disinformation | i'm a contra, too!

Welcome to Disinformation | July 06, 2003

Abuse Your Illusions - the follow-up to Everything You Know Is Wrong & You Are Being Lied To is in the store and every bit as essential. The long-awaited Disinformation DVD is in too!
>>Go

U.S. Weighs Military Intervention in Liberia
>>Go

What The European Papers Say
>>Go

Violence Mars Nigerian Strikes
>>Go

Religion in the News: June 2003
>>Go

i'm a contra, too!
by Nick Mamatas (Laddertrick@gvny.com) - October 18, 2000

Annexed by China in 1959 after years of fighting, the small nation of Tibet has become ground zero for the human rights movement.

Tibet has become a cause celeb for the Amnesty International crowd for much the same reason it was the center of the plaster-and-chicken-wire worldviews of Theosophists and Dr. Strange comics: the exoticism and mysticism. The Dalai Lama's own tireless advocacy and Hollywood networking for his people, and the myth of his pacifism has captured the attention of a new generation of activists.

R.E.M.'s lead singer Michael Stipe summed up the feelings of the movement in the New York Post (November 2nd, 1997). The Tibetans resisted Chinese rule "peacefully without raising swords. No matter what hardship these people were under, they would not raise a hand against the enemy."

As a historian, Michael Stipe would make a great alternarock mumbler. He's wrong.

Guerilla war against the Chinese invasion began in earnest in the mid-1950s, and the CIA funded and recruited Tibetans to fight against the Chinese. The intelligence agency even enlisted the Lama's own brother to run guns into Tibet. Potential recruits were asked one question by the US officials, and it wasn't a Zen koan either: "Do you want to kill Chinese?"

Like many CIA-backed insurgencies, this one failed, because the US completely misunderstood the array of forces in Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism was highly tied to Tibetan nationalism, and the serf economy precluded many of the potential recruits from leaving their bucolic homes for the rigors of push-ups and Cold War indoctrination in the Colorado hills.

After the Tibetan Uprising of March 10th, 1959 (which probably saved the Dalai Lama's current incarnation), the spiritual leader split for India and started weaving a new mythology for his beleaguered homeland. The US changed tactics as well, training the Contra-like Chusi Gangdruk guerillas in Nepal to carry on armed attacks against the Chinese invaders. Occasional bombs rock Lhasa and other Tibetan cities till this day.

The new mythology was simple: China had invaded Tibet, slaughtered people, torn down many fine temples and shattered the society by flooding the area with Han Chinese and Maoist urban planning. That much is true. The Dalai Lama left out a few things though.

Chattel slavery existed in Tibet well into the 1950s, and the vast majority of the population was serfs who had to pay tithes to . . . you guessed it, the lamas. Most Tibetans were not mystic sorcerers capable of levitating or stopping their own heartbeats for fun and enlightenment (and profit). They were broken-backed peasants tied to the monastery establishment.

Not everyone in Tibet huddled around fires of burning yak dung in their little hovels though: the Dalai Lama himself lived in the 1000 room, 14 story Potala Palace with a personal retinue of slaves, and spent the summers in the slightly smaller Norbulingkha Palace.

The Chinese like to claim that they freed thousands of Tibetans from serfdom, and the Free Tibet movement claims that the Chinese only "pretended" to do so. The Free Tibet movement is right as well; most Tibetans are still living miserable lives of oppression.

But the Free Tibet movement needs to be re-examined. Ex-CIA agent Ralph McGee claims that the Company is still pulling the strings that animate the Beastie Boys' social consciousnesses, and that old gunrunner, Gyalo Thondup, the Dalai Lama's older brother, is still raising money for the campaign.

At the time of the annexation, the US said nothing; it was widely believed that China had historic claims to Tibet. Only when the political worm turned, and the Tibetan slaveholders created a mythology of pacifism and compassion, did anyone begin to care.

Dalai Lama: An Apologist For Peace Or A Fomenter Of Riots>
Hey, what's wrong with a little rioting? Chinese propaganda aimed at poking holes in Tibetan propaganda. "Overuse" of "quotation marks" in order to imply "ironic" use of "certain phrases" is nearly "obsessive compulsive" in this "poorly written" piece. I'd foment riots too, and I wouldn't apologize for it.

