging bowl or food vessel of an ascetic, the skull cup serves as a constant reminder of death and impermanence.
When used for esoteric rituals, the history of the cranium's original owner has an important bearing on its ritual potency. The skull of a murder or execution victim is believed to possess the greatest tantric power; the skull of one who has died from a violent or accidental death, or from a virulent illness, possesses a medium magical power; the skull of a person who died peacefully in old age has virtually no occult power. Having great potency are the skulls of children who died during the onset of puberty or were born from the forbidden union of castes, out of wedlock, from sexual misdemeanor, or particularly from incest. The vital force or potential of the skull's previous owner is embodied within the bone as a spirit, rendering it as an effective power object for the performance of rituals.

In the ritual, lamas and other advanced practitioners drink consecrated alcoholic beverages or sometimes even blood from the skull cup, symbolizing the wrathful deity drinking the blood of his or her victim.

Sources
1. Meher McArthur, Reading Buddhist Art: An Illustrated Guide to Buddhist Signs and Symbols (Thames & Hudson, 2004), 149.
2, Nitin Kumar, Exotic India Arts

(3) Tibetan Buddhism as a Political Weapon of Mass Destruction: Then & Now

2008-03-25T00:42:00.004-04:00

Tibetan Buddhism is often called “Lamaism”. Since the time of Chinggis Khaan, only people who were of his royal lineage were allowed to rule Mongolia. This frustrated many would-be rulers who were not of this line. Altan khan was the most destructive of these usurpers. He perceived that through the Buddhist faith he could gain legitimacy by claiming to be a reincarnation of Khublai Khaan.

Altan khan chose the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism (founded by Tsongkhapa, 1357-1419). In 1577 he invited the leader of this order, Sonam Gyatsho, to come to Mongolia and teach his people.

Sonam Gyatsho proclaimed Altan Khan to be the reincarnation of Khublai Khan, and in return, Altan Khan gave the title Dalai Lama to Sonam Gyatsho. Altan Khan posthumously awarded the title to his two predecessors, making Sonam Gyatsho the 3rd Dalai Lama.

Altan khan then proceeded to convert the Mongols to Buddhism either by choice or force.

“The Mongolian government and Lamaist bodies of that period implemented a variety of measures intended to wipe out Mongolian shamanism. For example, Tumed’s Altan Khan passed a law in 1578 that banned shamanist ideological propaganda and traditional rituals. Shamanist ceremonies, including burial-services that involved the burning of animal meat were forbidden by this law. In contrast, Buddhist annual and monthly fasting was strictly enforced. Laws protected inviolable rights of Lamaist officials as officers of the state according to their rank and positions respectively. The four main ranks of Lama priests became exempt from military and fiscal dues. Lavish gifts were given to incoming Lamas according to special codes. For example, a Lama should receive at least 100 horses or equivalent, if he were a learned priest, an unlearned one no less than 20, and even a servant or coachman should be given at least 10. Moreover, images and appurtenances of ongons were burned down and replaced with idols of Mahagal-Burhan. These were to be worshiped with sacrifices of the three kinds of animal flesh (mutton, beef, and horse), and all kinds of milk products. Households were forbidden to carry out shamanist worship at home. Culprits were to pay a fine in horses related to the number of offenses. These laws on one hand gave Lamaism legal, political and economic privileges, while on the other they persecuted shamans and severely restricted the practice of their customs.

Thanks mainly to the investment, assistance, and support of the Ming Dynasty, many Lamaist monasteries were built and many Buddhist texts were published in Beijing to be sent to Mongolia. It is evident that this zeal on the part of the Ming and Qing dynasties to spread the red and yellow Buddhist sects in Mongolia was primarily in order to undermine the heroic warrior traditions of the Mongols. Encouraging Lamaism or Yellow Buddhism in Mongolia subverted the Mongol traditional values. In this regard the distinguished scholar Roy Chapman Andrews wrote “There were several contributory causes of the decay of the Mongol race, but the primal factor was the introduction of Lamaism. Before this they were shamanists, worshipping the spirits of nature...in rocks, trees and mountains.”

Until the 1940’s there were a total of approximately 941 Buddhist monasteries, about 70% of which were not established until the 19th century.

The Manchurian Emperors [Qing Dynasty] instigated a number of aggressive and brutal measures against shamanism during the 17th century, including the humiliation of Oirad’s official Neij (1557-1653) and Zayar Bandid Namhayjamts (1575-1662). The teachings of Maydar Hutagt, sent to Mongolia for the intensification of Lamaism, spread in Mongolia. Shamans were killed, murdered, burnt with dog droppings, and subjected to many fines paid in livestock. Between the 1860’s and 1904, there were three mass burnings at campfires around Horchin, at which it was said, “The ones who have real powers will emerge unscathed, but the remainders shall die.”
Another such burning occurred in the 19th century in Besud Yost Zasagt Hoshuu.
Excerpt from Mongolian Shamanism by Purev Otgony

Besides the killing of shamans, the campaign to wipe out shamanism had many strategies.

First, Lamaist ideology spread by targeting shamans, their family, and their children by telling them they were reincarnations of great Lamas. They would then be encouraged to go to the monastery or send their children there, where they would be “reeducated” in Lamaist dogma. If the shaman was considered powerful or important, Lamaists would target their entire family.

Second, shaman prayers were rewritten with Lamaist influences and dogma. People were forced to recite the new prayers.

Third, Shaman ancestor spirits were “reincarnated” as Lamas or “converted” to Lamaism.

Fourth, Lamaists labeled all shamans “Black shamans”, no matter what their tradition. From the 17th to the 19th century, this label was used to create confusion, spread mistrust, and break down the different shaman traditions. (See “Types of Shamans”).

Fifth, Mongolian protector spirits were “converted” into Lamaism and were incorporated into what is called the Tsam dance.

Sixth, sacred shamanic sites were taken over and monasteries and stupas built over them.

In 1644 the Qing dynasty in China came to power. Unlike previous dynasties, the Qing dynasty was very involved with Mongolia, Tibet, and Central Asia. Through both military and diplomatic means, the Qing first overtook the Chahar Mongols and the territory of Inner Mongolia.

The Khalkha Mongols of outer Mongolia needed to unite. Tusheet Khan wanted to unite the Khalkhas. He believed that Lamaism could help unify the Mongols if they had their own Living Buddha. With a Living Buddha- a Bogdo Gegen- of Mongolian descent, he could unite the Mongols, and get out from under the over-lordship of the Dalai Lamas in Tibet. He nominated his son, Zanabazar (1635-1723) to be this living Buddha and sent him to Tibet to be recognized and schooled.

The political unity that Tusheet Khan sought was not successful. However, the tradition of a Bogdo Gegen of Mongolia had been born. Zanabazar returned from Tibet and was the first of many Bogdo Gegens.

In 1691, Mongolia was submitted to Qing ruler ship. The Qing government wanted to encourage Mongols to become pacifist-Lamaists and allowed the continuation of the Bogdo Gegen line. They did place many limitations on the Living Buddhas, however. A decree was made that reincarnations of Mongolia’s Living Buddha had to be found in Tibet and may not be related to any Mongolian nobility. These incarnations were also educated in Tibet before their “reign” in Mongolia. These puppet rulers of Mongolia could only engage in Lamaist religious pursuits and could not even travel without permission from the Qing government.

The series of Bogdo Gegens solidified Lamaism’s role through the region. More and more monasteries were built and people were expected to support them. Lamaist monasteries drained the wealth of the people and changed Mongolian society. My the mid 1800’s, 45% of Mongol males had taken monastic vows.

Many people were forced to serve as bondsmen to the monasteries. Bogdo Gegen had 22,000 monks and 28,000 bondsmen. There were many complaints of children being abused by monks. The monks themselves spread syphilis all over the countryside. The people began to feel unrest. In 1921, requests for assistance to the Soviet Communist government were made. In 1924, when the last Bogdo Gegen died with syphilis, the Mongolian People’s Republic was born.

The Faith Factor in Foreign Policy:
Religious Constituencies and Congressional
Initiative on Human Rights

Allen D. Hertzke, University of Oklahoma

One of the surprises of the past decade is how Congress increasingly seized the foreign policy initiative in crafting American responses to human rights violations around the world. Propelling this development was a new faith-based movement that coalesced out of concern for the denial of religious freedom abroad. That movement succeeded in gaining landmark legislation aimed at the pandemic of global persecution, but it then capitalized on that momentum to attack other human rights abuses.

The key lesson from this story is not the obvious verity that Congress responds to constituent pressure, because Congress itself spurred the very forces that gave rise to initial constituent interest. Rather, the legislative campaign for the persecuted served as the catalyst that ignited nascent forces into a more durable movement. Explaining how and why the congressional system produced this outcome helps us to understand the nexus of global religious trends, movement politics, and American foreign policy.

The Religious Context

Brutal suppression of religion has been a leitmotif of the twentieth century. But until recently the context of the cold war and the press of global crises deflected singular attention to this phenomenon. In the 1990s, however, conditions ripened for a movement to make combating religious persecution a specific aim of American foreign policy.

First, in spite of the secularization paradigm that guided modernization literature, there has been a striking resurgence of religion in the post-cold war - what French scholar Gilles Kepel calls "The Revenge of God."¹ As Samuel Huntington observed, when religion matters to people, authoritarian governments "will insist on controlling it, suppressing it, regulating it, prohibiting it, and manipulating it to their own advantage."²

Second, Christians are among the most numerous victims of this persecution because of an unheralded demographic revolution - a tectonic shift of the Christian population away from the West toward developing and non-democratic countries. Propelled by dramatic indigenous growth, some 60 percent of the world's Christians live outside of North America and Europe, and that percentage is growing.³ Feared as a force for independent civil society and often perceived as agents of the democratic West, as many as 200 million believers in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia live under the threat of brutal treatment at the hands of authorities.⁴

Third, believers in the United States are naturally drawn to these besieged Christians, whose plight is highlighted by a growing array of international advocacy groups. Vivid models of courage and fidelity among modern martyrs can also inspire the faithful, a fact not lost on church leaders. At many evangelical events today featured speakers are foreign Christians, treated like celebrities and role models, who share poignant testimony of how God sustained them as they languished in prison or suffered torture. With Protestant Evangelicalism at the cutting edge of church growth in the United States, grass roots concern for the "suffering church" increasingly percolated in the years leading up to congressional action.

Finally, the emergence of the United States as the globe's lone superpower offered a unique opportunity to ameliorate this suffering through American foreign policy leadership. As popular writers, activists, and religious leaders spotlighted the problem, they implored Americans to take seriously their responsibility as citizens of the world's indispensable nation.

The Legislative Catalyst

The above efforts, though notable in preparing the way, remained fragmented and muted until activists made a pivotal strategic decision: to mount a campaign for congressional legislation. This legislative vehicle provided a tangible way for American Christians to exercise their citizenship on behalf of co-religionists. But it also acted as a powerful magnet, drawing into the movement others who saw their concerns advanced by the initiative.

The person most responsible for this strategic decision, ironically, was a Jew, Michael Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official and well-connected think tank lawyer. Outraged when an Ethiopian Christian friend (recovering from torture) was threatened with deportation, Horowitz dramatized the scope of religious persecution, which he complained was an "orphan" of the human rights establishment. A blunt polemicist and tough political infighter, Horowitz prodded Christian leaders and fellow Jews into legislative action by characterizing Christians as "the Jews of the 21^st Century," and the "victims of choice for thug regimes."⁵

Most crucially, Horowitz's strategic analysis mirrored that of scholars who argue that social movement success depends on fostering "cognitive liberation" - a freeing of people from the fatalistic view that they cannot move the political system.⁶ To Horowitz, the legislative campaign was primarily a tool to liberate the Christian community from its sheepishness and transform the way "bigoted" secular elites view devout faith in the twenty-first century.

Horowitz also hoped that the drama of legislative battle would catalyze the emerging movement, drawing diverse groups into its vortex. As the campaign waxed, in fact, liberal Jewish groups teamed up with conservative evangelicals, the Catholic Church with Tibetan Buddhists, Anglicans with the Salvation Army. Though the groups did not always agree on remedies, they created a formidable sense that something had to pass.

Congressional hearings and impassioned floor debates, in turn, fed back into the movement, heightening visibility and providing new fodder for mobilization. Though the elite press slighted the movement, church publications and mailings featured the "exciting" efforts of advocates in the nation's capital. Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship and James Dobson of Focus on the Family publicized the cause in syndicated radio and newspaper outlets. Stories on the legislation appeared in Christianity Today, and advocacy groups, such as Oklahoma-based Voice of the Martyrs, implored their followers to write Congress. Members of Congress noticed the grass roots buzz. Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who emerged as a leader in the new movement, said he was struck by how often he heard from constituents at town hall meetings in Kansas about the plight of Christians in Sudan or China.⁷

Several features of the law-making arena helped Congress play this catalyst role. First, in our representative system law enjoys both statutory power and the powerful symbolic import of legis rex. Because of this, the legislative campaign attracted the attention of international organizations and foreign dissidents alike. Fierce opposition from the business community, in a curious way, only served to heighten the stakes and energize the advocates.

Second, the bicameral complexities of the system propelled a quest for consensus, which produced a strongly unified congressional initiative. Indeed, the system operated pretty much as the founders envisioned. Responding to "public passions," the House passed tough initial legislation. Sponsored by Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the House bill employed blunt measures designed to hold the president accountable if he waived automatic sanctions against nations that egregiously persecute religionists. The Clinton administration vigorously opposed the House bill and State Department officials testified against it. In spite of this opposition, House leaders were able to use the rules to get the bill to the floor, where it passed strongly but not unanimously.

Though the House bill was unacceptable in the Senate, it sparked efforts by members and staff to craft an alternative. That Senate bill, sponsored by Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), was more measured, less blunt in its remedies, and more tied into the routines of diplomacy. As it became clear that Nickles-Lieberman was the only vehicle with a chance of passage, efforts were made to accommodate some House interests, even while negotiations took place with a reluctant administration loath to appear unsympathetic. The result was a true consensus, but one that barely beat the clock. Legislation made it to the Senate floor and was passed by vote of 98-0 on the last day of the 105th Congress. With no time for conference, and no one wanting to vote for persecution, the House passed the Senate bill by acclamation, thus ensuring that the legislation enjoyed unanimous backing in both houses. In the aftermath of the victory, religious presses lauded this "providential" outcome, which would place the government's unalloyed imprimatur on the cause of religious freedom around the world.

One of the most sweeping human rights statutes on the books, the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) creates a new State Department office and an Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom. It mandates that State produce a comprehensive annual report on the status of religious freedom around the world - which sets into motion presidential action against violating countries. The law also creates an independent commission, with staff and budget, to monitor violations and hold policymakers accountable for their response. Finally, it reaches into the daily routines of foreign policy by providing better training for diplomatic personnel and fostering their ongoing contacts with vulnerable religious communities on the ground.

