MONKEYS IN TIBET

I took this picture of the Potala on my first expedition across Tibet in 1986. Even though I’ve since logged over 10,000 kilometers criss-crossing Tibet, seeing the Potala is always a fantastic thrill, one of man’s great architectural masterpieces built centuries ago in Tibet’s capital of Lhasa.

It is no thrill, however, for Tibetans. For them, the Potala is "dead," for the Dalai Lama no longer lives there. The Potala is instead a bitter reminder to Tibetans that their country has been stolen, that they are slaves to their masters, the Chinese.

COA (Chinese Occupational Army) garrisons are littered throughout Tibet. The Tibetans call them Tibu Baptu, Monkey Stations. Tibetans look upon Chinese soldiers as tibu, monkeys; Chinese Communist Party officials as pakba, pigs; and the swarms of Chinese immigrants sent to colonize Tibet as chusin, crocodiles devouring Tibet’s culture.

After slaughtering two million Tibetans in the Chicom seizure of Tibet since 1951, destroying its sacred monasteries, exiling and demonizing the beloved Dalai Lama, and colonizing it with imperial tyranny, the Chinese Pakba have the audacity to elaborately celebrate each year the "Liberation" of Tibet.

This year, wonderfully and finally, the Tibetans fought back.  And even more wonderfully, it made world-wide headlines, exposing the brutality and horror of Chinese imperialism to the entire world.

For the latest developments on the ground in Tibet, see SaveTibet and FreeTibet.  The latter in particular will explain how you can personally participate in the liberation of Tibet and in ruining China’s Genocide Olympics.

What I want to discuss here are three aspects of the situation you may not otherwise hear about.

The first is the Dalai Lama is OBE – overtaken by events.  This comes as a much greater shock to the Chicoms than the riots themselves.  The Chicoms’ strategy has always been to wait for the Dalai Lama to die.  Since he’s now 72, all they had to do, they figured, is wait it out and then when he’s gone, the focus and source of resistance to their rule will be gone as well.

No such luck.  The rioting Tibetans are a new generation who will never stop fighting for a Free Tibet with or without His Holiness.  This new generation has discovered the ugly little Secret of Dharamsala.

Dharamsala is the seat of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile of Tibet, in India.  The secret is that the folks who run this bureaucracy, the entire circle of the Dalai Lama’s closest advisors, are squishes, politically treacherous leftie-liberal Chicom-appeasing wimps.

This new generation of Tibetan Freedom Fighters can’t stand them.  They revere and worship the Dalai Lama, but think he is virtually imprisoned by the squishes – and so will ignore any calls of his to stop fighting.

This has stunned the Chicoms.  You mean the Tibetans will continue to fight us more than ever even when their leader is dead?  That’s the question that never occurred to them before, and their answer will be a massive increase in the brutality and oppression.

The second is that it’s not just the Chicoms in Beijing – with rare exceptions, the entire Han Chinese people support their government’s imperialist tyranny.  The Han (China’s majority ethnic group – the ethnicity meant by "Chinese") are very much like Russians in this regard.

Back in the Reagan Doctrine days of the ‘80s, I met a group of anti-Communist Russians who talked inspiringly about how much they wanted freedom and democracy for Russia and an end to Soviet tyranny.

After telling them how much I supported their goals, I asked, "What about freedom for Ukraine?"  They changed from Jekyll to Hyde.  Bristling with anger, they said, "Ukraine is part of Russia!  It will always be a part of Russia!"

In the ‘90s, I met, on separate occasions, a leader of the Tienanmen Square demonstrations, Lu Li, and a major Hong Kong business leader named Ronnie Chang. 

Both talked inspiringly about an end to Communist tyranny and freedom for China.  So I asked, "What about freedom for Tibet?"  I got the same instant Jekyll-to-Hyde transformation.  "Tibet is part of China!" they said through clenched teeth.  "It will always be a part of China!"

Thus it’s not just the government-controlled Chinese media condemning the Tibetan protestors.  The Chinese blogosphere is alive with praise for Chinese Red Army soldiers killing and beating up the Tibetans.

The third is the question:  Will George Bush be as big a wimp towards China as his Dad?

The Tienanmen Square demonstrations for democracy and freedom in China, with their explicit appeal to America and a Goddess of Liberty statue fashioned after our Statue of Liberty, took place in June of 1989.  The Chicoms did not know what to do, waiting for world reaction.

World reaction was waiting for that of the new US president, Ronald Reagan’s successor George H. W. Bush.  His reaction was… silence.  He said nothing.  The Chicoms took this as a green light to massacre the protestors. 

A number of intelligence specialists on China tell me that if Bush 41 had supported the protestors and sternly warned the Chicoms against their violent suppression, the Chicoms would have at least hesitated – giving the protestors time to grow in strength both in Beijing and across the country.

History might have turned out quite differently had Bush 41 not been a coward towards China.  So far, Bush 43 has exhibited the same cowardice regarding China and Tibet.

Keep these three factors in mind as you watch the drama in Tibet unfold.  Do what you can to support the Tibetans in the their liberation struggle against Chinese monkeys and pigs and crocodiles.  The flicker of good news amidst the Chicom savagery is that now we know – now the Tibetan people know – that the struggle for a Free Tibet will not die with the Dalai Lama as the Chicoms dreamed.

That gives hope that one of humanity’s most spiritual cultures will some day triumph over one of its most evil and murderous.
 

Ps:  Okay, one story of being in Tibet.

A Tibetan’s most prized possession, the greatest gift you can give him or her, is a picture of the Dalai Lama. I have passed out thousands of such pictures all over Tibet – and every one illegally, for it is against Chinese law to have them.  One time I did was particularly memorable.

The eastern part of the Chang Tang Plateau of Tibet is a region called Kham.  That’s where the Wild Men of Tibet live, nomads called Khampas.  The Chinese are scared to death of them.

On my first overland expedition across Kham, I was on the lookout for them – and when I spotted a half-dozen riders galloping along a ridge in the distance, I ordered our Chinese jeep driver to stop.  When I got out, telling my clients to wait, and started walking towards the riders, the driver panicked in fear, grabbing me and yelling, "Stop!  They will kill you!"

I pushed him aside and kept walking.  The riders had stopped.  It took me a while to reach them.  They were a scene straight out of a movie, red topknots wound through their long hair, armed with muskets and swords, their ponies’ nostrils blowing steam, they sat unmovingly in their saddles, looking at me with menacing coal-dark eyes.

I walked straight up to them without hesitation and handed each of them a picture of the Dalai Lama.  Instantly they sprung off their horses, their suspicious glower transformed into smiles as they reverently touched the sacred picture to their foreheads.  Whoever I was, I was their friend.  They gently pushed down on my shoulders, a gesture that meant, "Please sit down, let’s have a cup of tea."

I waved for those with me, watching anxiously by the jeep, to come – which they did.  The Chinese driver stayed right where he was.  Two of those with me were Joel Wade, and Big John Perrott (albinobushman on the Forum).  They, like me, will always treasure sitting on a barren ridge 14,000 feet high on the Chang Tang having a cup of yak-butter tea with those Khampa wild men as one of the more memorable experiences of our lives.