TIBET: WILL THE USA LAUNCH A NEW SECRET WAR "UNDER THE ROOF OF THE WORLD"?
Andrei Areshev
1 8.03.2008
The current unrest in the Tibetan autonomy of the Chinese People’s
Republic (seemingly unexpected) has continued for over a week.
Manifestations organised by Buddhist monks on the occasion of an
anniversary of Tibet’s annexation by China led to mass clashes with
police, violence, fires and robbery. The tragic events coincided
with the regular session of the All-China Assembly of People’s
Representatives, acquiring a dramatic scale and have already led to
deaths, forcing Beijing to use active army to crack down on the riots.
Western sources report the spread of unrest in the provinces
neighbouring with Tibet (in particular Sichuan) and mass repressions
by the Chinese authorities, holding them up in an utterly negative
aspect. And here we have an evident parallel with the way western
media covered the activities of the Yugoslav army and police in Kosovo
in 1998, immediately before the NATO aggression. Primary sources of
information whose precision is hard to verify, are chiefly Tibetan
émigrés in the neighbouring countries and western human rights
NGOs. For example, according to Thubten Sampkhel, a representative of
the Tibetan "government-in-exile" 80 protestors were killed and 72
wounded. He says eyewitnesses in Tibet who did the actual counting
verified the figures. Official Chinese sources say that 10 people
died. Some pro-Tibetan reports are deliberately over dramatising the
situation. For example there are reports about the involvement of
Chinese troops in mass killings of Tibetans; others say the "Tibetans
in Amdo province have no intention of surrendering and are resolute
to continues protests till the start of this year’s Olympic Games
in Beijing"1.
The current developments can indeed do great harm to China taking
place shortly before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Demonstrators in
Lhasa have become the gravest challenge to the Chinese rule in Tibet
over the past two decades, raising a worldwide wave of protests, and
holding China up in an unfavourable light on the eve of the Olympics,"
– the Associated Press puts it flatly. However the current events
in that mountainous district have also an even greater geopolitical
significance.
Experts on events in different continents and nations including Africa,
Latin America, Myanmar, the Central Asia, the Middle East or Pakistan
constantly stress the presence of elements of Chinese and American
confrontation that is not always evident but nevertheless not less
tense. In particular, one of the causes of the intervention in Iraq
and the incessant threats to Iran can be accounted for by the striving
to give China very poor energy rationing2.
It can be confidently argued that the present-day troubles faced
by Washington’s chief geopolitical rival would be completely taken
advantage of with an eye to pushing their development in a favourable
direction. U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice has already called on
China to exert "moderation" in order to overcome the current political
crisis in the Tibetan autonomy. Having said she was sad over the unrest
in the Tibetan administrative centre, Lhasa that followed protests
and caused deaths, Condozleezza Rice said she was worried over reports
about the growing police and army presence in Lhasa, calling on both
sides to refrain from violence. Mrs. State Secretary preferred not to
say that setting shops and buildings on fire and robbery did not fit
well in the picture of peaceful protesting. She rather recalled that
president Gorge W.Bush "has consistently called on China’s government
to have a constructive dialogue" with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual
leader of Tibetan Buddhists both directly or negotiating with his
representatives…" On behalf of the U.S. administration Mrs. Rice
called on Beijing to modify those aspects of its Tibetan policies that
"have led to tension caused by their impact on the local religion,
culture and sources of subsistence."
It can be assumed that over the past several years the Tibetan
national movement has become significantly more radical, so Beijing
would find it hard to see eye to eye with it. In the oblique way this
is evidenced by the scope and the skill of organisation of protests,
as well as the wave of anti-China manifestations simultaneously
sweeping over many countries from the United States and France to
Nepal and Australia. The Kosovo independence issue could not fail
to inspire supporters of complete Tibet’s independence from China
either. Washington realises this and for the time being continues to
make a stake of the Dalai Lama, the champion of "peaceful non-violent
forms of protest", some sort of the "Tibetan Ibrahim Rugova." The
Tibetan spiritual leader enjoys a wide public support in the West,
suffice it to recall his meeting with G.Bush, Sr. at the ceremony of
awarding the Dalai Lama with the Gold Medal of U.S.
Congress in October of 2007.