Another reason that the legislative arena was so conducive to the religious freedom movement was that there were past models upon which to draw. A case in point was congressional action during the campaign for soviet Jewry in the 1970s. Spurred by Jewish lobby efforts and public sympathy for refuzniks, Congress passed, over Nixon's objections, the Jackson-Vanik act in 1973, which linked normal trade status to emigration policies by the Soviet Union. Some Christian advocates explicitly saw this as their model.

Then, as now, key members of Congress - by virtue of conviction, ties to constituents, and location in the foreign policy system - are inclined to assert a broad view of the national interest, one that transcends narrow calculations of realpolitik. The legislative campaign against religious persecution, consequently, intersected a wider struggle over the direction of American foreign policy. That struggle, which is occurring even within the Bush administration, pits "realists" who view the national interest in narrow economic and security terms against those who would champion American leadership on behalf of democratization and human rights. The campaign for religious rights thus gained strategic allies in the foreign policy commentariat who are similarly inclined to assert a moral underpinning to America's engagement in the world.

Congressman Chris Smith, former chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, illustrates the way promotion of religious freedom dovetails with a broader critique of foreign policy "realism." He takes issue with "so-called professionals," especially those in his own party, whose mantra is "stability, stability, stability." Time and again, he observed, "stable" authoritarian regimes turned out anything but. "Dictatorships and lawless governments are unreliable trading partners, dangerous to their neighbors,"and less stable than nations that respect human rights. Promoting human rights, if done smartly, is indeed in the national interest. "If you get that right," he argues, everything else follows.⁸ While Smith has been making these arguments for years, the legislative campaign enhanced his prominence and the new law provided additional levers for him to employ.

Religion on Capitol Hill

A final reason Congress played such a pivotal role in the movement for the persecuted is that many members themselves, and their staffs, are enmeshed in religious life and thus predisposed to sympathy for the cause. Cynics might be skeptical, but serious empirical analysis suggests that religious commitments and worldviews do shape the work of many members.⁹ Moreover, my own investigation confirms a thriving religious life on the Hill, including weekly faith sharing sessions among congressional members across party and denominational lines. Given the exceptional vibrancy of religious life in the United States, it should not surprise us that the people's representatives generally reflect that cultural context, or that some consciously link their faith and human rights advocacy.

But equally significant, key members of Congress actually emerged as leaders of the movement itself. Three friends and prayer partners, Tony Hall (D-Ohio), Frank Wolf, and Chris Smith, have traveled the world to meet with Jewish refusniks, Chinese dissidents, imprisoned pastors, Sudanese refugees, tortured believers, war refugees, and victimized women. Hall, an evangelical Democrat from working class Dayton, linked his leadership against world hunger with work against dictatorships that destroy their own people. Wolf, a devout Presbyterian, was profiled by the Washington Post as the capitol's first "bleeding heart conservative."¹⁰ Pastors in Eastern Europe were said to carry dog-eared letters from Wolf to use when harassed by authorities. The evangelical legislator is respected by colleagues across the aisle (liberal San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi referred to him as "my leader" on religious freedom issues). Chris Smith, a Catholic, describes himself as a Matthew 25 Christian ("whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me"). Inspired by the book, Tortured for Christ by a Romania pastor, Smith used his chairmanship to build a massive documentary record of the denial of religious freedom, which was picked up and publicized by advocacy groups.

In the Senate, too, the convictions of members played a crucial role. Notable in the effort were retiring evangelical Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who viewed the legislation as his swan song and insisted that it pass before adjournment, Catholic Don Nickles (R-Okla.), whose prior work on the issue made him a logical principal sponsor, and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), whose orthodox Jewish faith (and its link to political convictions) became legendary in the presidential campaign. Lieberman continues to list the passage of IRFA as one of his major legislative achievements.

The impact of religious commitments extends to staff. A number of crucial Hill staff members have close ties to international church groups and are respected in the religious community. Some bring experience in foreign missions, others in human rights advocacy abroad, still others serve as fellows sponsored by religious groups. Two such staff fellows, John Hanford in the office of Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Laura Bryant Hanford in the office of Congressman Bob Clement (D-Tenn.), worked for months helping to hammer out what ultimately became the Nickles-Lieberman bill.

The Legacy: A Movement Buoyed

The legislative campaign to make promotion of religious freedom a "basic aim" of American foreign policy propelled the faith-based movement into the vanguard of human rights advocacy.

First, the campaign enhanced the social movement infrastructure. New leaders emerged, trust relationships were forged, and advocacy groups experienced dramatic membership growth and heightened visibility. Activists operating on shoestring budgets won more stable foundation funding as their efforts gained stature. Established institutions, such as Freedom House, expanded their focus on religious freedom. Think thanks and academic institutes sponsored conferences, books appeared, and news stories sprouted. Religious non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are being drawn into foreign policy counsels for information and advice.

Second, the movement established new government institutions and process that ensure ongoing attention. The State Department now has internal advocates whose clout is enhanced by legal mandates and outside pressure. The independent Commission on International Religious Freedom, designed to hold officials' feet to fire as they implement the law, conducts its own fact finding trips, sponsors hearings, and shares policy recommendations with top officials at the White House and Congress. Obscure but besieged religious minorities - Hoa Hao Buddhists in Vietnam, Muslim Uyghurs in China, Ahmadis in Pakastin, and Baha'is in Iran - have found their causes highlighted. Leaders in foreign capitals have noticed the increased American attention to abuses. The government of Uzbekistan, apparently fearing that it would be named to the list of worst persecuting nations in 1999, freed its known Christian prisoners before the State Department report was released.¹¹

Third, the movement plucked the tragedy in Sudan from the backwaters of human rights concern. Africans in southern Sudan, most of them Christians or tribal religionists, have been subjected to forced starvation, genocidal massacres, and abduction into slavery by agents of the militant Islamist regime in Khartoum.¹² That record is no longer ignored because the congressional-church network has intensified pressure on the regime. Not only have bipartisan congressional members traveled to Sudan, but one of them, Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), even "performed surgery in a bush hospital bombed by planes from Khartoum."¹³ Because of religious humanitarian efforts, moreover, clinics and schools hit by the regime are often run by Catholic, Anglican, or evangelical churches with international linkages and strategic access to policymakers. One relief organization, for example, is Samaritan's Purse, founded and led by Franklin Graham, who offered prayer at the inauguration of George W. Bush.

A Movement That Travels

The coalition for international religious freedom has also proven mobile. Buoyed by their victory in 1998, religious leaders led another successful legislative effort in 2000, this time joining with feminists to attack the brutal global trafficking of up to two million vulnerable women and children annually into forced prostitution.¹⁴ Laura Lederer, director of the Protection Project at the Nitze School at Johns Hopkins University, led a huge project to document the inadequacy of laws dealing with the global crime syndicates that perpetuate this human rights catastrophe. Her efforts, however, did not gain policy traction until the issue was engaged by the religious community. Many of the leaders who forged partnerships in the religious rights campaign were central in building the groundswell for major sex trafficking legislation. These included David Saperstein, the veteran liberal leader for Reform Judaism, who lobbied with Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, John Busby of the Salvation Army, Charles Colson, and William Bennett.

Even given the capacity of social movements to create strange bedfellows, the coalition was a sight to behold, as feminist groups joined hands with their evangelical foes on abortion policy. Chris Smith, the principal architect of the legislation, recounted how some feminist leaders planned strategy in the same room with evangelical representatives, some of whom might be depicted as "Christian Right." As Richard Cizik, director of the Washington office of the National Association of Evangelicals noted, "human rights is now no longer the only prerogative of the left."¹⁵

A final and fascinating case of religious foreign policy engagement concerned the effort to relieve debts burdening impoverished nations. Long a cause of international development organizations, major debt relief legislation passed the 106th Congress with pivotal backing from the religious community. This time the initiative came from the liberal church groups, led by Tom Hart, former Democratic staffer and director of the national Episcopal office in Washington. In part because of relationships forged in the religious freedom campaign, he was able to reach across the cultural divide to enlist ecumenical support, not the least of which came from Pat Robertson, who asked members of his 700 Club to write Phil Graham (R-Texas) when the senator threatened to put a hold on the legislation.¹⁶

Summary

There is "power in movement."¹⁷ Social movements take people out of their routines. They excite, buoy confidence, forge new relationships, and strengthen organizations. But movements need vehicles to focus disparate leaders and energize constituencies. Congress, as "the keystone of the Washington establishment," provided the vehicle for the new religious coalition on foreign policy. Just as laser technology focuses and intensifies diffuse light, the congressional arena absorbed nascent movement energies against religious persecution and sent them out in magnified form.

Notes

1. Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World (University Park: PA: Pennsylvania State University Press,1994).

2. Samuel Huntington, "Religious Persecution at the Close of the Twentieth Century: Its Nature and Causes, and Implications for the International System," in The Faith Factor, Elliott Abrams, ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming 2001).

3. The World Almanac and Book of Facts (Mahwah, NJ: World Almanac Books, 2000); and the Britannica Book of the Year, 2000.

4. This is the estimate of Canadian human rights scholar Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries Out (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1997). Specific documentation can be found in "Persecution of Christians Worldwide," hearing before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 15 February 1996; and in Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, Department of State, November 2000.

5. See Paul Blustein, "A Jew Battles Persecution of Christians," The Washington Post, 9 October 1997; and Michael Cromartie, "The Jew Who is Saving Christians," Christianity Today, 1 March 1999.

6. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

7. Interview.

8. Interview.

9. Peter Benson and Dorothy Williams, Religion on Capitol Hill (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

10. Lori Montgomery, "Party Lines Blur for Area Lawmakers, The Washington Post, 24 May 2000.

11. Religious Freedom in the World, Paul Marshall, ed. (Washington D.C.: Freedom House, 2000), 321; confirmed by State Department sources.

12. The Sudanese regime is the world's worst perpetrator of religious persecution, according to the Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, 1 May 2000 (www.uscirf.gov).

13. Mary McGory, "Suddenly Sudan," The Washington Post, 11 March 2001.

14. Alexandra Marks, "Activists Unleash Campaign to Shut Down Sex Tours," Christian Science Monitor, 16 January 1999.

15. Laurie Goodstein, "A Move to Fight the 'Persecution' Facing Christians," The New York Times, 9 November 1998.

16. "Religious Leaders Cheer Debt Relief," Christian Century, November 2000.

17. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Dateline the World
Azerbaijan	"Sixty Christians arrested at worship service"	1999
China	"Police destroy 15,000 religious sites in Zhejiang province"	1998
Chechyna	"Baptist leader reported beheaded"	1999
Columbia	"Christian leaders marked for assassination"	2000
Cuba	"Bibles reported burned"	1999
Egypt	"Coptic monk murdered"	1999
India	"Hindu extremists 'justify' rape of Catholic nuns"	1998
Indonesia	"Clergy slain in East Timor"	1999
Laos	"Christians forced to recant their faith"	2000
Nigeria	Christian women targeted in Sokoto State"	2001
Pakistan	"Christian ordered hung for blasphemy"	1998
Russia	"Further Christian kidnappings in North Caucasus"	1999
Saudi Arabia	"Riyadh police break up Christian worship service"	2000
Sudan	"Forced starvation, enslavement of African Christians and animists"	2000
Vietnam	"Protestants and Catholics imprisoned without charge, heavily fined"	2000
These headlines, taken from newsletters of international Christian advocacy groups, news stories, and official reports, dramatize the plight of the "suffering Christian church" abroad and create pressure for an American foreign policy response.

Allen D. Hertzke, professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma, is currently writing for Rowman & Littlefield publishers a book entitled To Untie the Yoke: Global Religious Persecution, Human Rights, and American Foreign Policy. His email address is ahertzke@ou.edu.

=======================================================

How and Why

to Support

Religion Overseas

Scott M. Thomas | November 6, 2007

Editor: John Feffer

Foreign Policy In Focus

www.fpif.org

(2) Dalai Lama and the Nazis

2008-03-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

[The current Dalai Lama was actually also a victim of "religious child-abuse".]

The process of selecting, training and preparing a Dalai Lama is by itself an act of a child-abuse case. He was chosen when he was only 3 or 4 years old and was said to be aware of his previous birth. After he was chosen, he was brought to Lhasa and declared as Dalai Lama (1939/2/22). Since then, he had been segregated from other children and was taught religion in the Potola Palace and declared a world Buddhist leader when he turned 15 years old. Instead of learning and growing up with other children, the Dalai Lama lived with and had a close association with, and was given instruction by Heinrich Harrer, a friend of Heinrich Himmler (head of the dreaded Nazi Gestapo) and one of Hitler's favorite members of Hitler’s Nazi SS death squad which carried out wide scale extermination of civilians in Europe. Later this Nazi Squadron Leader (Heinrich Harrer) was given a top post in the Dalai Lama government in exile.

A person like this spending his childhood with a Nazi instructor instead of with other kids is indeed a man in great need of psyco-therapy to heal the "unholiness" of his past!

FASCIST OCCULTISM AND IT’S CLOSE RELATIONSHIP TO BUDDHIST TANTRISM

Visionary fascism was, and indeed still is, exceptionally deeply fascinated by the Buddhocratic form of state. In the late thirties (as the various fascist systems bloomed in Europe and the whole world) Spencer Chapman, a traveler in Tibet, wrote that even in the days of the dictators one can only be amazed at what uncontested power the Dalai Lama possesses” (Chapman, 1940, p. 192). The idea of kingship of the world, the uniting of spiritual and secular power in a single person, the ideology of war in the Shambhala myth, the uncompromisingly andocentric orientation, the tantric vision of the feminine, the whole occult ambience and much more besides were specifically adopted by several fascist ideologists and welded together into an aggressive myth. As we shall soon see, entire fascist systems are based upon the adoption of Tibetan/tantric doctrines.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s national socialist friends

As depressing as it may be for the Nobel peace prize winner’s followers, there has been continuous contact between the Dalai Lama and the far right wing and former national socialists (Nazis). His close friendship with his German mentor, Heinrich Harrer has become the most well-known of these. It caused a small scandal in 1997-1998 when, after years of research, the Austrian journalist, Gerald Lehner, succeeded in making public Harrer’s “brown-shirt” (i.e., German fascist) past, which the latter had been able to keep secret for many years. Harrer is not just anybody. He is one of the best-known international authors and has sold over four million books in 57 languages (mostly about Tibet and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama).

