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Volume 2 Number 9

Torchbearer for Tibet

01 October 1989

What does Lodi Gyari, a right-hand man of the Dalai Lama, make of the recent crackdown in China?

Tibetans have long experienced the People's Liberation Army as one of repression. Chinese troops invaded the Himalayan kingdom-in 1949, immediately after Mao's revolution. So what does Lodi Gyari, a right-hand man of the Dalai Lama, make of the recent crackdown in China?

`Unfortunately' - and, to my surprise, he repeats the word - `unfortunately for the first time the outside world is willing to listen to us. But at what price, after the gruesome things that have happened in Beijing? I feel guilty that the bloodbath there has given our word credibility.'

His reply reflects a sensitivity to Chinese suffering as well as to his own people's. On the wall behind him hangs a tanka, a painting of the Buddha of mercy - who reminds Gyari to `forgive the Chinese a thousand times if necessary', though he admits this doesn't come easily. One senses no shadow of bitterness in him towards the Chinese, even though they were responsible for the death of three of his brothers.

Over a million Tibetans died after the Chinese invasion, and Tibet's Buddhist culture was desecrated. Five years after the invasion, independent India recognized China's claim on Tibet. The West huffed and puffed but realpolitik dictated that Western interests - and future markets - lay with a thousand million Chinese rather than six million Tibetans.

Lodi Gyari, at 41, is a member of the Kashag, or cabinet, of the Tibetan government in exile and is responsible for external relations - in effect the foreign minister, though unrecognized as such by the rest of the world. He has twice represented the Dalai Lama in negotiations in Beijing over Tibet's future. He acknowledges the political realities that the West faces. But he does not mince his words when it comes to what he sees as the West's lip-service to human rights.

The West created a 'dreamland of the China they wanted to believe in', he says. `That has been totally shattered. Who wants to invest in China now?' Economic growth in China depended on stability - and that depended on democratic freedom. Had the West stood firmer over human rights issues, such as China's occupation of Tibet, the events of Tiananmen Square might never have happened, he believes. `I call it real betrayal.'

One can understand the strength of Gyari's feelings. When the Dalai Lama visited London 18 months ago the British government shamefully refused to receive him. This year, on Gyari's visit to several European capitals, things have gone slightly better. When we met in London he had just come from the House of Commons where an all-party group had been formed to support the Tibetans' cause. In Paris, Tibet was represented at a human rights conference chaired by President Mitterrand. But the British government still declined to meet Gyari at any level.

The wild east
Lodi Gyari comes from the most rugged area of Tibet. His father was a prominent chieftain in Kham, which Gyari cheerfully describes as `the wild east'. The family claimed a long martial tradition in a country where horses and guns are the most treasured possessions - and where it was considered unmanly to &e in one's bed. Khampa families measured their wealth in guns and Gyan's father had over 100 `of all shapes and sizes' hanging on the walls of his home.

Before Gyari was born, Buddhist abbots predicted that his mother would give birth to a boy who would be considered a reincarnation of the renowned Abbot Aten. So at the age of three he was taken from his home to be brought up as a Buddhist monk - the only one of 14 children to be so honoured. It was a three-day journey on horseback to the monastery and during the next six years Gyari was to return to his family home only twice.

Monastic life was rigorous and Gyari remembers his awe of his teachers., the abbots, as well as a certain loneliness. But that all came to an end when he was nine. His family, who were prominent in the resistance to the Chinese occupation, had to flee to central Tibet and, fearing for the boy's safety, took him with them. He remembers being thrilled by the adventure of it all: living in a tent, waking, under the stars.

In 1959 the Tibetans rose in open rebellion against the Chinese and were defeated. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India with some 9,000 of his followers. Gyari, then aged 11, and his family were among them. All his relatives who remained in Tibet died in the repression. Four priests in the family were taken prisoner and three died in concentration camp. One relative committed suicide.

As a student Gyari plunged into campaigning for the freedom of his people. At the age of 18 he launched The Voice of Tibet, the first English-language journal to focus on the Tibetan cause. He was the youngest editor to attend the All India Small Newspaper Editors' Conference and was spotted by the eminent Indian journalist Frank Moraes, who took him under his wing at the Indian Express in New Delhi. While he was there, the Tibetan government in exile, now based in Dharamsala in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas, invited Gyari to edit their mouthpiece, The Tibet Bulletin.