The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists has already called for
an international inquiry into China’s crackdown. His statement in
Dharamsala3 says: "The relevant international organisations should look
into the Tibetan situation to clarify its causes." The Dalai Lama has
called the activities of Chinese authorities as "cultural genocide."4
The Dalai Lama – willingly or not – is effectively preparing starting
grounds for more radical forces that are about to launch an attack,
enjoying political, propaganda and other sorts of support primarily
from forces across the Atlantic.
The U.S. involvement in the internal affairs of Tibet and its relations
with China have developed for several decades. After China annexed
Tibet in 1949 and after the annexation of Hamand and Amdo provinces
in 1956, on the initiative of the U.S. government the CIA started
its "secret war" in the mountains of Tibet. In October of 1957, an
aeroplane with no identification marks took off from a field aerodrome
near Dakka carrying the first two Tibetans the CIA had trained for
a month. Landing in the designated location close to Lhasa they
soon established contacts with the leader of local insurgents. The
Lhasa uprising started soon after, and the Dalai Lama fled. In 1958,
in total secrecy, over 30 Tibetans began their training at the Camp
Hale base in Colorado. Overall, more than 300 Tibetans were trained
there. Starting from July, 1958 the CIA began flying C-130 aircraft
from its secret base in Thailand, delivering weapons, ordnance and
trained militants. More than 400 tonnes of cargo were delivered in
1957 through 1960. In one of the sabotage operations by Tibetans Chief
of the Western Tibetan military district was killed, having on him
vitally important documents of the Chinese Communist party. Langley
obtained priceless information about China’s domestic situation, the
state of its army, the PRC nuclear programmes and the rifts between
Peking and Moscow that began to take place. By the early 1960s
U.S. secret services spent an annual $1.7 million a year in Tibet
with about $500,000 allocated for the support of 2,100 guerrillas
(including 800 armed militants), mainly based in Nepal, and some
$180,000 for the Dalai Lama’s personal needs. When later relations
between Washington and Beijing improved, the activities of Tibetan
agents were temporarily suspended. Tibetans paid a death toll of
87,000 in crackdowns of uprisings and armed clashes only…
It is to be noted that the then role of China and its economy in world
affairs was not very big, but Washington was adamantly pursuing its
policies of interference in Chinese internal affairs in one of its
"problem outskirts." This has become even more evident in modern
times when the global struggle for influence and resources has become
fiercer than ever.
With the Dalai Lama completing his mission one day, he will be replaced
by other people who, with the support of external forces would
attempt to challenge China’s national unity as a state. There will
also appear other points of "application of force" aside from Tibet,
for example Xiangyang-Uigur autonomy and Inner Mongolia… External
policy complications would not take long to arrive. It can be assumed
that the current situation would dramatically affect relations between
China and India, whom Washington is aggressively trying to draw into
its orbit, and more than that.
Unrest in Tibet can unforeseeably echo in Russia, especially in the
territories with a sizeable number of Buddhist population. Shows of
support of Tibetan manifestators can happen in Kalmykia, Buriatia
and Tuva. Ch. Budaev, Chairman of "Lamrim" Buddhist community and the
Central Spiritual Buddhist Authority has already expressed hope that
the developments in Tibet would lead the way for democratic changes
in the Chinese society. According to him, democracy in Russia was
consolidated after the well-known events of the 1990s that were given
broad international coverage.
"I’d like to believe," – Ch.Budaev said, "that the alarming
developments in Tibet we are now witnessing would in the long run
lead to democratisation of the Chinese society."5
Thus, attempts of the external forces to propose a Gorbachev-Yeltsin
scenario of China’s "democratisation" directly bring the developments
in Tibet into the realm of Russia’s foreign and domestic policies.
The article uses excerpts from Melinda Lou’s "CIA Under the Â"Roof
of the WorldÂ". (Newsweek, July 1999)
___________ 1 Eight dead bodies were brought into
the Tibetan monastery of Ngaba Kirti (Amdo, Tibet) //
_tibet.html
2 Details in: K.Simonov. Global Energy War. M. Algorithm, 2007. p.130,
and others
3 By the way, Levon Ter-Petroisan also called for an international
inquiry into the tragic events in Armenia March 1 and 2, provoked by
his own supporters. Similarities in the character of these claims
as well as the tactics of "peaceful manifestators" in both cases
give reasons to suggest a similarity of tools with which some people
attempt to arrange a "controlled chaos" in regions as different as
the southern Caucasus and Eastern Asia.
4 To recall the propaganda campaign in the wake of the destruction by
the Taliban of Buddhist monuments in Afghanistan in 2001 that ushered
in a NATO military operation in that country.
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