The Austrian mountain climber and competition skier joined the SS on April 1, 1938 and in the same year received instructions to climb Nanga Parbat in the Himalayas after an official meeting with Adolf Hitler. Heinrich Himmler, himself most interested in occult phenomena is said by Harrer to have offered him a Tibet expedition. In 1942, the Reichsführer of the SS (Himmler) ordered the creation of the Sven Hedin Institut für Innerasienforschung [Sven Hedin Institute for Central Asian Research]. This educational establishment had combined esoteric, scientific, and racial studies goals. It was completely in this vein that Himmler was interested in occult doctrines from “mysterious Tibet”, and assumed — probably under the influence of theosophical ideas — that a “race with Nordic blood” existed there, oppressed by the English and Chinese, and waiting for their liberation by the Germans. Himmler’s “advisor”, reports the German magazine Spiegel, “… and the scientist Ernst Schäfer believed that Tibet was the cradle of humanity, the refuge of an ‘Aryan root race’, where a priestly caste had created a mysterious kingdom of Shambhala — decorated with the Buddhist symbol of the wheel of teaching, a swastika. In 1934 Schäfer set out on the first of two expeditions financed by the SS to track down remnants of the ‘Nordic intellectual’ nobility” (Spiegel, 16/1998, p. 111).

Dr. Ernst Schäfer, a specialist on Tibet and an ornithologist, was one of Himmler’s personal staff and in 1943 took over the scientific leadership of the notorious project, “Ahnenerbe” (‘ancestral inheritance’), primarily devoted to racial studies. His third research trip to the Himalayas was officially described as the “SS Schäfer Expedition” and was considered a huge success (Kater 1997, p. 80). Upon his return in August 1939, the scientist was presented with the SS skull ring and dagger of honor in recognition. Subsequently, the Reichsführer of the black corps (Himmler) had grand plans for his protégé: Schäfer was supposed to return to Tibet and “stir up the Tibetan army against the British/Indian troops” with a shock troop of 30 men (Kater, 1997, p. 212). The undertaking was, however, called off at Hitler’s direct order. In the years to follow, Schäfer instead built up the Sven Hedin Institute for Central Asian Research with great success, making it the largest division within the Ahnenerbe project.

But let us return to Heinrich Harrer. War broke out while he was still in India and the young German was interned by the British. It was not until 1944 that he was able to flee to Tibet with a comrade. Coincidence or fate led to his acting as the young Dalai Lama’s personal tutor until the early 50s, and teaching him about all the “wonders” of western civilization and introducing him to the English language as well. It is very likely that his lessons were tainted by the contemporary zeitgeist which had swept through Hitler’s Germany, and not by the British attitudes of the envoy Hugh Richardson, also present in Lhasa. This led in fact to some problems at the court of the young god-king and the English were not happy about his contact to Harrer. But there are nevertheless no grounds for describing the lessons the former SS member gave his “divine” pupil as fascist, particularly since they were primarily given after the end of the World War II. In 1952 His Holiness’s German “teacher “ returned to Europe.

The adaptation to film of Harrer’s autobiographic bestseller, Seven Years in Tibet, triggered an international protest. Since the famous traveler through Tibet had told director Jean Jacques Annaud nothing about his “brown-shirt” past, and this only became public knowledge after the film had been finished, Annaud felt pressured to introduce “corrections”. A remorseful Austrian was now shown, who begins his mountain-climbing career as a supporter of a regime accused of genocide and then, under the influence of the young Kundun and Tibetan Buddhism, reforms to become a “campaigner for human rights”. In the film, he says of the brutal Chinese: “Terrible — I dare not think about how I myself was once so intolerant “ (Stern 41/97, p. 24).

Reinhold Messner, the famous mountain climber, found such an admission of guilt from Hollywood’s dream factory difficult to understand. He spoke up, confirming that he had long known about Harrer’s political opinions. This man, he said had up until the present day still not learned anything, he still believed in the national socialist alpinist ideals. In contrast, the Dalai Lama’s brother, Gyalo Thondup, defended the former SS member with the tasteless argument that what the Chinese had done to the Tibetans was worse and more cruel than what the Nazis had done to the Jews.

It is a fact that Harrer — in his own account- first turned against the Chinese invaders at the end of the fifties, after he had already left Tibet. There is not the slightest trace of a deep catharsis as depicted in Annaud’s film to be found in the German’s books. This was purely an invention of the director to avoid losing face before a world audience.

The journalist Gerhard Lehner also pursued a second lead: on September 13, 1994 eight veterans who had visited and reported from Tibet before 1950 met with the Dalai Lama in London. In a photo taken to record the occasion a second major SS figure can be seen beside Heinrich Harrer and directly behind the Kundun, Dr. Bruno Beger. Beger was the actual “expert” who pushed forward the racial studies research by Himmler’s Ahnenerbe project (Kater, 1997, p. 208). He too, like the Tibetan explorer Ernst Schäfer, was a member of Himmler’s personal staff. In 1939 he went to the Himalayas as a member of the SS Expedition. There he measured the skulls of more than 400 Tibetans in order to investigate a possible relationship between the Tibetan and Aryan ‘races’. In 1943, Beger was sent to Auschwitz where he took the measurements of 150 mainly Jewish prisoners. These were later killed and added to a collection of skeletons. In 1971 Beger appeared in a German court and was sentenced to three years imprisonment on probation for his national socialist crimes.

Frontpage of Bruno Beger’s book: “Meine Begegnungen mit dem Ozean des

Wissens“ („My meetings with the Ocean of Knowledge”) – Königstein 1986

For the Dalai Lama Beger has been of great help, because he did compose a statement, that Tibet was not part of China. (See The Status of Tibet in 1938-39 - Dr. Bruno Beger – (www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/1994/11/24-2_1.html). The head of the Dalai Lama between two former SS-men: Bruno Beger on right side of his head and Heinrich Harrer on left side of his head: http://www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html

Some Links in English concerning Beger:

www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-14.html
www.mazal.org/Lifton/LiftonT286.htm
http://greyfalcon.us/Quest%20of%20the%20Nazis.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/mbilik/strut6.htm
http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2003/8/11_2.html
Beger as collaborator of Horror-Doctor August Hirt:
http://www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl/html/eng/historia_KL/eksperymenty_ok.html

The racialist, who was the last survivor of the “SS Schäfer Expedition” (dying in 1998), met His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama at least five times (in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1994). The meetings were all very hearty affairs. The former SS member dedicated a small brochure entitled “My Encounters with the Ocean of Knowledge” to the first three (Beger, 1986).

The Dalai Lama (worshipped by his followers as the “Ocean of Wisdom” because of his “omniscience”) claims not to have been informed about his Nazi friends’ past. One may well believe this, yet he has not distanced himself from them since their exposure. His statements about Adolf Hitler and the “final solution to the question of the Jews” also seem strange. Just like his brother, Gyalo Thondup, he sees the dictator as a more noble figure than the Chinese occupiers of Tibet: “In 1959, in Lhasa, the Chinese shot Tibetan families from aeroplanes with machine guns. Systematic destruction in the name of liberation against the tyranny of the Dalai Lama! Hu, Hu, Hu! In Hitler's case he was more honest. In concentration camps he made it clear he intended to exterminate the Jews. With the Chinese they called us their brothers! Big brother bullying little brother! Hu, Hu, Hu! It’s less honest, I think” (Daily Telegraph, August 15, 1998).

The Nazi–Tibet connection

Were there occult intentions behind the “SS Schäfer Expedition”? In the neo-fascist literature these are considered a top secret mission of Himmler’s to make contact with the “adepts of Shambhala and Agarthi”. Authors from the scene like Wilhelm Landig, Miguel Serrano, Russell McCloud, etc., let their readers believe that through these expeditions a kind of metapolitical axis between Berlin and Lhasa was constructed. Dietrich Bronder knows that “Schäfer’s SS men were permitted to enter holy Lhasa, otherwise closed to Europeans and Christians, even the magnificent Lamaist temple that contains just one huge symbol, the holiest in the Mongolian world — the swastika” (Bronder, 1975, p. 250)

Although in recent years comprehensive research findings about the interests of leading Nazis in occult phenomena have been published, this is currently played down by pro-Lamaist intellectuals, especially as far as a occult Nazi — Tibet connection is concerned. [1] Ernst Schäfer and Bruno Beger, the two leaders of the undertaking (the SS Schäfer expedition), are depicted as sober natural scientists. Heinrich Himmler’ esoteric ambitions in Tibet were minimal, indeed “probably did not exist” (Brauen, 2000). Hitler himself appears as a decided anti-occultist. “However, the suggestion that Hitler was interested in Eastern esotericism or even Tibet can be ruled out” (Brauen, 2000, p. 65). With an appeal to the historian Goodrick-Clark, the pro-Lamaist authors also assess the occult currents within the early Nazi movement (the notorious Thule Society for example) as insignificant, and completely lacking in evidence for a particular interest in Tibet. Rudolf Freiherr von Sebottendorf (1875-1945), the founder of the Thule Society, is said to have explicitly spoken out against the suggestion that the light came from the highlands of Asia.

We do not see it as our primary task here to historically prove the interweaving of the relevant SS members (Hitler, Himmler, Harrer, etc.) in an occult Nazi — Tibet connection. Things were not as cleanly rationalist and scientifically correct as the pro-Lamaist intellectuals would have it among the SS. When for example, at the presentation of a gift to the Tibetan regent in Lhasa Ernst Schäfer declaims, “Since the swastika is also the supreme and most holy symbol for us Germans, the motto of our visit is: A meeting of the Western and Eastern swastikas in friendship and peace …” (quoted by Brauen, 2000, p. 79), then an occult note in accord with the zeitgeist of the time is present.

There are certainly also other, non-fascist, authors who create an occult correspondence between national socialism and Tibetan Buddhism via a esoteric interpretation of the “Hakenkreuz” (the swastika), a Buddhist symbol par excellence: “The rightward hooked cross [signifies] a prayer formula in Tibet”, writes Friedrich W. Doucet, “In its left-turned form — like the national socialist swastika — it designates the orthodox Yellow Hats ... it is the Yellow Hats who supervise the spiritual rules in the Tibetan ecclesiastical state and also exercise worldly power” (Doucet, 1979, p. 81).[2]

It is also certain that Himmler’s spiritual advisor, Karl Maria Wiligut (“Himmler’s Rasputin”), saw the “SS Schäfer Expedition” as an extremely occult undertaking and at Himmler’s direction attempted to exert an appropriate influence on the participants in the expedition. The SS standard bearer Wiligut/Weisthor, who was one of Himmler’s personal staff, was accredited with mediumistic abilities and he himself was convinced he was in contact with transpersonal powers. Wiligut/Weisthor was considered to be the Schutz Staffel’s (SS’s) expert on runes and designed the legendary skull ring of the SS. His megalomaniac overestimation of himself (there are authenticated statements from him to the effect that he believed he was the “secret King of Germany”) and the fact that he was deprived of the right of decision by his family led Himmler to discharge Wiligut from the SS in 1939 (Lange 1998, p. 271).

The German author Rüdiger Sunner quotes the report of a member of the “SS Schäfer Expedition” over a meeting with Wiligut.[3] During the encounter (in 1937 or 1938?), the latter was in a trance-like state and addressed his visitors in a guttural voice: “I telephoned my friends this evening … in Abyssinia and America, in Japan and Tibet ... with all who come from another world in order to construct a new empire. The occidental spirit is thoroughly corrupted, we have a major task before us. A new era will come, for creation is subject to just one grand law. One of the keys lies with the Dalai Lama [!] and in the Tibetan monasteries.” The visitor was not a little distressed, and goes on to report: “Then came the names of monasteries and their abbots, of localities in eastern Tibet which I alone knew about … Did he draw these out of my brain? Telepathy? To this day I do not know, I know only that I left the place in a hurry” (Sünner, 1999, p. 50). In the 80s the Chilean Miguel Serrano took up the speculation anew that the Dalai Lama plays a key role in the Nazi-Tibet connection. His “skill”, this author says of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is “closely linked with that of Hitler’s Germany … on the basis of not yet discovered connections. A few years after Germany, Tibet also falls” (Serrano, 1987, p. 366).

Wiligut also believed that Lhasa would form a geomantic quadrilateral with Urga (Ulan Bator), the Egyptian pyramids, and Vienna. Miguel Seranno was later to expound similar ideas (in the seventies). Himmler too was interested in geomantic ideas and it cannot be excluded “that he hoped for more exact data about this from the Schäfer expedition” (Brauen, 2000, p. 78).

Otto Rahn, likewise a member of the SS, who in the 30s attempted to render the myth of the holy grail and the Cathar movement fruitful for the national socialist vision and the SS as some kind of “warrior monks”, assumed that the Cathars had been influenced by Tibetan Buddhism “One of the Cathari symbols of the spirit that is god which was taken over from Buddhism was the mani, a glowing jewel that lit up the world and allowed all earthly wishes to be forgotten. The mani is the emblem of the Buddhist law that drives out the night of misconception. In Nepal and Tibet it is considered the symbol of the Dyanibodhisattva Avalokiteshvara or Padmapani, charity” (Rahn, 1989, pp. 185, 107).

The myth of the “black sun” which was able to win a central place in the neo-fascist movement and displays similarities with the Tibetan Rahu myth from the Kalachakra Tantra, can be traced to the inspiration of Wiligut and his milieu among others. In a commentary on Wiligut’s runic writings, a pupil, Emil Rüdiger, mentions an invisible dark planet, Santur by name, which is supposed to influence human history and to be able to be microcosmically linked with the energy body of an adept. Appropriate yogic exercises(rune gymnastics) are recommended for producing “high intelligence effects” (Lange, 1998, p. 226). Just how seamlessly such “rune gymnastics” can be linked to tantric exercises can be seen in the writings of Miguel Serrano, the father of “esoteric Hitlerism” (Serrano, 1984).

It is thus not at all the case that there is no historical foundation for hypothesizing an occult Nazi — Tibet connection, even if it is publicly denied by one of the protagonists of the “SS Schäfer Expedition”, Bruno Beger (Lange 1998, p. 68). Nevertheless, an occult interconnection between the SS and Lamaist Tibet of the dimensions in which it is currently portrayed in a large number of neo-fascist and esoteric publications has to be described as a post facto construction. This construction could, however, we repeat, fall back on an esoteric ambience in which Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, and other high-ranking Nazis moved. Thus the well-known, historically proven material has at any rate been sufficient to create new and very effective myths. In the Nazi- Tibet connection , we are thus dealing with a process of myth creation and not a historical set of events. In such processes, there is a blending of historical facts, the stuff of traditional sagas, straining for effect, and imaginary, visionary, religious, fantastic, and personal elements until it all binds into a resistant pattern and anchors itself as such in a culture. It is not unusual for different mythologemes to become fused, and this is exactly, as we will show, what has happened in the case of the Nazi — Tibet connection. Here, racist Nazi myths have been fused with elements of the Tibetan Shambhala myth and with sexual magic practices from Tantric Buddhism.