By now the first young Tibetans educated outside their homeland were graduating from Indian schools and colleges, determined to keep the torch of a free Tibet alight. Gyari and two colleagues organized the first Tibetan youth convention in India and 300 attended. It led to the birth of the Tibetan Youth Congress and Gyari was elected President. `The older people called us the Red Guard,' remembers Gyari.

He also headed the Office of Research and Analysis and soon became the youngest of the cabinet secretaries. `I was very outspoken and differed strongly with members of the Kashag,' whom he felt were not militant enough in their approach to the Chinese. He led a hunger strike outside the UN Information Centre in New. Delhi. His resignation from his post as cabinet secretary led to a major split within the Tibetan community, but when he stood for election to Parliament he was returned with the highest vote of any Khampa MP. He felt his stance had been vindicated. In 1979, during his first term of office, his parliamentary colleagues elected him President of the Parliament. As such the Dalai Lama sent him as one of three emissaries to Beijing in 1982 and 1984.

He did not relish the task of `sitting across the table from the people responsible for butchering over a million of my people'. `But because of my great personal reverence and respect for my leader I could not say no.' In Beijing he came to realize that there were Chinese who had suffered as much as his own people, especially during the cultural revolution. `We met veteran party leaders who gave horrifying stories of what their own comrades had done to them. Nevertheless that mistrust was still with me.'

Shortly after Gyari's first visit to China, the Dalai Lama sent him to a Moral Re-Armament conference in India. There Gyari encountered a young Chinese woman from Malaysia who, `with her eyes full of tears', apologized to Gyari for what the Chinese had done to Tibet. Gyari recognized her sincerity even though she was in no way responsible for events in Tibet. `Such acts of human brotherhood contribute a great deal to the dialogue between China and Tibet,' says Gyari. `She was instrumental in personally pushing me, encouraging me, to believe that there may be a dialogue between the Chinese and the Tibetans, that we may respect and understand each other.'

Another encouragement came from the conciliatory approach of the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, whose death was to spark the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. `He had the decency after going to Tibet to apologize to my people,' says Gyari. `Not only that, he had the courage to pull up the Chinese party cadres and officials in Tibet. He used the words, "We are ruling Tibet like a colony." '

Now, with the clampdown in China, all dialogue has ceased. But, according to Gyari, overseas Chinese who keep close connections with the mainland have been urging the Dalai Lama not to feel disheartened over official responses from Beijing. They tell him that any pressure brought to bear on Beijing `is registered somewhere and has its positive effect'.

The Dalai Lama's stance, which Gyari has been advancing, is to declare Tibet a Himalayan `peace sanctuary for man and nature', as an antidote to the nuclear arms build-up in the region. It has been known for some time that China, the world's third nuclear power, is stockpiling its arsenal in Tibet, and Gyari's worst, if unlikely, scenario is that Tibet could become the focus of a nuclear conflict. `After all,' says Gyari, `Tibet won't go away.'

The Dalai Lama proposes that the country be disarmed in stages while, as an `interim arrangement', allowing China to keep a sizeable army in Tibet. His proposal is designed to help the Chinese `save face'- which, says Gyari, is something we all like to do. But he also asserts that `Tibet inhabited by a disenchanted, unhappy, occupied people is a liability to China' - much as Afghanistan was to the Soviets.

Plea to West
As the Tibetan government in exile has renounced the use of violence, the West should be prepared to talk to them, Gyari maintains - and could surely do so without prejudicing its relations with China. `Please help us to open up the hearts of the Chinese,' he adds, `because that is the China that is important for us all. Isolating China is no solution. We must try to bring China within the fold.'

Equally the West should do what the Chinese do and `put down markers which cannot be negotiated and which you will not compromise', he says. `What is the West most respected for? Democratic traditions, commitment to freedom and, yes, to human rights. As well as exporting your technology you should export these values.' After all, points out the Buddhist politician, they stem from `the strong moral stance of your Christian churches'.

'Lodi Gyari could be one of the catalysts for the transformation of China into a more open, democratic society,' says the Chairman of the British Tibet Society, William Peters. `This must be worked out in China itself. But Gyari challenges us by saying that our attitudes could make a crucial difference.'

How long Tibetans will remain non-violent is another matter. Tibet has been under martial law since March because of violent demonstrations in the capital, Lhasa. Gyari's fear is that if sufficient support for the Dalai Lama is not forthcoming, Tibet's young militants, some of whom are increasingly impatient with the Dalai Lama's approach, will not remain passive for ever.