The fight for the Panchen Lama. (Tibetan spiritual leader)

Tim  McGirk

World Press Review
Vol.42 No.9 (Sept 1995)
pp.41-42

COPYRIGHT Stanley Foundation 1995

            THE INDEPENDENT The high Tibetan plateau is an empty place of stone, 
            ice, and fleeting clouds. Chinese officialdom seldom bothers with 
            the nomadic tribespeople who move their yaks across this vast 
            wasteland searching for pasture. But sometime in May, in the remote 
            Nagchu area, high-ranking communist cadres swooped down on a nomad 
            encampment and detained a six-year-old Tibetan boy. Gendun Choekyi 
            Nyima and his poor, barely literate parents were reportedly placed 
            on an airplane under tight security and flown to Beijing under 
            orders from the Politburo. "We're greatly worried about the boy and 
            the family's safety. Nothing is known of their whereabouts," says 
            Tenzin Atisha, an official in the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile 
            in India. This six-year-old is no ordinary child. Gendun is 
            considered to be the reincarnation of the revered Tibetan spiritual 
            leader known as the Panchen Lama. Ever since the last Panchen Lama, 
            a jolly-looking 50-year-old, died in January, 1989, under mysterious 
            circumstances--some Tibetans accuse the Chinese of poisoning 
            him--the search for his reincarnation has acquired a dangerous 
            political dimension. In the spiritual hierarchy of Tibet, the 
            Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama, who won a Nobel Peace 
            Prize for his nonvolent opposition to China's continued occupation 
            of Tibet. Beijing wanted desperately to find the new panchen Lama 
            and then to mold the boy so that he could eventually be set up as a 
            challenger to the Dalai Lama. Although rivalry has often existed 
            between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the present Dalai Lama 
            was apparently on very friendly terms with the last Panchen Lama. In 
            the early 1960s, the Panchen Lama began demanding more freedom for 
            Tibetans. He spent many years in jail or some kind of detention, 
            but, upon release, continued to be critical of Chinese rule. A week 
            before his death, he publicly reaffirmed his loyalty to the Dalai 
            Lama. Soon after the Panchen Lama died, the Dalai Lama's 
            governemt-in-exile requested that senior monks be allowed into Tibet 
            to search for his successor. The Chinese refused and instead 
            launched their own quest for the Panchen Lama. One London-based 
            Tibetan specialist says, "There was something Monty Python-esque 
            about how the Chinese went looking for the Panchen Lama. They were 
            perfectly willing to abandon marxist dialectics for mysticism to 
            strengthen their control over Tibet." The communists included in 
            their search party several lamas from the Panchen Lama's monastery, 
            Teshi Lumpo, putting in charge abbot Chadrel Rimpoche. In 1993, he 
            had informed on monks who were arrested for reading an autobiography 
            of the Dalai Lama and for listening to Voice of America radio 
            broadcasts. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama was pursuing his own 
            investigations from India. According to the Tibet Information 
            Network, a human-rights organization based in London, the Dalai 
            Lama's investigations and those of Chadrel Rimpoche were both 
            leading to the nomad boy in Nagchu. His birthplace matched 
            descriptions given to the Dalai Lama by several of Tibet's 
            protective oracles--men who enter trances and allow the spirit of a 
            deity to speak through them. As a final test, the Dalai Lama wrapped 
            the names of all 30 candidates inside dough balls and mixed them up. 
            One witness said: "The ball with Gendun's name seemed to fly up at 
            the Dalai Lama, not once but several times. The Dalai Lama laughed 
            and said, 'It's like magic.'" The Dalai Lama's announcement of the 
            Panchen Lama's discovery on May 14 threw the Chinese into a spin. 
            The government attacked the Dalai Lama for interfering in the 
            Panchen Lama's selection, but so far, nobody has said the boy is not 
            the true Panchen Lama. Chinese wrath at being outwitted by the Dalai 
            Lama has fallen heaviest on Chadrel Rimpoche. He is being held 
            incommunicado in Beijing. Dissident sources claim the monk is also 
            under heavy pressure to denounce Gendun. In ordinary times, the 
            discovery of a new Panchen Lama is a joyous occasion, with tens of 
            thousands of Tibetans swarming to Teshi Lumpo for the enthronement 
            ceremony. But the Chinese have banned public discussion of the 
            Panchen Lama in Tibet. Teshi Lumpo, say recent visitors, is now 
            surrounded by more than 1,000 Chinese soldiers armed with assault 
            rifles. The monks are being forced to sign denunciations of their 
            former abbot and the new Panchen Lama. The stakes were raised still 
            higher in June when a Chinese government body described the Dalai 
            Lama as "a reactionary chieftain" and said his choice would never be 
            recognized by the communists. As this latest political storm sweeps 
            Tibet, it is easy to forget that all these intrigues focus on a 
            six-year-old boy whose parents may be delighted, but who might 
            rather be left alone to play. --Time McGirk, "The Independent" 
            (centrist), London, June 19, 1995.