In 1951, Loy Wesley Henderson, then the US Ambassador to India, hurled out the first cold war salvo against China. He covertly offered support if the Dalai Lama would denounce the 1951 Agreement and exile to India to pursue a separatist agenda. Some elite liked the idea, but the Dalai Lama wavered. Then the CIA went to work. Dalai's two older brothers and a band of monks were trained in Saipan and Camp Hale, Colorado. Secret parachute drops into Tibet began.

In 1956, the Dalai Lama was in India for a Buddhist conference. The Dalai brothers schemed to retain him. Premier Zhou Enlai went to India and met the Dalai Lama and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru regarding this scheme. The Dalai Lama wavered again, took his time, heard his brothers, but eventually returned to Lhasa safely on his own accord.

It was already 1958, no self-generated reforms surfaced. The elite knew that time was running out. The CIA simply wanted the Dalai Lama to ask openly for outside help. The Dalai brothers urged. Once more, he wavered.

Then everything came to a head in 1959. The Dalai Lama, as a set up, requested for a military troupe performance on March 10. There was a rumor a day earlier that he had been abducted. On March 10, he did not show up, and Lhasa was surrounded by armed riotous separatists.

He sent out three letters to say that he was restricted. On March 17 midnight, he was escorted into the Lhasa darkness. The "government in exile" was hurriedly set up before they crossed into India on March 31.

Beijing did not pursue, but kept open his official title until 1964, just in case he wavers again. According to researcher A. Tom Grunfield, the whole episode was the handy work of the CIA. Henderson's cold war wish of 1951 was finally realized in 1959.

On March 28, 1959, Beijing formally ended political association with the Lhasa elite. On that day, over a million serfs were freed. Democratic reforms continued.

The Tibet Autonomous Region was established in 1965. March 28 became the Slave Emancipation Day. The rest is history.

The 1959 "peaceful uprising" is a myth created by the Dalai Lama to justify his exile and the independence cause. Two things are signified here. Point one, he failed to tell the world that the "uprising" was staged and the exile was self-induced, made possible by foreign machination and impelled by his refusal to liberate serfs.

Even more serious, he failed to acknowledge that, in his absence, China made the ultimate affirmation of human rights in the 20th century by emancipating over a million Tibetan slaves in 1959. In this regard, his claim that China killed 1.2 million Tibetans was a pure fabrication. If that were the case, there would be no serfs left to liberate, since the 1953 Tibet census count was only 1.274 million.

Point two, the Dalai Lama, by choice and despite Beijing's forbearance, missed being on the right side of history.

Due to his youth and inexperience, the Dalai Lama repeatedly wavered between the selfless Buddhist stance and the selfish practice of the elite. Finally, he made his choice and is facing the consequences since.

Fifty-three years ago in India, Premier Zhou Enlai gave him this sagacious and prophetic advice: As a man of faith you must stay around your monastery in Lhasa. If you stay out, Tibet will reform with or without you. The Dalai Lama has been without a monastery for 50 years. His worldly political possessions, Nobel peace prize notwithstanding, ultimately mean nothing for his next incarnation.

The author teaches philosophy in the United States.

Source: China Daily