The Dalai Lama Not Involved In The CIA Help, Asserts Tibetan Administration
The Dalai Lama's myth-making machine is at it again. A few years ago, many documents relating to CIA involvement in the Tibetan freedom struggle were declassified. Here, the Dalai Lama takes pains to explain that he, personally, had nothing to with it. It was his brothers. And his co-thinkers. And his underlings. And his serfs. That's right, the only politically connected person in Tibet to not know about the CIA machinations and guerilla warfare training was the Dalai Lama. What's so hard to believe about that? Links at the bottom take pains to repeat the same information.

Hollywood Hides Tibet's True History
Gary Wilson explains Tibet's history and its role as an inter-imperialist pawn between West and East. Good background, with a brief bibliography of the CIA's role in Tibet. Loses a pyramid for its outrageous pro-Chinese point of view. One shouldn't be surprised: Workers World is the group that ran the headline "Workers and peasants crush counterrevolution!" after tanks rolled over student dissidents in Tiananmen Square.

An Annotated Chronology Of Relations In The 20th Century
From the International Committee Of Lawyers for Tibet. This timeline shows that intervention in Tibet is a long-held practice, as are exiled lamas, Chinese claims to Tibet (the US-backed Nationalists weren't fond of lamas being treated like political rulers either) and the continued enslavement of Tibetans even after the Chinese claimed to have "ended serfdom and slavery." A good first step for further research.

In Focus: Reassessing Tibet Policy
A scholarly article pointing out the long-standing relationship between Tibet and China, and the US-history of supporting armed rebellion in Tibet as long as it did not interfere with the importation of cheap toys from China. While claiming to suggest a new direction for US policy towards Tibet, the article simply restates the need to be nice to China and directly avoid the issue of Tibetan independence. Good bibliography though.

The Flight Of The Karmapa Lama From Tibet
Interesting article (March 22nd, 2000) by Peter Symonds from the Trotskyist World Socialist Web Site. Some good info on the pre-invasion Tibetan economy: "In this strange theocracy administered from Lhasa, all land belonged to the state. Much of this had been granted in the form of hereditary manorial estates to aristocratic families or important monasteries. The government retained a few holdings for its own use, but most of the remaining arable land was leased in strips to small-holding peasants." This broad-ranging polemic slams China, wealthy lamas, the CIA, the so-called "profundity" of Tibetan Buddhism and practically everything else it mentions. Bully for them!

In Tibet, A Struggle Of The Soul
A Washington Post story (July 16th, 1999) by John Pomfret with a bit more candor than usual. This story acknowledges Tibet's pre-invasion feudal economy and even quotes an ex-slave as saying "I may not be free under Chinese Communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave." This piece also points out that the Dalai Lama is wildly popular in Tibet, but that the landholding aristocrats who make up a significant fraction of the government-in-exile are not. Just to make sure this page only gets three pyramids, there is a silly "kicker" ending about a poor Tibetan who has a shrine dedicated to the American way. Aaww.

The Free Tibet Movement: A Selective Narrative
A solid background piece for the Free Tibet movement, including CIA involvement in Tibetan resistance. It also examines the Hollywood connection, though wrongly privileges publicity over militant resistance.

Dalai Lama: My Dream For Tibet's Freedom
Do not confuse criticism of the Dalai Lama's phony pacifism and the heavy-handed involvement of the CIA with an attempt to downplay the viciousness of the Chinese invasion. This interview with the Dalai Lama's other older brother (not the CIA stooge) spells out the Tibetan situation, in strongly nationalistic terms.

The CIA's Secret War In Tibet
The ground-breaking Chicago Tribune article (Januaty 26th, 1997) by Paul Salopek about the CIA's involvement in the Tibetan resistance movement. Cleverly points out that the Tibetans have gained a lot of political currency by pretending to be spiritual and helpless, and that the government-in-exile is reticent about their bomb-throwing past as Asian contras in an American game of Risk.

Traditional Society And Democratic Framework For Future Tibet
From the official Web site of the government-in-exile. This White Paper hopes to refute the Chinese claims that most Tibetans were landed serfs by admitting that most Tibetans were landed serfs, but that the ruling monk class was actually very nice to the peasants. And then the Dalai Lama comes back to Tibet, he promises to give up his role as an absolute monarch. What's an extra four hundred years of feudal oppression for the Tibetans, as long as all's well that ends well?

Free Tibet
Read the Free Tibet movement's side of the story.

Beastie Boys
In the late 1960s, right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed that the Beatles were a front group for a secret Soviet plot to infiltrate America. Are the Beastie Boys really the unwitting stooges of pro-nationalist Tibetan propaganda?

No Messages Posted Yet...