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It is with some hesitancy that I write this essay in reference to the paper ‘Not the Tibetan Way’: The Dalai Lama’s Realpolitik Concerning Abusive Teachers that Rob Hogendoorn and I jointly wrote. My general rule is not to take part in social media and blogs, hoping to let my articles speak for themselves. If someone writes to me privately, I am glad to engage them to exchange ideas and views. To date this has worked well for me for twenty-five years. However, unsurprisingly, in this case much has been commented on the blog Diffi-Cult, owned by Tenpel (also known as Tenzin Peljor), by him and others that I think is misleading and disturbing.
At the least, I do not think it a good idea that Tenpel, the blog’s owner, comments on our paper even though he readily admits to not having read it. Yes, he did say he did not write a review, but only is commenting. In addition, quoting an un-named academic who hasn’t read the paper and only knows of it from him, who also hasn’t read the paper, is really bad form. What did Tenpel say to un-named academic, what was the context, what can he reply except to some very general notion to a context he does not know?
The Dalai Lama is a leading spiritual teacher in the world today. Our paper in no way says anything different. However, the Dalai Lama is also has been an active political figure on the world’s stage for over sixty years. Acting in this dual-role of spiritual leader and political leader, presents him with some complicated and at times conflicting choices. This is made more complicated by the fact that the Tibetan people and government-in-exile are in a weak and vulnerable position in the world in virtually every way: the Dalai Lama is dependent on more powerful players, such as the United States of America and India, for political backing, financial and military support and even a place to live, to accept refugees and to allow his government-in-exile to function.
Partial Picture
Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Santiago, Chile), an interior view from the museum which was built to commemorate the victims of Pinochet’s dictatorship.
It is fine to only view the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader and there is no shortage of people doing so. However, for better or worse, powerful players supporting the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile sooner or later want a political favor in return. The only political favor the Dalai Lama can offer, is lending moral authority to individuals and institutions by his endorsement or with a photo-op.
There are a number of examples where the Dalai Lama used his “moral authority” to return a favor that was instrumental in causing a terrible miscarriage of justice and a corruption of his mantel as a spiritual leader, but here we will look at just one case. It is the pivotal point of this response to Tenpel.
The Dalai Lama joined the US government, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II in public support of Great Britain’s 1999 refusal to extradite Augusto Pinochet (b. 1915 d. 2006) to Spain so that Pinochet could stand trial in an open court of law for “crimes against humanity,” more on which later in this paper.
Some view the Dalai Lama from a religious context, describing him as what amounts to being a high-level Bodhisattva. Once that position is taken, the Dalai Lama’s deeds and words are beyond question, despite his own assertions that the words and conduct of religious teachers, himself included, should indeed be examined and called into question. From this lofty standpoint, everything he says and does simply reflects a concern for compassion in the world. This is the context in which Tenpel places his statements advising against Pinochet’s extradition and trial.
Worldly-wise Politician
Hogendoorn and I have chosen to view the Dalai Lama’s involvement in the Pinochet case within his role as a political figure. At that time, 1999, in addition to being the de facto spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, he was also the head of state: leader of the Central Tibetan Administration in India and an experienced, wordly-wise politician. He has had this role for approximately sixty years, so he is an experienced player. He dealt personally with Mao and Zhou Enlai, had ongoing relations with several Indian governments, high-ranking American officials, presidents and military figures, and too many world leaders and religious figures to list. There is just no denying that, out of necessity, the Dalai Lama acts as an experienced political player.
With this in mind, it should be no surprise to anyone that the Dalai Lama endorsed India’s manufacturing and testing an atom bomb. Had he taken the moral high ground and made critical remarks directed at India’s bomb testing, as the host country of the Dalai Lama, it could have made his life and those of thousands of Tibetan refugees very difficult. Certainly, the Dalai Lama did what most every political figure in the world in the same weak position would have done.
Similarly, the Dalai Lama’s earlier endorsement of India’s Special Frontier Force (SFF), a para-military unit originally composed of more than 10,000 Tibetans trained in the manner of America’s Green Berets with the special skill of high-altitude warfare, is understandable. In terms of realpolitik it is one hundred percent understandable, but it is hardly the sort of position one would expect from a high-level Bodhisattva. And so, in our paper we choose to highlight the Dalai Lama’s role as an experienced, savvy, political actor, not as a purely religious leader.