In this process of myth construction it should also not be underestimated that the meetings known to have occurred between the Dalai Lama and former SS members (Schäfer, Harrer, Beger) have a occult significance alone by virtue of the fact that anybody who mentally negotiates an esoteric network interprets a meeting with the Dalai Lama as an occult event.

On the Homepage of the Government of Tibet in Exile ( http://www.tibet.com/Status/statement.html ) 13. 09. 1994: The XIV. Dalai Lama between two former SS-men, Bruno Beger on his right behind and Heinrich Harrer on his left behind. The other persons, who visited Tibet before 1950, are: Mr Kazi Sonam Togpyal, Mr Robert Ford, Mrs Ronguy Collectt (daughter of Sir Charles Bell), Mrs Joan Mary Jehu, Mr Archibald Jack and Prof. Fosco Maraini.

In the meantime an enormous amount of literature about a suspected Nazi — Tibet connection has appeared, some examples of which we briefly introduce here:

· In 1958 an American publisher released the book The Lightning and the Sun, by Savitri Devi (“Hitler’s Priestess”), which presents Adolf Hitler as an avatar (an incarnation) of the sun god, alongside Akhenaton and Genghis Khan. Devi does not mention a Nazi — Tibet connection, but introduces the “avatar principle” into the myth building surrounding Hitler that is seized upon by later authors so as to present the Führer as an incarnation from the kingdom of Agarthi/Shambhala (see Miguel Serrano in this regard).

· In their best-seller The Dawn of Magic, Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwells (1962) first claim that the Shambhala/Agarthi myth strongly influenced the founders of the national socialist movement.

· Robert Charroux (Verratene Geheimnisse [“Betrayed Secrets”]) presumes that Lama priests had gained influence over Hitler and worked on “ a plan for exercising control over the world which was thoroughly the equal of that of the Germans “ (Charroux, 170, p. 258).

· The anti-fascist myth researcher Friedrich Doucet (Im Banne des Mythos [In the Thrall of Myth], 1979) discusses “psycho-techniques of the monks and abbots in the Lama monasteries of Tibet” with which leading national socialist figures were manipulated.

· Likewise, the anthroposophically oriented author, Trevor Ravenscroft (The Spear of Destiny), 1974), assumes that Hitler cooperated with “Tibetan leaders” in Berlin.

· In the 80s, two books by the Chilean Miguel Serrano appeared (El Cordon Dorado [The Golden Ribbon] and Adolf Hitler el último Avatara [Adolf Hitler: The Final Avatar]). Both texts form the basis for “esoteric Hitlerism”. One of Serrano’s central themes is the relationship between sexual magic and political power (especially national socialism). The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, whom Serrano has met several times, is woven by the author into the creation of neo-fascist myths around Hitler.

· According to Jan van Helsing (Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht ... [“Secret Societies and their Power”], 1993), Tibetan monks worked together with Templar Knights who were organized in the highest lodge of the “black sun” on the establishment of the Third Reich. The secret order had (and still has) an important base underground in the Himalayas. The ruler of the underground kingdom is said to be “Rigden Iyepo”, the king of the world, with his representative on the surface, the Dalai Lama.

· In Die schwarze Sonne von Tashi Lhunpo [The Black Sun of Tashi Lhunpo] (1996), McCloud reports on the survival of the national socialist Thule group in Tibet . They are the followers of a “sun oracle” there.

· For Wilhelm Landig (Götzen gegen Thule ... [Idols against Thule], n.d.), Tibet is also “the realm of the black sun! It is the meeting point of the esoteric circles of the Schutzstaffel [the SS], whose knowledge Mr. Himmler also knew about but did not share.”

· In his novel (The Black Sun…, 1997), Peter Moon reiterates the decisive influence of Tibetan Lamas on National Socialism and extends it with new images. He takes the side of the old Tibetan Bon religion, and accuses the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism of religious oppression.

“Why”, Martin Brauen, a pro-Lamaist expert on Tibet, asks in light of this considerable and by no means complete literature list, “does Tibet arouse the interest of the neo-fascists so much?” What makes Tibet so attractive for them? What is so fascinating about the Shambhala myth that it draws into its thrall both those who cultivate and those who combat it?” (Brauen, 2000, p. 93). He cannot answer this question. But in order to be able invert the fact that national socialism had a occult relationship to Tibetan Buddhism into its complete opposite, he foregrounds an anti-Lamaist faction within the German right-wing. It was precisely the Nazis, Brauen says, who denounced the Lamas and the Tibetans as “Untermenschen” (subhumans).

· Among the anti–Dalai Lama and anti-Tibet literature are works by S. Ipares (Geheime Weltmächte [Secret World Powers], 1937), who was influenced by the orientalist Albert Grünwedel. In his book, the author talks of an occult hierarchia ordinis of the Lamaist theocracy, which invisibly influences and steers the East.

· J. Strunk’s arguments (Zu Juda und Rom — Tibet, [To Juda and Rome — Tibet], 1937) are more far reaching; he tries to uncover a conspiracy of an international ecclesiastical elite (with members from all the world religions) with the living Buddha, the Dalai Lama from Lhasa as their visible head. “What there are of organizations and new spiritual currents running alongside and in all directions nearly always end up on the ‘roof of the world’, in a Lama temple, once one has progressed through Jewish and Christian lodges” (Strunk, 1937, p. 28).

· In the same year (1937) Fritz Wilhelmy published the piece Asekha. Der Kreuzzug der Bettelmönche [Asekha: The Crusade of the Mendicant Monks]. In it “Tibetan Buddhism … [is] openly appointed to play a more than mysterious role in the great global hustle and bustle of suprastate pullers of strings” (Wilhelmy 1937, p.17)

· General Ludendorff and his wife likewise took to the field with great vigor against the “Asian priests” and warned that the Tibetan Lamas had emplaced themselves at the head of Jewish and Jesuit secret orders (Europa den Asiatenpriestern? [Europe of the Asian priests)], 1941).

· Clearly the most prominent of the anti-Lamaist Nazi faction was the racialist Alfred Rosenberg, who in his seminal work Der Mythos des 20. Jahrhundert [The Myth of the 20^th Century] made the battle between the priests and the warrior caste into the primal conflict of the history of the world. The Tibetan lamas appear here as the representatives of a decadent Asian Catholicism.

The problem with the construction of a fascist anti-Lamaism lies in the fact that apart from Alfred Rosenberg the right-wing authors cited definitely did not occupy positions of power like those of Himmler, the SS, and the Ahnenerbe project. “Hitler’s mythologist” (Rosenberg) was cut dead by Himmler and barely taken seriously by Hitler. The Ludendorff’s fell out of favor with the Führer. In contrast, the SS with their rites and their martial style increasingly became the epitome of the Nazi myth. It was the SS who explored Tibet and it was a former SS trooper (Heinrich Harrer) who schooled the Dalai Lama.

Besides this, the national socialist opponents of Lamaism mentioned, who Martin Brauen so demonstratively parades to prove that fascism was hostile towards Tibetan Buddhism, are just as fanatically fascinated by the atavistic mythology of Tibet as the pro-Lamaist fascists whom we have listed above. They do not attack the Lamaist system out of a democratic attitude or rational consideration, but the opposite, because they fear the occult world of the Lamas — namely, control by magic, the conquest of the planet by Buddhist despots, the manipulation of awareness through rituals, etc. — all concepts which can indeed be found in the tantric texts. Thus, right-wing opponents of Lamaism, just like the right-wing advocates of Lamaism, see in Tibet and its religion an occult control center.

Since the pro-Lamaist intellectuals can no loner deny that fascist authors increasingly sought out contact with Lamaist cultural images after the war, they emphatically reassure us that these were a matter of Western “illusions”, or at least Western hybrids of Lamaism which were in no sense just. With this they seem to think the problem is solved (in this regard, see Brauen 2000). But they leave us waiting for an examination of contents which reveals to what depth and extent ideas and practices from Lamaism have been directly incorporated by the fascist side. Yet a debate about the images, archetypes, metapolitical visions, political structures, and rituals from the Tibetan cultural sphere which the neo-Nazis refer back to is of far greater interest than the question of whether there was personal contact between lamas and Nazis. Here the actual work of cultural criticism begins, which entails

discovering Lamaist myths of origin behind the “Nazi fantasies”
investigating these Lamaist myths of origin
examining structural similarities between neo-fascism and Lamaism

Only then when such “myths of origin” are not to be found can the Nazi- Tibet connection be said to have been exposed as a purely Western fiction.

The following list of paradigms, concepts, theories, methods, and myths which have essentially shaped the culture of Lamaism (and still do) have become central for the neo-fascist movement:

· The combination of religious and political power

· A strictly hierarchical state structure that rests upon a spiritually based “Führer principle”

· The out and out patriarchal orientation of the state and society

· A pattern of complete subordination of pupil to master

· The appearance of divine beings of earth to fulfill political missions (the avatar, incarnation, and Bodhisattva principle)

· A political micro-/macrocosmic theory according to which a Buddhist ruler represents a likeness of the entire universe.

· The idea of a world ruler (Chakravartin) and a violent conquest of the world

· The motif of spiritual/political redemption

· The idea of a superhuman center of power in Asia, from where an influence on world politics is exercised (the Shambhala myth)

· The legitimation of contemporary politics through mythic roots

· The derivation of political control from myths of the sun and light

· The myth of the “black sun” (Rahu myth in the Kalachakra Tantra)

· Alchemic speculations (as in the Kalachakra Tantra)

· An interest in secret men’s associations (members of orders)

· The existence of a supernatural community of “priestly warriors” (Shambhala warriors) who observe and influence the history of the world

· A “Buddhist” warrior ethic based upon spiritual control of the body and emotions

· An apocalyptic final battle, in which good and evil stand opposed and all nonbelievers are annihilated (Shambhala war)

· A fascination with the machinery of war (Shambhala myth)

· Flying discs (UFOs) — corresponding objects (flying wheels) will be put to use in the final Shambhala war

· A magical view of the world and the associated conception that the manipulation of symbols can affect history

· Techniques for manipulating consciousness

· A great interest in paranormal phenomena and their combination with politics (visions, oracles, prophecies)

· A magic/political understanding of the system of rituals in the service of the state

· Sexual magic practices for transforming erotic love and sexuality into worldly and spiritual power (Kalachakra Tantra)

· The functionalization of the feminine principle for the purposes of politico-religious power

All these pillars of Tibetan Buddhist culture are likewise ingredients of the Kalachakra Tantra constantly practiced by the Dalai Lama and the Shambhala myth this evokes. For centuries they have determined the form of Tibetan monastic society, completely independent of any Western imaginings or influence. Hence the question about neo-fascism's inordinate interest in Tibet and its atavistic culture is easily answered: fascists of the most varied persuasion see their own “political theology” confirmed by the Tibetan Buddhist religious system, or discover new images and practices in it with which they can enrich and extend their ideologies.

Some (not all) of the above-mentioned Tibetan cultural elements to which the new right has helped itself were also to be found in the Europe of old, yet these were either disempowered or relativized by the Enlightenment and “modernity” — only to be reactivated in the history of fascism and national socialism. In traditional Tibet (up until 1958), in the community of Tibetans in exile, but above all in the figure of the Dalai Lama and his clergy, in the holy texts and the rituals (the tantras), these images and archetypes were able to survive without pause. Through the active presence of the lamas in the West they are now visible and tangible once more and play an ever greater role in Western popular culture. Yet it is not just in comics and kitsch films that the Dalai Lama is portrayed as a god-king, but also both the respectable and the down-market western press, a label which gains fundamental significance in the political theology of fascism and is combined there with the Führer principle.[4]

Julius Evola: A fascist Tantric

It was not just the ideologists and theoreticians of national socialism who were closely concerned with Tibet, but also high-ranking intellectuals and scholars closely linked to Italian fascism. First of all, Giuseppe Tucci, who attempted to combine Eastern and fascist ideas with one another, must be mentioned (Benavides 1995).

A further example is the work of the Italian, Julius Evola (1898-1974), for a time Benito Mussolini’s chief ideologist (mainly in the forties). In numerous books and articles he has investigated and further developed the relationship between tantric rituals and power politics. He has followed “tantric trails” in European cultural history and come across them everywhere: among the Cathars, the troubadours, the Knights Templar, in the work of Alighieri Dante, the mysticism surrounding the holy grail, European knighthood, alchemy. Using criteria drawn from Vajrayana, he propounds a cultural history of sexuality in his most famous book, Eros and the Mysteries of Love: The Metaphysics of Sex. Evola was not just a theoretician, he also practiced sexual magic rites himself. There are unmistakable statements from him about the “tantric female sacrifice” and the transformation of sexuality into political power. Like almost no other, the Italian has openly named the events that unfold in the mysteries of the yogis and then confessed to them: “The young woman,” he writes, “who is first ‘demonized’ and then raped, ... is essentially... the basic motif for the higher forms of tantric and Vajrayanic sexual magic” (Evola, 1983, p. 389). In dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini he saw the precursors of future Maha Siddhas who would one day conquer the world with their magic powers: “The magician, the ruler, the lord”, he proclaims in regard to Tantrism, “that is the type of the culture of the future!” (Evola, 1926, p. 304). He recommends Tantrism as “the way for a Western elite” (Evola, East and West, p. 29).

In the Shambhala myth he sees a confirmation of the European tradition of the savior king, especially the myth of the grail: “At a particular time decreed by one of the cyclical laws, a new manifestation of the solar principle from above will occur in the form of a sacred ruler who gains victory over the ‘dark age’: Kalki Avatara. Symbolically Kalki will be born in Shambhala — one of the terms in the Indian/Tibetan tradition for the holiest hyperborean [Nordic] center” (Evola 1955, p. 56).

We could fill many pages illustrating the influence of Vajrayana (Tibetan Tantrism) on Evola’s work. But however, we will instead concentrate on a detailed discussion of the ideas of one of his pupils, Miguel Serrano. Serrano combines Evola’s fascist philosophy of power warriors with the national socialist thoughts on race. His works are particularly interesting for us not just because he is still alive (in 1999), but also because he has been linked with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama several times.

Miguel Serrano: The Dalai Lama’s “friend” and chief ideologist of “esoteric Hitlerism”

"Miguel Serrano”, writes his interviewer, Isidro Palacios, “was the only [!] western foreigner who traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as the monk-emperor of the Tibetan Buddhists fled from the holy land of Tibet to the south because of the Chinese invasion. Our conversation partner [Serrano] traveled from India into the Himalayas where his meeting with the Dalai Lama took place, and since then a close friendship has existed between him and the now Nobel prize winner” (Palacios, 1990, p. 2). Who is this “close friend” of the Kundun then?

