Debunking Jeremy Cronin

JEREMY Cronin's attempt at "Debunking the Dalai Lama" (March 30) makes use of the tools of classic Chinese propaganda.

JEREMY Cronin's attempt at "Debunking the Dalai Lama" (March 30) makes use of the tools of classic Chinese propaganda.

For one thing, his scant and skewed relation of the historical facts will not stand up under scrutiny. Of note is his assertion that the Dalai Lama fled Tibet before the brutally suppressed uprising of March 10 1959.

In fact, the Dalai Lama left Tibet on the night of March 17, after thousands of Tibetans had surrounded his summer residence to protect him from a Chinese assassination plot. By this time, Chinese artillery fire was being directed at the residence.

Neither did the Dalai Lama make any decisions without consultation. Throughout this period the Kashag (a collective of regional representation) was consulted.

The decision to abandon any attempt at a struggle for independence was forced on the Kashag by two overriding conditions: the Tibetans had no military to speak of, and the Western governments to which they had appealed for help failed to provide any.

When CIA assistance was finally given, in early 1960, its aim was to irritate China rather than to effect Tibetan independence.

In the interim, the Dalai Lama had announced a policy of non-violent resistance, to which the Tibetan government-in-exile has steadfastly adhered through 60 years of Chinese brutalisation of the Tibetan people.

For this last fact alone, the Dalai Lama has proved deserving of the Nobel peace prize.

The Chinese-generated propagandistic myth that the Dalai Lama has striven to return Tibet to its pre-invasion socio-political system of hieratic rule, a falsehood that both Cronin and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel have repeated in the past week, is easily exposed.

Anyone can access the website of the Tibetan government-in-exile to study its proposals for democratic governance in an autonomous Tibet within a greater China.

The majority of Tibetans are, moreover, in agreement with these proposals for genuine autonomy, recognising the hopelessness of a quest for outright independence in the face of Chinese military and economic power - and international apathy.

There are other misrepresentations in Cronin's article.

The historical facts can be found in such authoritative documents as those issued by the International Commission of Jurists, and the conference of international lawyers on issues relating to self-determination and independence for Tibet.

Any collection of the Dalai Lama's speeches, articles and interviews shows his unbroken record of adherence to the principles of non-violence, reconciliation and sincerity in his efforts to achieve a just and practicable resolution to the dire situation of the Tibetan people under Chinese domination.

Cronin's reference to "serious unresolved cultural and developmental challenges in Tibet" begs to be read as a conscious downplaying of the real horrors of the continuing human rights violations perpetrated against the Tibetan people by their Chinese oppressors.

Cronin is mouthing the Chinese version exclusively; one might wonder to what end.

From March 2008 to date, more than 6000 Tibetans have been arrested for political reasons and more than 200 have been killed. Access to Tibet is denied to all human rights organisations and other impartial parties wanting to ascertain the facts.

What seems to be emerging from the ANC and SACP is an effort to assist their Chinese friends by all and any means to maintain a silence in South Africa about the real situation in Tibet.

Clearly, efforts at "debunking" the Dalai Lama would help to serve that purpose. In the tradition of all ideological propaganda, such debunking has no compunction about incorporating any and all falsehoods and distortions.

We are sorry to see representatives of our nation descending to these levels to justify the government's outrageous and servile decision to ban the Dalai Lama from our shores.