Wider Context
In bringing up the Dalai Lama’s response to the Pinochet extradition, Hogendoorn and I view the Dalai Lama’s actions within the wider context of the long history of US interference in South and Central American political life along with the United States’ military, financial, and political support for the Dalai Lama. This history extends across the twentieth century, but became especially aggressive from the 1950’s into the 1990’s. During the Cold War period, the US backed one right-wing murderous regime after another: think of the Contras in Nicaragua, death-squads in El-Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in Central America and Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and of course Chile in South America.
On September 11, 1973, General Pinochet with the backing of the US government led a military coup that overthrew the legally elected government of socialist Salvador Allende. Pinochet and the extreme-right faction had the solid support of Richard Nixon and his advisor Henry Kissinger, as well as the corporate support of ITT, International Telephone and Telegraph Co. which was heavily invested in Chile and gave material support to the coup. As the coup, militarily, gained the upper hand, Allende committed suicide in the presidential palace, and the military government headed by Pinochet inaugurated a long reign of terror: mass arrests, systematic rape, horrific torture, hundreds, probably thousands of summary executions with many detainees being simply “disappeared,” their families unable to find records of arrest, let alone retrieve the bodies of loved ones. In some instances, detainees were thrown live from helicopters over the Pacific Ocean or high peaks in the Andes.
These violations of human rights by any standard, were undertaken with the knowledge and express support of the US government under several presidents. If Pinochet had been extradited to Spain to stand trial for crimes against humanity, no doubt, America’s role in backing and supporting the coup and the slaughter that followed, would have been brought up in a court of law for the world to see. Perhaps worse, from the US government’s point of view, a trial of Pinochet would have brought up Operation Condor (1975-1985), a campaign between the US and right-wing dictatorships in South America, of which Chile was only one. Military supplies and support and intelligence was routed through the CIA. It is difficult to come up with solid figures for clandestine operations, but researchers estimate that Operation Condor resulted in 50,000-80,000 killings and as many as 400,000 unlawful imprisonments. Given America’s self-asserted profile as a beacon of democracy, this was not the history that the US wanted advertised to the world.
Realpolitik Logic
Within the realpolitik logic of the Cold War the United States also had been backing the Dalai Lama and his government financially, militarily, and politically for many years in pursuit of a counterbalance to Chinese power and aggression in Tibet. Just as he could not afford to cross India in its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal, or its Special Frontier Force, the Dalai Lama could not afford to cross the United States position of non-extradition for Augusto Pinochet.
The Dalai Lama claimed it was time to show “compassion” for Pinochet, by then an elderly man of 83, and not extradite him to Spain to stand trial. Sadly, the Dalai Lama remained totally quiet for the many years that Pinochet was torturing and disappearing thousands of Chileans, and Operation Condor was doing the same across much of South America. What is the case for applying this sort of bodhisattvic compassion only in specific cases, especially while the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, that is, the Mothers of the Disappeared, endorsed extraditing Pinochet.
Tenpel writes that it is necessary to view events and people in the world in context. Of course, it is necessary to view events and people in the world in context. However, invariably, there is more than one context. As seen here, different contexts present different, sometimes glaringly contradictory viewpoints. We chose to view the Dalai Lama as a man in a complicated position: that of being both a religious leader and a political leader of a weak country in conflict with China, a major world power.
The context Rob Hogendoorn and I chose, was to focus on the Dalai Lama’s actions as a political player. He has negotiated tensions within the Tibetan diaspora and among followers of Tibetan Buddhism; he has responded to appeals from leaders of religious/spiritual groups with questionable reputations looking to gain legitimacy through association with him. He has maintained relations with governments of other countries in the world of power politics. Devotees of the Dalai Lama and much of the popular media tend to color him only as a guiding light in the world. That is a simplistic desire for something “pure” to hang onto and we do not succumb to it.
Hence, our perspective is significantly different from Tenpel’s, which seems to focus only or largely on the Dalai Lama as a highly-enlightened Bodhisattva. We feel that our perspective explains, as our paper ‘Not The Tibetan Way’ amply demonstrates, and this essay highlights in the case of Augusto Pinochet, how many of the Dalai Lama’s seemingly contradictory actions only make sense from a transactional standpoint. That is, it is a business decision: governments and religious figures give protection and financial gifts, and in return the Dalai Lama gives legitimacy and even turns a blind eye to savagery and crimes against humanity. Calling this “poor judgement” belittles the Dalai Lama. I think the man himself may agree.
This essay has been edited for clarity.