Miguel Serrano was born in Santiago, Chile in 1917. Between 1947 and 1948 he visited Antarctica for the first time, to which he later undertook many journeys. One of the massifs which he explored on an expedition there bears his name today. Between 1939 and 1945 he published the esoteric journal, La Nueva Edad [The New Age]. He was active as a diplomat for Chile in several countries, including India, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Austria. He also worked as an ambassador at the International Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna and at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). Largely unnoticed by the public, Serrano has been in friendly contact with numerous prominent national socialist and fascist figures since the seventies: with Léon Degrelle, Otto Skorzeny, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Hanna Reitsch, Julius Evola, Herman Wirth, Savitri Devi, and the French Waffen SS man and author Saint Loup. The Chilean returned to his country of birth and lives some kilometers from Santiago (as of 1999).

He published numerous books with an occult/poetic content. Even his work best known in the West, in which he recounts his encounters with the German poet Hermann Hesse and the depth psychologist C. G. Jung, displays a great deal of occultist speculation when one reads it attentively. Serrano titled his book The Hermetic Circle: Conversations, Correspondence, and Memories of Hermann Hesse and C. G. Jung.[5] This title alone should signal that the author had formed an esoteric brotherhood with Jung and Hesse, a sort of triumvirate of magicians who had gained admittance to the archetypal storehouses of the human subconscious and are unique in the twentieth century. Jung was sympathetic towards the Chilean who had courted him. He wrote an effusive foreword to Serrano’s tale, The Visit of the Queen of Saba: “This book is unusual. It is a dream amidst other dreams, one could say, and completely different to the spontaneous creations of the unconscious with which I am familiar” (Serrano, 1980, p. 7). Serrano was also a great admirer of the American poet, Ezra Pound, who sympathized with the Italian fascists. Together with Pound’s widow (Olga Rudge) and Prince Ivanici, Serrano had a commemorative stone erected in Italy.

His occult studies took him to all parts of the world. He saw himself as a modern Percival (Parsifal) and Minnesinger, who went in search of the Grail under the protection of his diplomatic passport. “The life of an ambassador is a farce and a folly”, he said in an interview in the journal Cedade, “My post allows me to meet with people of value like the Dalai Lama, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Hanna Reitsch (Hitler’s famous female war pilot) and others” (Cedade, 1986). Switzerland, Westphalia, the mountains of Salzburg, the Pyrenées, his travels in search of the Grail led him through all these “geomantically” significant sites, but likewise to the Himalayas, Patagonia, and Antarctica.

The Chilean was rightly considered the occult eminence of modern, international fascism. Meanwhile, his phantasmagoric writings have also developed a fanatic following in the German neo-nazi scene: It is the Chilean author’s obsessive intention to convince his readers that Adolf Hitler was an avatar (a divine incarnation) or a tulku, and ever will be, since he lives on in another body in another sphere, that of the kingdom of Shambhala. According to Serrano, the Führer will reappear as the doomsday ruler and fight a terrible battle, and that in the next few years. How did this bizarre fantasy arise?

Shortly after the Second World War a mysterious “master” from the beyond is supposed to have appeared to the Chilean and said to him: “Hitler is a initiate, he can communicate with those dwelling on the astral plane. I do not know who his spiritual leaders are, but I have decided to help him. Hitler is a being with an iron, unshakable will which he inevitably put into effect. He never yielded. I was in contact with him.” (Serrano, 1987, p. 21).

After this appearance of his spiritual guru, Serrano was absolutely convinced that he had been entrusted with the mission of the century: the worldwide dissemination of Hitlerismo Esoterico (of “esoteric Hitlerism”). Whilst still performing his international duties as a Chilean Ambassador he held himself back, although he carried the idea in his heart from the nineteen fifties on. During this period he published books of a poetic/esoteric content with several respectable western publishers which, although they without exception include tantric topics (especially the “female sacrifice”), studiously avoid mentioning the name of Adolf Hitler. Only in 1978 did the Chilean first dare to go public with an open profession of belief in the German Nazi dictator, and published El Cordón Dorado — Hitlerismo Esoterico [The Golden Ribbon — Esoteric Hitlerism]. In the mid-eighties the almost 650-page, large-format book, Adolf Hitler, el Ùltimo Avatâra [Adolf Hitler, the Last Avatar], followed. Serrano summarizes the results of his extensive occult research into this topic with the concise statement that, “esoteric Hitlerism is tantric” (Serrano, 1987, p. 330).

Shambhala: The center of “esoteric Hitlerism”

In the following sections, we hope to show just how much of his fascist world view Serrano owed to Tantrism. It is of especial interest in connection with this study that he recognized “esoteric Hitlerism” as a central doctrine from the kingdom of Shambhala: “In fact”, the author says, “Shambhala is indeed the center of esoteric Hitlerism. The entrance to it [the realm of Shambhala] was to be found in the vicinity of Shigatse or near Gyangtse [in southern Tibet]. Through my investigations I arrived at the conclusion that our center [i.e., that of Serrano’s occult order] had also been located there. The connection between Hitlerism and the Tibetans or Mongolians was also not immediate, but indirect, in as far as they established contact with the Hyperboreans (the Aryan gods of the north) and made free passage and the transmission of physical messages possible. Tibetans and Mongolians were their vassals who had to guard the magic entry gates to their world. ... When I visited Berchtesgaden [the Obersalzberg to which Hitler retreated time and again], my attention was constantly captivated by a tellurian force, a tangible vibration in the air, which instantaneously linked this point with the Tibetan Himalayas and trans-Himalaya: Hitler’s high-lying refuge with the Lhasa of the Dalai Lama, with Shambhala. For some particular reason, esoteric Hitlerism had chosen this point, which is full of direct connections, magnetic vibrations, and those which touch the stars, as the holy center of its order (the SS), and it had avoided letting a final physical struggle, which could have harmed this area, take place there” (Serrano, 1987, p. 32). In his book, NOS, Serrano defines the kingdom of Shambhala as “one of the hidden subterranean cities in which is performed the tantric initiation that transforms, transmutes and transfigures matter. There are people who say that it was the capital of Agarthi” (Serrano, 1984, p. 186). Before Shambhala was relocated in the Himalayas by the hyperborean (Nordic) siddhas, it was a kingdom at the North Pole.

Shambhala and Agarthi are thus the two occult regions (or cities) from which the national socialist dictator, Adolf Hitler, was sent to our planet. According to Serrano the two locations lie in a magic realm beneath the surface of the Earth. “Thus the submerged Agarthi and Shambhala are to be found there, which the Tibetans and Mongolians speak of as the seat of the king of the world, and also the symbolic orient of the [Knights] Templar and the true Rosicrucians. Thus the unknown leaders of these two orders, as well the organization of esoteric Hitlerism [the SS], betook themselves there. And from there Hitler clearly received instructions” (Serrano, 1987, p. 32). [6]

Following the Second World War the rumor (which Serrano seizes upon thankfully) arose in occult circles that Hitler had settled a brotherhood of Tibetan lamas in Berlin, who stood in direct contact with the kingdom of Shambhala. After the Russians entered the city the members of the order committed suicide ( Ravenscroft, 1988, p. 262ff.).[7]

But Hitler — Serrano says- did not suicide; rather he was able to return to his subterranean home of Shambhala. “Hitler lives. He did not die in Berlin. I have seen him under the earth. ... I kept this secret for many years; then it was dangerous to reveal it, and it was even more difficult to write about it”, the mysterious master we have already mentioned explained to his pupil, Serrano (Serrano, 1987, p. 37). The “Führer”, however, did not flee to Tibet as is assumed in other occult speculations. Serrano doubts such assumptions, since on the basis of his researches he reached the conclusion that the mythic realm of Shambhala was relocated from the Himalayas to the South Pole (Antarctica) following the war and that today the entrance to the underground imperium may be found there. Hitler is thus said to have traveled to Antarctica.

In the near future, the “Führer” with ascend to earth from the subterranean Shambhala (now at the South Pole) for a second time, with a powerful army of UFOs in fact. (At another point Serrano reports that Hitler will lead his army on a white horse, like the Rudra Chakrin, the wrathful wheel turner from Shambhala.) The “last avatar” (Hitler) will plunge the planet into a terrible apocalyptic war between the forces of light (the hyperborean Aryan race) and the powers of darkness (the Jewish race). The Jews, who currently rule the world, will be exterminated and the Nazis will found the Edidad Dorada (the “golden age”) and the “Fourth Reich”.

Serrano took his “fantasies” literally. To seek his spiritual leader (or the tulku Hitler), the Chilean diplomat (in India at the time) set off and began exploring in the Himalayas and in Antarctica. “In the book The Serpent of Paradise, I describe my search for the ashram of the Siddha in the Himalayas, which is likewise to be found beneath the earth in the Kailash mountains, in a very remote area where my master’s residence also is” (Serrano, 1987, p. 40).[8] He was convince that he would find an entrance to Shambhala or Agarthi in the Kailash. He also tried to reach Lake Yamdrok, because he suspected there was an entrance gateway to the underground Shambhala there as well. But the Chinese turned him back at the border.

EL/ELLA

But the time was not ripe, Serrano was unable to discover the entrance to Shambhala. In Kalimpong, “before the gates of Tibet” he encountered a “man” who assured the Chilean that a mysterious “order” exerts an influence over both the affairs of the distant past and the most recent events of world history. Obviously this man was the guru who — as he recounts in his key book EL/ELLA — initiated Serrano into the rites of sexual magic, and the order was a tantric secret society. Its members, the “man” said, “live in two cities in the Himalayas, Agarthi and Shambhala. To get there one has to trace this (tantric) way back to the origin of time” (Serrano, 1982, p. 10).

The pupil (Serrano) — we read in EL/ELLA — is prepared to go this way and is initiated into the tantras and the “laws of androgyny” by the master: “This knowledge has been passed on to us by the serpent [kundalini] that survived on the ocean floor as the world of the god-men was destroyed, in which the woman was not outside but rather inside and where man and woman were one. .... Until you are one with the woman ... you will be no priest king ... The stallion must become a mare, the man a woman ...” the guru continued his teaching (Serrano, 1982, pp. 11-12).[9]

This is never, the pupil learns, possible through chastity and asceticism. Rather, the man must encounter the woman in the “magic love” in order to divert her feminine energies. As we know, this requires absolute control over the sexual act and above all the retention of the seed: “If the stallion expels the seed, he becomes impoverished by this. ... For as long as the seed flows outwards like a river, the play of the deceptive appearances will continue” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13). In another text it says: “the magic love that is taught in ... Shambhala. ... In it the seed may not be issued outwardly and be lost in the woman, rather it must flow inwardly into the body of its owner in order to impregnate him with the androgyne, ... as one in the likewise symbolic language of alchemy” (Serrano, 1987, p. 289). If the man does not expel his sperm he can absorb the woman’s gynergies completely. “If the woman does not receive”, Serrano says, “she gives! Through her skin she exudes substances, a concentrated energy, which satiates you and penetrates into your blood and heart” (Serrano, 1982, p. 14).

But it can happen that the tantric experiment fails. If the sadhaka (the pupil) loses his seed during the magic sexual act then he is destroyed by the aggressive femininity: “The spider devours the male who fertilizes her, the bees murder the drones, the fearsome mother wears the organ of generation tied around her neck. Everything female devours, every mare, mother, goddess, or woman. In one way or another the man is consumed” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13).

It is thus a matter of life and death. Ultimately, according to Serrano the “killing” of the external woman (the karma mudra) is therefore necessary, so that the inner woman (the maha mudra) can be formed. The author does not shrink from discussing the “tantric female sacrifice” directly: “Only those who are able to love the woman so much [!] that they externally kill her [!] in order to make possible her inner rebirth will find the immortal city of Agarthi (or Shambhala)” (Serrano, 1982, p. 13).[10] For an uninformed reader hidden, but obvious to one who knows the logic of Tantrism, a tantric female murder is described in both of his initiatory writings, EL/ELLA [HE/SHE] and NOS [WE].

In a love scene from EL/ELL,A a young woman expires in Serrano’s arms in order to then re-emerge within him as an inner maha mudra. He bends over her, strokes her hair and kisses her bloody lips: “They tasted like bitter honey, and he swallowed a little of her blood” Then he suddenly sees the stigmata: “Strangely, it [the blood] was only on her feet and the palms of her hands as if she had been crucified. 'Here!', she said. She indicated her side, at breast level. A white line seemed to run through it, like a spear wound” (Serrano, 1982, pp. 72-73). The references to the sacrifice of Christ are obvious, indeed they seem quite blatant. “When I die,” the woman then says, “you will bear me within you; I will be you, live in you ... You have drunk my blood, and we are now two siblings. My character is already being transferred into your blood ... If god will, I shall love you even more when I am dead. ... I have to die that you may live” (Serrano, 1982, pp. 73-74). With this she fulfills the wise saying of Serrano’s master: “The decay of the one [the woman] is the purification of the other [the man]" (Serrano, 1982, p. 93). “The absolute woman”, he says at another point, “can sleep or she can die, which is the same thing” (Serrano, 1987, p. 289).

Written in a fantasy manner, the book NOS — Book of the Resurrection also depicts a tantric female sacrifice. The heroine of this “hermetic biography” is called Allouine, the main hero is admittedly Serrano. Additionally, various “tantric” masters crop up. Among them are, unmistakably, C.G. Jung, Hermann Hesse, and the American poet Ezra Pound. The contents of the book depict the voluntary self-sacrifice of Allouine, her interiorization as a maha mudra by the author (Serrano), and the latter’ achievement of immortality through the absorption of gynergy. “The woman dies. She is dead. She must die. ... She is the warrior’s [the yogi’s] companion, existing only in his mind, in his spirit” (Serrano, 1984, p. 11), Serrano instructs us once more. “She [the woman] becomes interiorized in you through her death, she inspires you”, one of his masters explains to him and in another passage continues: “The secret path of yoga along which you are traveling is only for the warrior, for the initiated hero. It is not the path for the woman; because a woman has no chakras, no kundalini to awaken. ... A woman is the Kundalini. A woman has no soul. She is the soul. A woman has no eternity. She is eternity” (Serrano, 1984, pp. 102, 147).

Serrano stages a tantric séance with Allouine, in which they both consume the five forbidden foods. Then he drinks “the liquor of orgasm ... the heavenly Soma, an spirit of secret wine ... which is now only to be found in the river of your blood” (Serrano, 1984, p. 112). We know that he is talking about the sukra, the mixture of male and female seed, of menstrual blood and sperm. This magic potion grants the Tantric immortality. In NOS too the author longs for the blood of his lover like a vampire and goes into raptures if he detects it on his lips. After he has washed the dying Allouine, he kisses her and drinks of her blood.

