World War 4 Report, NY
Oct 19 2007
Dalai Lama pawn in Bush’s oil wars?
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Fri, 10/19/2007 – 12:49.
We’ve already had to warn the heroic Buddhist dissidents of Burma and
colonized Uighur people of China’s far west against allowing
themselves to be exploited as propaganda fodder by the Bush White
House. Now it seems we have to warn the Dalai Lama – whose official
website boasts the text of his Oct. 17 Capitol Hill acceptance speech
upon being awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is truly
perverse to witness a single news story in the Los Angeles Times that
day in which Bush defends his decision to attend the ceremony for the
Dalai Lama (and to hold a private schmoozing session with him at the
White House a day earlier) – while calling the Armenian genocide bill
"counterproductive" meddling in Turkish affairs! This double standard
should clue the Dalai Lama in that he is being used. Turkey is a
strategic ally that Bush needs keep on good terms to stabilize
Iraq – and, at this moment, to restrain from threatened military
incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan. China is an imperial rival in the
critical scramble for Africa’s oil – and the key nation now falling
under the rubric of the 1992 Pentagon "Defense Planning Guide" drawn
up by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby which said the US must
"discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our
leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
China is reacting to the Congressional award much as Turkey is
reacting to the progress of the Armenian genocide bill. "We solemnly
demand that the U.S. cancel the extremely wrong arrangements,"
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Oct. 16. "It seriously
violates the norm of international relations and seriously wounded
the feelings of the Chinese people and interfered with China’s
internal affairs." China was protested the honors for the Dalai Lama
by pulling out of an international strategy session on Iran sought by
the US and planned for the same day the award was given. (AP, Oct.
16) The day after the ceremony, Yang summoned US Ambassador to China
Clark T. Randt to lodge a formal protest. "The move is a blatant
interference in China’s internal affairs. It has hurt the feelings of
the Chinese people and gravely undermined bilateral relations,"
ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news briefing. He urged
Washington to correct "the terrible effects of its erroneous act and
stop conniving with, and supporting, ‘Tibet independence’
secessionist forces." (China Daily, Oct. 19)
The Dalai Lama’s speech anticipated that he would be accused of
"hidden agendas":
On the future of Tibet, let me take this opportunity to restate
categorically that I am not seeking independence. I am seeking a
meaningful autonomy for the Tibetan people within the People’s
Republic of China… I have no hidden agenda. My decision not to
accept any political office in a future Tibet is final.
The Chinese authorities assert that I harbor hostility towards China
and that I actively seek to undermine China’s welfare. This is
totally untrue. I have always encouraged world leaders to engage with
China; I have supported China’s entry into WTO and the awarding of
summer Olympics to Beijing. I chose to do so with the hope that China
would become a more open, tolerant and responsible country.
Ironically, principled activists concerned with Tibet, Burma and
Darfur, as well as sinister neocons who seek to exploit these issues,
might consider the Dalai Lama too soft on China! Nonetheless, most
telling that His Holiness is in danger of being co-opted by the
all-too-worldly agenda of the Bushites is that his speech contained
not even the most allusive criticism of the war in Iraq – a nation
being ravaged by US imperialism as surely as Tibet has been ravaged
by Chinese imperialism.