Yet Allouine patiently and will-lessly accepts her sacrifice: “My desire for you (i.e., for Serrano) is reaching its peak. The fire of sacrifice has already been lit in my vulva and beats there like a heart. ... My will no longer exists” (Serrano, 1984, p. 111). “The authentic, absolute woman sacrifices herself voluntarily,” we read in NOS, “immolating herself in order to give her eternity to her lover. ... The beloved is now the hidden beloved, she who has died and buried herself in your bones and your veins. The female Sophia, guru of the soul, she who courses through the blood, the female philosopher, Sophia, wisdom, the dove, gnosis” (Serrano, 1984, pp. 147-148). Dying, his “wisdom consort” says to him, “I shall but love thee better after death. I give you my eternity. … My beloved, you will be my coffin of perfumed, precious wood!” (Serrano, 1984, p. 140).

After he has internalized Allouine within himself, the Tantric Serrano can now overcome his EGO, he can now talk of NOS (WE), since his lover (maha mudra) will dwell in him for ever. Through this love, deadly for the woman, the man gains eternal life. In this context, Serrano plays upon the word AMOR, which does not just mean love, but also A-MOR, i.e., beyond death.

Eternally united with Allouine’s gynergy following her physical death, Serrano buries her corpse and places a stone at her grave into which he has chiseled a leftward hooked cross, the supreme symbol of “esoteric Hitlerism”.

Hitler as a tantric and as king of the world (Chakravartin)

From Serrano’s tantric world view it is only all too easy to assume that Hitler (as a tulku) also conducted sexual magic practices with a wisdom consort (mudra). Eva Braun, the lover of the dictator appears to have only partially performed this duty. Behind her, Serrano says, stood a greater one: “We must thus consider the relationship with Eva Braun to have been like that between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the Christian legend, like that of an alchemist to his mystic sister. ... The presence of the woman, her telepathic, self-communicating energy, the tensions this generates are indispensable for a tantric magician, for this kind of bearer of power. The mystic consort of Hitler was, however, not Eva Braun, but rather another” (Serrano, 1987, p. 25). He refers to her as the “Valkyrie” or as Lilith too. With the name Lilith he draws a connection to Adam. Like Hitler, the biblical first father of humanity (Adam) also possessed two women, an outer Eve and an inner Lilith. Did Hitler perhaps make an decisive tantric mistake, asks the author, in marrying Eva Braun (shortly before his suicide)? “... Since the secret Eve [Braun] of transient flesh and blood was accepted, she now [took] the place of the mystic consort” (Serrano, 1987, p. 25), and Hitler lost part of his magic powers (siddhis).

A according to Serrano the “Führer” of the Third Reich was a tantra master from Shambhala, the “high priest of the occident” (Serrano, 1987, p. 269) He came to earth to fulfill a mission — the control of the world by the Nordic ("hyperborean”) race. But in him Serrano does not just see the incarnation of a warlike archetype who lowered himself into a human frame in the nineteen-thirties and forties. In the dictator he directly recognized a tulku and god sent from Shambhala. Hitler “was a highly developed being, a Bodhisattva, a tulku ... the incarnation of a deity” (Serrano, n.d., p. 119).

Just as a tulku need not only appear in the form of a single person, but can rather produce many emanations of his self, so too the various fascist national “Führers” of the first half of our century were the emanations of the mightiest central tulku and Shambhala prince, Adolf Hitler: Benito Mussolini in Italy; Oliveira Salazar in Portugal; Leon Degrelle in Belgium; José Antonio Primo de Rivera in Spain; Plinio Salgado in Brazil; Doriot in France; Jorge González von Marée in Chile; and Subhash Chandra Bose in India. All the fascist energy of the world was concentrated in the German “Führer” (Hitler): “The tulku”, says Serrano, “ — in this case it is Hitler — radiates out from a center of higher power, which like an enormous sun absorbs everything and draws it into his fire and his fate. If HE falls, then all the others fall too, then HE is of course ALL [of them]" (Serrano, 1987, p. 270).

According to Serrano Hitler must also be seen as the earthly appearance of the Chakravartin: “For the initiates of the SS Hitler was that mysterious prophet or magician who … would restore the sense of royal dignity, where the king of the world is the emperor, the priest of priests and king of kings; it is the leader, who will establish a new golden age for a thousand years and more” (Serrano, 1987, p. 354). This is clearly intended for the future, since– according to Serrano — Hitler will soon return once more to fulfill his cosmic mission. One may think what one will of such prognoses, but it is in any case amazing what a large upturn fascist movements have achieved worldwide since the end of the eighties.

The SS as a tantric warrior order from Shambhala

For Serrano the tantric initiation is the central rite of a “hyperborean” (Nordic) warrior caste. Shambhala counts as the supreme mystery site for the initiation of the “priest-warriors”. “In Shambhala”, the author says, “ the use of the force through which the mutation of the earth and the people can be carried out is taught, and the latter [the people] are introduced into the martial initiation, which makes this possible. ... Those who follow this initiatory stream have struggled to found a new/old order here on the present-day earth which has its roots in the transcendent origins, with the goal of reawakening the golden age, and they will fight on to the end...” (Serrano, 1987, p. 258). [11]

This order is the secret brotherhood of the Shambhala officers, who have for centuries been incarnated in our world — for instance as knights of the holy grail or as Rosicrucians or finally as the occult elite of the SS, Hitler’s notorious Schutz-Staffel. “Once a year”, we learn, “the inner circle of the SS people met with their supreme leaders for a few days of retreat, the solitude, and meditation. A kind of western yoga was practiced here, but nothing is known about it” (Serrano, 1987, pp. 171-172).

According to Serrano the SS were divided into two sections, an inner esoteric one and an outer one. The “exoteric SS” were selected to “be able to deal with the most difficult tasks and adventures in the external world”. “Nothing of the esoteric of the black order, its practices and teachings, its invisible connections and its occult doctrines was known” to them (Serrano, 1987, p. 264). The “inner circle” of the SS consisted of “sun people, supermen, god-men, the total human, the human magician” (Serrano, n.d., p. 96). The esoteric SS were siddhas (magicians) from the underground kingdom of Shambhala, or at least their messengers In German, SS are the initials of the “black sun” (“schwarze Sonne”), and Serrano did also call the members of the order “the men of the black sun”. We are reminded that the planet of darkness, Rahu, which darkens the sun and moon, is also referred to in the Kalachakra Tantra as the black sun.

The author is convinced, of course, that sexual magic rites were practiced in the SS (the “new aristocracy of the Aryan race”). Like Julius Evola before him, the Chilean makes constant references in his writings to how sexuality may be converted into high-quality aggressive military energy and political power through tantric practices: “Come and take me like a warrior!”, a lover (his karma mudra) says to him at one stage in his key novels, “I give you my heart for you to devour. Let us drink our blood” (Serrano, 1982, p. 54). In EL/ELLA the author recommends to heroes initiated into the tantras that “the warrior should give death the face of his lover; the fiery femininity of death will be thus evoked” (Serrano, 1982, p. 87). For Serrano, tantric practices and the cult life of a fascist/esoteric warrior caste are one.

Additionally, the sexual magic of the SS was connected with racial experiments. These aimed at a mutation of the human race, or better, a regaining of the formerly high-standing Aryan god-men who had in the dim and distant past tarnished themselves through “ordinary” sexual intercourse with human women and produced a lesser race. According to Serrano, such experiments were conducted in the Wewelsburg, the occult center of the SS. “Laboratories of leftward magic” for the re-creation of the original, pure Aryan race were to be found there (Serrano, n.d. pp. 488, 589). But these were nothing more than the above-ground branches of corresponding establishments in subterranean Shambhala. “ In Shambhala they attempted to produce a mutation of their kind which would allow them to return to that which they were before their interbreeding with the sons of man...” — when they still had a white, almost transparent body and blonde hair (Serrano, 1982, p. 54).

As Tantrics, the SS were “beyond good and evil” and for this reason their “terrible deeds” were justified by Serrano, plus that they took place at higher cosmic command (Serrano, 1987, p. 331). The “final solution to the question of the gypsies” (many gypsies perished in the concentration camps), for example, is said to have come directly “from Tibet to Hitler, certainly from Shambhala”. The gypsies used to live in Shambhala and had then been driven out of there. “The reasons for this”, says Serrano, “were known in the Tibet of the Dalai Lama” (Serrano, 1987, p. 366).

Just like the Knights Templar, the inner occult core of the SS were incarnations of the guardians of the holy grail, and “the grail of the siddhas [the magicians], of the solar and martial initiations” is to be found in Shambhala (Serrano, 1987, p. 264). The miracles which radiated from the grail were evident in the achievements of the black order in the course of the Second World War: “If one examines the achievements of the followers of Hitler in all areas of creation within a period of just six years, one cannot avoid admiring this miracle and making a comparison with the Templar order. And one comes to believe that the SS have likewise found the grail and even deciphered it” (Serrano, 1987, p. 278). Even the monumental architecture of the Third Reich is supposed to have been prepared on the building sites of Shambhala. The Hyperboreans (the gods of the north), we may read, “emigrated to two secret cities in the Himalayas, Agarthi and Shambhala. ... In Shambhala they practiced the magic of the giants which made the monumental buildings possible” (Serrano, 1982, p. 54).

In the Second World War the forces of light and the “sun race” (Hitler and the SS) stood opposed to the forces of darkness and the “moon race” (the Allies and the Jews). It was no ordinary war, but rather a global battle between the gods (the Nazis, the light Aryan race) and demons (the Jews, the dark Semitic race), between Odin, the highest god of the Germanic peoples, and Jehovah, the highest god of the Jews. The Nordic (hyperborean) heroes fought the “lord of darkness”, the “satanic demiurge”. At heart, Serrano says, the patriarchal and matriarchal powers were at war.

Admittedly Hitler outwardly lost the war, but through his sacrifice and his example he saved the ideals of the warrior caste from Shambhala. He shall return at the head of his “wild army” to finally liberate the white race from the lord of darkness (Jehovah). It will then come to a terrible final battle. “These are the dimensions of Hitler, the envoy of the hyperborean [Nordic] siddhas, the tulku, the Bodhisattva, the Chakravartin, the Führer of the Aryans, so that the demiurge Jehovah has to mobilize all his earthly and extraterrestrial legions” (Serrano, n.d., p. 50).

One may well dismiss Serrano’s visions as the product of an overactive imagination, but it cannot be denied that modern fascism has found a home and a predecessor in the Shambhala myth and in Tantrism. Its mythological conceptions and visions of power can without difficulty be brought into harmony with the practice and political ideology of the Kalachakra Tantra for all fundamental issues. The occult right wing’s move toward Tibetan Buddhism is thus in no way to be understood as the exploitation of the dharma for ignoble purposes, since there is a profound inner relatedness between these two ways of looking at the world.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama and Serrano

Naturally, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama would simply dismiss any link between the Shambhala myth and Kalachakra Tantra and the “esoteric Hitlerism” of Serrano, regardless of how closely matched even the conceptual principles of the two systems may be. Nonetheless, it is of great interest to our culturally critical study that the Kundun met with the racist Chilean several times (in at least 1959, 1984, and 1992). When His Holiness visited Chile in the year 1992, he was greeted at the airport by, among others, the leader of the National Socialist Party of Chile — Miguel Serrano by name. The principal ideologue of Esoteric Hitlerism told the reporters present that he and the hierarch from Tibet had been good “friends” since his time in India (Grunfeld, 1996, p. 302). Serrano was also a friend of the German living in India whom we have so often cited, Lama Govinda, in whose meditation tower with a view of the Himalayan mountains he was able to immerse himself.

The first encounter with the Kundun took place in 1959. In his own account, the founder of “esoteric Hitlerism” was the sole foreigner to greet the Dalai Lama as he crossed the Indian border after his flight from Tibet. “Shortly before the taking of Tibet by Mao’s troops”, he reports in his own words, “the Dalai Lama succeeded in fleeing to India. I journeyed into the Himalayas to wait for him there. I donned Tibetan clothes which the Maharaja of Sikkim had given me so as to attempt to get to Tibet from there. I made it to the Tibetan border, where — incidentally — I made the acquaintance of one of Roerich’s sons who also gave me a report of the hidden city lying in the mountains (Shambhala). The at that time still very young Dalai Lama later, when everything was over, gave me a small Tibetan dog, as a sign of his gratitude” (Palacio, 1990, p. 4).

It is at any rate interesting that the Kundun, who was introduced to western culture by a member of the SS (Heinrich Harrer), meets as the first (!) Westerner after his crossing of the Indian border the fascist Miguel Serrano, who sees a mythic command from the kingdom Shambhala at the esoteric core of the SS. Serrano says of himself: “I was employed as a tool and continue to be used” (Cedade, 1986). We may recall that upon crossing the border, the Dalai Lama gave vent to the cry of “Victory to the gods!”. The gods that Serrano represented and as whose tool he served were Wotan, Odin, and, in his own words, Adolf Hitler.

Miguel Serrano and the XIV. Dalai Lama in Santiago de Chile (1992)

As far as the “enchanting” Tibetan temple bitch of “honey yellow color” which was given him by the Kundun is concerned, this creature had a most special significance for the Chilean. The lamas, the author says, referred to the petite race as the “lion of the back door of the Temple”. Serrano’s “back door lion” was called Dolma, “the name of a Tibetan goddess; in truth the shakti” (Serrano, n.d., p. 189). Dolma is the Tibetan name for the goddess Tara. As abstruse as it may sound, after some time the Chilean recognized in the Dolma given him by the Kundun the reincarnation of a woman whom he once loved as a “mystic partner” and who (in accordance with the laws of the “tantric female sacrifice”) had had to die (Serrano, n.d., p. 189). As Dolma the bitch one day passed away in his arms — Serrano had flown from Spain to Vienna just to accompany her into eternity — he recalled an event of mythological dimensions from the 16th century. As if he were in a trance he suddenly felt that it was not the Tibetan Dolma but rather the dying sister of the last Aztec emperor Montezuma, Papán by name, whom he held in his arms. Papán — Serrano claimed — originally a high priestess from the north ("Hyperborea”), had in Mexico prophesied- according to legend — the return of the white gods to America. In her final hour, Dolma (the bitch) radiated out the energy of the Aztec princess who had to suffer a ritual sacrificial death.

Thanks to this vision Serrano could once more experience the fascination which habitually flooded through him at the embrace of dying women, even if one of them had this time been incarnated in a bitch. In NOS, a dying dog (the fate of Dolma probably lies behind this) spoke to him like a tantric lover with a human voice: “You don't need me outside anymore. I will howl inside you, like my brother the wolf” (Serrano, 1984, p. 21).

Such central “hermetic” experiences naturally tied the Chilean to the Kundun and his tantric world view profoundly and so it is also not surprising that Serrano linked “esoteric Hitlerism” and the fate of Germany to the Dalai Lama directly: His “skill”, the author says of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is “closely linked to that of Hitler’s Germany ... on account of yet undiscovered connections. A few years after Germany, Tibet also fell” (Serrano, 1987, p. 366).

The Chilean did not yet know about the SS past of Heinrich Harrer, the Kundun’s “best friend” and teacher, since this first became known in 1997 in connection with the film Seven Years in Tibet. But we can be certain that this fact would have been cited by him as further evidence to justify an occult connection between Shambhala and the SS, between the Dalai Lama and Adolf Hitler, particularly as the Chilean indicates at many points in his writings that the SS sent “secret missions” to Tibet in order to search for traces of the Aryan race there.

Serrano allows himself to be celebrated as the “Führer” of the National Socialist Party of Chile. His calendar commences with the year of Adolf Hitler’s birth in 1889. He describes “esoteric Hitlerism” as the “new religion of the young heroes and future warriors and priests, the true myth of the coming century” (Cedade, 1986). In 1989, on the 100th anniversary of Hitler’s birth (the year 100 for Serrano) a commemorative celebration was staged at which the Chilean and representatives of “esoteric Hitlerism” from various countries (Chile, Spain, Italy, Germany) spoke: “On the peak of a mountain in the Andes ranges which dominates Santiago,” the Chilean newspaper, La Epoca, writes, “and to the sounds of the Ride of the Valkyrie from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), some 100 Chilean followers and foreigners commemorated Adolf Hitler in yesterday’s evening twilight and promised that in the new Hitlerist age the continuing triumph of his ideas would proceed from Chile. ... Hitler, Serrano opined, would be resurrected from in the Andes ('Andes' means 'perfected, total human) and he would do like the Caleuche [a mystic hero of Chile, whose name means 'the man who returns’) and introduce the age of Hitler” (Epoca, April 21, 1989). This event should not be underestimated on the basis of the small number of participants. For Serrano it had a ritual/symbolic significance and was reported in detail in the German neo-Nazi scene, for example.

In fascist circles worldwide, Serrano is a “hot tip” and his bizarre visions do in fact exercise a fascinating attraction on many young people. His nazi books are openly offered for sale in all South American countries. The German translation of Cordón Dorado Hitlerismo Esoterico is available as a hardback (Das goldene Band — esoterischer Hitlerismus). Highly sought after copies of the other works (about Hitlerism) in German translation and individual propaganda essays are in circulation and passed from hand to hand. “Serrano’s mystical neo-Nazism … [has] a distinct appeal to the younger generation”, writes the historian Goodrick Clark, “Here Nazism becomes a pop mythology, severed from the historic context of the Third Reich. The Gnostic Cathars, Rosicrucian mysteries, Hindu Avatars, and extraterrestrial gods add a sensational and occult appeal to powerful myths of elitism, planetary destiny, and the cosmic conspiracy of the Jews that culminate in a global racist ideology of white supremacism. … Books by Serrano … are now circulating among neo-pagans, Satanists, skinheads, and Nazi metal music fans in the United States, Scandinavia, and Western Europe” (Goodrick Clark, 1998, pp. 221-222). The Dalai Lama has never distanced himself from Serrano. Instead of decisively opposing fascism in any country, he recently called for the former Chilean State President and fascist, Augusto Pinochet, to be spared a trial.

In the following chapter, we shall introduce a further case where Tantric Buddhism, the Shambhala myth, and the Dalai Lama have acted as godfather to a modern, extremely radical and aggressive form of fascism. A case which shook the world community — we mean the story of the Japanese doomsday guru, Shoko Asahara.

Footnotes:

[1] See Martin Brauen, Traumbild Tibet — Westlicher Trugbilder [„Ideal Tibet — Western Illusions“], Bern 2000.

[2] Clearly under the impression that the swastika would become the emblem of national socialism, a moral category was introduced in that one distinguished between the hooked crosses which are turned to the right and those to the left. The left is supposed to produce evil, the right good (Doucet, 197, p. 74). Without doubt this is based upon misinformation. In the Tibetan ritual system both forms of swastika are common.

[3] Sünner does not name the author, yet it can only have been Ernst Schäfer. This is apparent from the following quotation from Hans Jürgen Lange: “According to his unpublished memoirs that are still in Berlin in the possession of his widow, Ernst Schäfer is said to have witnessed how Wiligut fell into a trance with rolled-back eyes in the Caspar-Theiyß-Strasse. A trance which Schäfer compared with the transported state of the foot messengers in the Tibetan highlands which he had already seen in his previous research trips (in 1930-32 and 1934-36)” (Lange 1998, p. 68).

[4] Historical fascism’s contact with Japanese Zen Buddhism is the topic of Brian Victoria’s book, Zen at War. Victoria’s historical critique reveals that it was not just Shintoism that was characterized by a militaristic world view based on a strong and pervasive concept of the enemy but also Japanese Buddhism in the first half of the last century. With very few exceptions (which Victoria highlights) the Japanese Buddhists professed to the fascistoid system of their state. Even such an undisputed authority in the west as D.T. Suzuki can be counted among them. There was hardly a Buddhist “personality” (the Soto, Rinzai, Shin, Nichirin schools) which did not enthusiastically bring its religious conceptions into line with the dominant system. “Warrior Zen” — “The Unity of Zen and Sword” — “Buddhism of the Imperial Way” — “Imperial Zen” — “Soldier Zen” — “Samurai Zen”; these were the slogans of the time. After the war the martial stance of the Buddhist schools was only hesitantly reviewed. It also partly survived and finds its place in the ideology of Japanese “Corporate Zen”.

[5] The German-language Rascher publishing house in Zurich did not accept the title as such as it feared the book would not attract buyers by sounding too occult. They decided upon Meine Begegnungen mit C.G. Jung und Hermann Hesse in visionärer Schau [My encounters with C.G. Jung und Hermann Hesse from a visionary point of view].

[6] The labels of Agarthi and Shambhala also lead to some confusion in a best-seller novel in right wing circles with the title of The Black Sun of Tashi Lunpho (by Russel McCloud). Here too there is a national socialist secret society in close contact with the Tibetan lamas. Its members are, however, known as the followers of Agarthi, whilst their opponents rally around Shambhala. In the world of appearances, the followers of Shambhala are representatives of western big business and Freemasonry.

[7] Those concerned were most probably a scattered group of Kalmyks who had sided with the Germans in the struggle against the Soviet Union and had been driven back to the capital at the end of the war. But the myth that leading national socialist figures had maintained a connection to Lamaist sects (the “Berlin — Lhasa axis”) has survived to this day and is the topic of a voluminous occult Literature.

[8]According to Serrano “the Siddha or god-man [is] ... the self freed from the influence of the stars, the stellar influences no longer touch him, he is Chakravartin, king of the world” (Serrano, 1987, p. 289).

[9]Serrano was initiated into the Tantras of the Kaula, a Shivaite order. Yet the initiation scenarios from his books which we describe here are completely in keeping with Vajrayana. Serrano is not very fussy about distinguishing between the Hindu and Buddhist Tantra tradition. For him it is a matter of the principle behind the Tantric initiation and he finds this to the same extent among the Buddhists and the Hindus. Tantrism is for him an esoteric world cult which he discovers among the Egyptians, the Knights Templar, the Cathars, the Rosicrucians and the secret societies behind Hitler (the Thule society). At any rate, he sees in Shambhala and Agarthi the two mythic points of origin from which the Tantras come.

[10]Serrano often uses the labels Agarthi and Shambhala ass if they were synonymous. On p. 257 of his book The Golden Ribbon he writes: “Some are of the opinion that Shambhala is the capital of Agarthi.”

[11]Serrano regards Julius Evola and, oddly enough, Herrmann Hesse as well as the two teachers who first made him aware of the warlike spirit of Buddhism: “I am indebted to both that I got to know Buddhism as a way of the warrior. Evola explains that the religion of the Gautama is principally a warlike teaching which came from a prince who belonged to the Indian warrior caste, the Kshatriyas” (Palacio, 1990, p. 11).

source : http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/SDLE/Part-2-12.htm

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(1) The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism Guru and Sex Abuse

2008-03-25T00:32:00.004-04:00

Best-selling Buddhist author accused of sexual abuse

Nov 10 , 22:57:55 PST, 1994

http://www.well.com/conf/media/SF_Free_Press/nov11/guru.html

**$10 million civil suit filed in Santa Cruz by a woman who says Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, "coerced" her into an intimate relationship**

By Don Lattin
Special to the Free Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- With the blessings of the Dalai Lama, a group of American Buddhist women have launched a campaign to expose the alleged sexual misconduct of a prominent Tibetan lama and best-selling author.

Sogyal Rinpoche, author of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, is accused of "physical, mental and sexual abuse" in a $10 million civil suit filed last week in Santa Cruz County Superior Court.

According to the lawsuit, an anonymous woman identified only as "Janice Doe" came to Rinpoche for spiritual guidance last year at a retreat sponsored by the Rigpa Fellowship meditation center in Santa Cruz, but was "coerced into an intimate relationship" with the Tibetan guru.

"Sogyal claimed (she) would be strengthened and healed by having sex with him and that to be hit by a lama was a blessing," the lawsuit states.

The suit -- which accuses Rinpoche of fraud, assault and battery, infliction of emotional distress and breach of fiduciary duty -- also charges that the Tibetan lama has "seduced many other female students for his own sexual gratification."

Sandra Pawula, spokeswoman for the Rigpa Fellowship of Santa Cruz, one of many meditation centers in the United States, Europe and Australia, declined to comment about the allegations, but said that Rinpoche is not married and does not claim to be a celibate monk. Rinpoche, who lives abroad, could not be reached for comment. The lawsuit follows a letter-writing campaign to the Dalai Lama by American women concerned about alleged sexual exploitation by Rinpoche and several lesser-known Tibetan lamas.

"What some of these students have experienced is terrible and most unfortunate," said Tenzin Geyche Tethong, the Dharamsala-based secretary to the Dalai Lama.

In a letter sent earlier this year to one of the women, Tethong said Tibetan Buddhist leaders "have been aware of these (allegations) for some years now."

Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, was among a group of two dozen Western teachers who discussed the sexual misconduct of Buddhist teachers with the Dalai Lama last year in India.

According to Kornfield, the Tibetan Buddhist leader told the Americans to "always let people know when things are wrong. Put it in the newspapers if you must do so."

Another woman allegedly abused by Rinpoche, Victoria Barlow of New York City, said she is "disgusted by the way the Tibetans have manipulated the reverence Westerners have for the Buddhist path."

Barlow, 40, said she first met Rinpoche in the mid-1970s, when she was 21, and that she was sexually exploited by him during meditation retreats in New York and Berkeley.

"I went to an apartment to see a highly esteemed lama and discuss religion," she said in an interview with the Free Press. "He opened the door without a shirt on and with a beer in his hand."

Once they were on the sofa, Barlow said, the Tibetan "lunged at me with sloppy kisses and groping."
"I thought I should take it as the deepest compliment that he was interested and basically surrender to him," she said.

Sources say the Tibetan Buddhists were trying to handle this issue within their community but decided, especially after the Dalai Lama made the comment about going to the press, to go public now.

"The Dalai Lama has known about this for years and done nothing. There is a real code of secrecy and silence," said Barlow.

The Independent - 10. February 1999 - Paul Vallely

I was a Tantric sex slave

For years June Campbell was the`consort`of a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk. She was threatened with death if she broke her vow of secrecy. But then enlightenment can be like that.
Feet of clay? No, it was a different part of the anatomy - and of all too fleshly substance - which caused the trouble. But, I suppose, you don`t expect Tantric sex to be a straightforward activity. Then again, sex of any kind isn`t really what you`re planning when you become a celibate nun.

It was, said June Campbell as she began her lecture, only the second time she had been asked to give a talk to a Buddhist group in this country since her book. Traveller in Space came out three years ago. Small wonder. The topic of her talk was "Dissent in Spiritual Communities", and you don`t get much more potent types of dissent than hers. For she not only revealed that she had for years been the secret sexual consort of one of the most holy monks in Tibetan Buddhism - the tulku (re-incarnated lama), Kalu Rinpoche. She also insisted that the abuse of power at the heart of the relationship exposed a flaw at the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism.

This was heresy , indeed. To outsiders, the Rinpoche was one of the most revered yogi-lamas in exile outside Tibet. As abbot of his own monastery, he had taken vows of celibacy and was celebrated for having spent 14 years in solitary retreat. Among his students were the highest ranking lamas in Tibet. "His own status, was unquestioned in the Tibetan community", said Ms. Campbell, "and his holiness attested to by all".

The inner circles of the world of Tibetan Buddhism - for all ist spread in fashionable circles in the West - is a closed and tight one. Her claims, though made in a restrained way in the context of a deeply academic book subtitled - "In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism" - provoked what she described as a primitive outpouring of rage and fury. "I was reviled as a liar or a demon", she said during a public lecture last week at the nonsectarian College for Buddhist Studies in Sharpham, Devon. "In that world he was a saintly figure. It was like claiming that Mother Teresa was involved in making porn movies".

But it was not fear of the response which made her wait a full 18 years before publishing her revelations in a volume entitled Traveller in Space - a translation of dakini, the rather poetic Tibetan word for a woman used by a lama for sex. It took her that long to get over the trauma of the experience. "I spent 11 years without talking about it and then, when I had decided to write about it, another seven years researching. I wanted to weave together my personal experience with a more theoretical understanding of the role of women in Tibetan society to help me make sense of what had happened to me."
What happened was that , having become a Buddhist in her native Scotland in the hippie Sixties, she travelled to India where she became a nun. She spent 10 years in a Tibetan monastery and penetrated more deeply than any other Westerner into the faith`s esoteric hierarchy. Eventually she became personal translator to the guru as, during the Seventies, he travelled through Europe and America. It was after that, she said, that "he requested that I become his sexual consort and take part in secret activities with him".
Only one other person knew of the relationship - a second monk - with whom she took part in what she described as a polyandrous Tibetanstyle relationship. "It was some years before I realised that the extent to which I had been taken advantage of constituted a kind of abuse".
The practice of Tantric sex is more ancient than Buddhism. The idea goes back to the ancient Hindus who believed that the retention of semen during intercourse increased sexual pleasure and made men live longer. The Tibetan Buddhists developed the belief that enlightenment could be accelerated by the decision "to enlist the passions in one`s religious practice, rather than to avoid them". The stategy is considered extremely risky yet so efficacious that it could lead to enligthenment in one lifetime.

Monks of a lower status confined themselves to visualising an imaginary sexual relationship during meditation. But, her book sets out, the "masters" reach a point where they decide that they can engage in sex without being tainted by it. The instructions in the so-called "secret" texts spell out the methods which enable the man to control the flow of semen through yogic breath control and other practices. The idea is to "drive the semen upwards, along the spine, and into the head". The more semen in a man`s head, the stronger intellectually and spiritually he is thought to be.

"The reverse of ordinary sex expresses the relative status of the male and female within the ritual."

More than that, he is said to gain additional strength from absorbing the woman`s sexual fluids at the same time as withholding his own. This "reverse of ordinary sex", said June Campbell, "expresses the relative status of the male and female within the ritual, for it signals the power flowing from the woman to the man".
The imbalance is underscored by the insistence by such guru-lamas that their sexual consorts must remain secret, allowing the lamas to maintain control over the women. "Since the book was published, I`ve had letters from women all over the world with similar and worse experiences".
So why did she stay for almost three years? "Personal prestige. The women believe that they too are special and holy. They are entering sacred space. It produces good karma for future lives, an is a test of faith". The combination of religion, sex, power and secrecy can have a potent effect. It creates the Catch 22 of psychological blackmail set out in the words of another lama, Beru Kyhentze Rinpoche: "If your guru acts in a seemingly unenlightened manner and you feel it would be hypocritical to think him a Buddha, you should remember that your own opinions are unreliable and the apparent faults you see may only be a reflection of your own deluded state of mind...If your guru acted in a completely perfect manner he would be inaccessible and you would be able to relate to him. It is therefore out of your Guru`s great compassion that he may show apparent flaws... He is mirroring your own faults".
The psychological pressure ist often increased by making the woman swear vows of secrecy. In addition June Campbell was told that "madness, trouble or even death" could follow if she did not keep silent. "I was told that in a previous life the lama I was involved with had had a mistress who caused him some trouble, and in order to get rid of her he cast a spell which caused her illness later resulting in her death.
There are those Buddhists, like Martine Batchelor - who spent 10 years as a Zen Buddhist nun in a Korean monastery and who now teaches at Scharpham College - who insist the religious techniques the Buddha taught can be separated from the sexist, patriarchal and oppressive culture of many Buddhist countries. But June Campbell is not convinced. "You have to ask what is the relationship between belief and how a society structures itself," she said. In Tibetanism, power lies in the hands of men who had often been traumatised by being removed from their mother at the age of two and taken to an all male monastery. "Some were allowed visits from their mothers and sisters but always in secrecy - so that they came to associate women with what must be hidden".
But there is more to it, she believes than that. Teaching at Sharpham last week she gave the students a whole range of material about different kind of feminism - from the political to the psychotherapeutic. She then asked them how it relates to the fact that there are no female Buddha images or to why in Tantric sex images the woman always has her back to the viewer, or to why Buddhist women are told to pray that they will be reborn into a male body in their next life -for only in a man`s body can they attain full enlightenment.
"Once I started unravelling my experiences, I began to question everything," she said. That meant not just the actions of a particular guru But the very idea of the guru. She began to wonder whether the Tantra was just a fantasy, and whether there is really any difference between Tantric sex and ordinary sex. She questioned the very concept of enlightenment itself and the practice of meditiation. "I realised that in order to be myself I had to leave it all - completely an utterly."

[Child abuse in Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries]

By Lama Shree Narayan Singh

Newsweek, Sep. 2, 1996 , had carried a special report titled 'The World's Dirtiest Business – What can be done to stop the Child-Sex Trade'. The article itself was titled 'Children for Sale'; the abstract reading 'A horrific crime in Belgium shocks the world and serves as a grim reminder that the sexual exploitation of children – some of them barely school age – is a global curse. What can be done to stop it?' This was the question asked by Susan H. Greenberg. Belgians asked as to how their prayers had gone unheard! The discovery of the bodies of two young girls and two girls near death in Belgium , had shocked the conscience of the world and resulted in an intense soul-searching followed by an international outcry and campaign against paedophilia.

Few know that this scourge is rampant in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in India of His Holiness the XIVth. Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize winner for 1988. During the last decade he has emerged as an icon of the twentieth century, his charisma overshadowing any possible criticism of him, even though valid, and the various institutions he governs or represents. The international media has gone to the extent of terming him 'the face of Buddhism' presenting him as the messiah of the new age!

The Tibetan Review, a monthly magazine an organ of the Govt. of Tibet in exile, published from New Delhi, interestingly has also focussed on this evil within the Tibetan context in a telling book review on 'The Struggle for Modern Tibet – the autobiography of Tashi Tsering' by Melvyn Goldstein, William Siebenschuh & Tashi Tsering, published by M. E. Sharpe (NY & London 1997). Mr. John Billington, under whom this writer has personally studied English in Darjeeling , imbibing also the qualities of liberalism from him, writes in his review titled 'Helping Tibetans to catch up with the 20th. century' , Tibetan Review April 1998, page 23, central column, para 1:

'Polyandry and the peculiarly Tibetan mode of homosexuality were never a problem; in fact he is grateful for the patronage bestowed on him by his homosexual monk-official lover.'

Heinrich Harrer in Seven Years in Tibet too states categorically that the monks in the Potala are homosexual whilst also mentioning the terror of dob-dobs, the monk-thugs, in Lhasa .

Recently a journalist investigating the phenomenon of Tibetan Buddhism, stumbled across some alarming evidence concerning paedophilia in a Tibetan monastery. Not so long ago, a young boy aged 7 had been inducted into a monastery directly under the Dalai Lama in the hills of West Bengal . Amazingly he had himself insisted that he had wanted to go to a monastery for further studies. The parents of the boy had been naïve, even though closely associated with the monastery for many generations, until the mystery was unraveled. The boy had stayed there for about eight months and by the time he fled the monastery, he had been scarred for life. Initially he had been extremely reticent about telling his parents concerning what had happened. But slowly the truth had emerged.

The monastery he had gone to was a den of vice, even though it claimed to be of the Gelugpa persuasion – 'those who uphold virtue'. The Dalai Lama is the head of this tradition!

What transpired is briefly as follows: Every night the elder monks would entice the novice monks away from their beds offering them sweets and then rape - sodomise -- them to their hearts' content, overpowering any resistance the young ones would put up. Throughout the nights the monastery would be filled with the subdued sobbing of these unwilling victims of sexual lust. But there was nothing they could really do about it as their parents had sent them there from afar with the hope that they would be cared for well and taught the paths of virtue.

To prevent a full blown scandal, the offending teenage monk was sent off to a sister monastery in Kathmandu where such behaviour too is the norm.

This is institutionalised as 'helenkos' in Afghan society where apparently certain tribes gradually, through insertion of progressive larger pieces of rounded wood into the rectum of young boys, prepare them for their mission later on in life. In one interview published in a newspaper, an Afghan adult admitted that he indulged himself in this way due to their sheer availability, due to the separation of sexes in society. The report went on to state that invariably, the adult would have his helenko get married to one of his daughters so that he could remain in the family. Many such youngsters invariably develop rectal incontinence, the report stated.

More often than not, child abuse goes undetected primarily because of the hesitation of the victims to be frank to their parents about it. Debonair April 1996 had carried an in-depth analysis on this issue. Though focussing on heterosexual abuse, the article titled INCEST – INHOUSE ABUSE deals with the matter very sensitively and elaborating partly along the following lines.

Firstly, as is well-known, children find it extremely difficult to tell their parents about anything as personal and immediate as the violation of their bodies which they do not understand in any case. Secondly such behavior is not to be expected from those who have been entrusted with their welfare and upbringing, be it parents, relatives or mentors. It is a blatant breach of trust. Thirdly, it is natural for the authorities to feign absolutely no knowledge of child-abuse. Fourthly Tibetan society, as is well-known, is amazingly blind when it comes to its beliefs in the Dharma and their Lamas who constitute an elite of supra-mundane beings who can do no wrong and that too in spite of ever growing evidence of their culpability.

It is even more amazing that such people openly continue to wear robes, be called monks and continue apparently as being so, even though the Vinaya or the Code of Ethics, as laid down by the Buddha, prohibits penetrative intercourse of any type whatsoever and provides for their immediate expulsion from the order.

Moreover from the perspective of energy exchange, it is clear that the aggressive partner is being downloaded with excretory energy from the passive. This enters his central channel with wondrous results! This writer has noted with extreme concern, the harmful changes in personality such encounters bring about amongst active homosexuals! Anyone who tries to glorify homosexuality writing a kama sutra adapted for such people, recently reviewed in Tricycle published from the USA, needs to look deeply into the energy aspects of what he might be intending to promote.

This writer has also come to know about what is referred to as 'the peculiarly Tibetan mode of homosexuality' mentioned in the review above. In fact, it forms the rite of passage into the noviceate. Fortunately the process is non-penetrative and could be termed as a sophisticated form of masturbation where the gap between the groins serves as the make-believe. This can also take the form of mutual gratification through an interchange in the missionary position!

In fact it is said in these monasteries that one must practise this to be and remain a 'good monk'. The young are invariably abused and receive favors of various kinds from their active partners in the form of cash and so on becoming de facto 'monastic sex workers'.

Practitioners of this art trace their heritage back to a rather naughty monk called Charkha, as the Tibetans refer to him, during the time of the historic Buddha himself. The Buddha however, had refused to condone this and had included it as one of the principle infractions in the Discipline for Monks. Masturbation has been incorporated as the first of the Thirteen Lhag-mas, which require automatic expulsion after the third offence. Sex being such a fundamental human drive, it is only natural to expect that each and every monk could not possibly be purely celibate. Males are naturally aggressive as is well known.

This practice, termed "monks' custom", between consenting adults however, seems to have existed in Tibet from the days of the Buddhist founding fathers. It is not known as to when children were inducted into this phenomenon although it could be fairly early in its history considering the tremendous sexual appeal pre-adolescent boys seemingly exude as their hormones become more and more active.

Authentic Masters however, have through the centuries, spared no effort to decry this malpractice. However, they have succeeded in doing little to curb it for obvious reasons. His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche openly spoke out against it. The XVIth Gyalwang Karmapa when asked, pensively replied that during these degenerate times, it is considered sufficient if a monk could keep inviolate his Five Principal Vows. It is known however that 'monastic homosexuality' became actually institutionalized with the advent of the reformed Gelugpa movement of Je Tsongkhapa in the fifteenth century. Even so, penetration oral or anal, has always constituted a breach of the monk's vow of celibacy and openly discouraged!

In fact esoteric teachings of any tradition invariably stress the presevation of what is termed the 'bindu'. It is said concerning the previous Sangjay Nyenpa Rinpoche of the Karma Kagyu Bheng-chhen Monastery, that due to his strict celibacy, a glow could be seen in his third eye chakra. For success in the practices of the Six Yogas of Naropa in particular and for Vajrayana practises in general, the preservation of one's 'bindu' is a pre-requisite.

This writer has himself been witness to one pathetic incident a few years ago in a particularly well-known monastery in Nepal, in which one night, a young monk aged 8 was being physically hauled by none other than the Monk in-charge of Discipline. The boy in his undergarments, had kept on pleading to be released whilst his young roommate helplessly watched on. There was nothing this writer could have done as the entire episode took place in front of one of the high Lamas of that monastery, who merely chuckled over the incident.

As they grow up some adolescent monks begin to pair off; such adult 'couples' sharing their joys and sorrows as they age together within the monastic system, are not uncommon. Others merely contribute to the perpetration of this vicious cycle! In all fairness it must be stated that the more sincere amongst them, as they grow in the practice and understanding of the Dharma, veer away from indulging in themselves.

The manner in which they accost each other is through an innocuous handshake in which the would-be active partner will tickle the palm of his desire with his forefinger. The other, should he acquiesce, would tighten his grip; should he not, merely release his hand, look away and go his own way.

In conclusion, it needs to be stated that such compulsive behaviour is reprehensible and punishable under the penal codes of most civilized societies. Even worse is that the Dalai Lama has never taken the initiative to stop it, being content to brush it under the carpet for expediency!

What is amazing is the incredible veneer of respectability monks of the Tibetan plateau exude and are thus able to literally fool millions of people throughout the world. In brief, it must be emphasized that any culture or sub-culture which fails to protect its young needs to be relegated to its place in history. Modern society has no place for this. This is a message which must be sent loud and clear to the Dalai Lama.

The United Nations High Commission on Human Rights and various NGO-s are hereby urged to investigate this seriously and punish as many offenders as possible even though a personage such as the Dalai Lama be involved and implicated in such goings on. The world needs to tell this Nobel Peace Prize winner that hence it refuses to acknowledge him and his compatriot 'monks' as monks within the tradition of the Buddha!

This is in direct contrast with the stance taken by Pope John Paul II in the recent past. He has openly condemned the sexual abuse by Catholic priests of their charge. Many priests have been taken to court and forced to resign their positions! Clearly winds of reform are blowing through the Roman Catholic world, even as the Holy Tibetan Buddhist Empire of the Dalai Lama begins to disintegrate with the expose of one scam after another, stagnant as it is, clinging on to dead wood!

The inscrutable Dalai Lama clearly belongs to an anachronistic, obscurantist and medieval past where whatever he said was the law irrespective of the merit inherent in his statements and deeds. The modern world demands transparency and that its spiritual leaders actively live up to the ideals professed by them or at the very least not be hypocritical. At least Osama bin Laden is honest about his aims.

He knows now that he can no longer order that an opponent be liquidated simply by his wishing it to happen and/or paying for it! He and his devout followers must now also curtail their misguided use of tantra to get rid of and torture those who openly oppose him.

The modern world has become more of a level playing field where his idiosyncrasies are tolerated to the extent that they are not known by the ordinary person! People particularly in the west have been thoroughly fooled by his amiability for the simple reason they do not understand Asia-craft! And if he finds himself incapable of contributing meaningfully to the Buddhist world as is becoming increasingly evident, he should take sannyasa from his supposed God-kingship and be done with it.

Of what use is the gala show called the Kalachakra Initiation, due Jan 2003, when conducted by a person who has himself, given the above, committed endless breaches of the samaya covenants specifically concerning the Karmapa Imbroglio and the schism he has himself fostered in the Buddhist sangha causing immense suffering -- all in the name of Buddhism!

What blessings are expected to flow from one such?

Would it not be yet another instance of the blind leading the blind?

Would it not be better then, were he to immerse himself in social service, exchanging himself with others, practising the qualities he eloquently writes about in all his books, and thus become a worthy recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize like Mother Teresa!

'Taala'i Lama – are you listening?'