Skip to content or view screen version

The Role of the CIA: Behind the Dalai Lama's Holy Cloak

Michael Backman | 24.03.2008 18:53 | Globalisation | Other Press | Repression | World

This incisive article by Michael Backman outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence.

In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.

Global Research Editor's note

This incisive article by Michael Backman outlines the relationship of the Dalai Lama and his organization to US intelligence.

The Dalai Lama has been on the CIA payroll since the late 1950s. He is an instrument of US intelligence.

An understanding of this longstanding relationship to the CIA is essential, particularly in the light of recent events.

In all likelihood US intelligence was behind the protest movement, organized to occur a few months prior to the Beijing Olympic games.


M. C. 23 March 2008


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rarely do journalists challenge the Dalai Lama.

Partly it is because he is so charming and engaging. Most published accounts of him breeze on as airily as the subject, for whom a good giggle and a quaint parable are substitutes for hard answers. But this is the man who advocates greater autonomy for millions of people who are currently Chinese citizens, presumably with him as head of their government. So, why not hold him accountable as a political figure?

No mere spiritual leader, he was the head of Tibet's government when he went into exile in 1959. It was a state apparatus run by aristocratic, nepotistic monks that collected taxes, jailed and tortured dissenters and engaged in all the usual political intrigues. (The Dalai Lama's own father was almost certainly murdered in 1946, the consequence of a coup plot.)

The government set up in exile in India and, at least until the 1970s, received $US1.7 million a year from the CIA.

The money was to pay for guerilla operations against the Chinese, notwithstanding the Dalai Lama's public stance in support of non-violence, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The Dalai Lama himself was on the CIA's payroll from the late 1950s until 1974, reportedly receiving $US15,000 a month ($US180,000 a year).

The funds were paid to him personally, but he used all or most of them for Tibetan government-in-exile activities, principally to fund offices in New York and Geneva, and to lobby internationally.

Details of the government-in-exile's funding today are far from clear. Structurally, it comprises seven departments and several other special offices. There have also been charitable trusts, a publishing company, hotels in India and Nepal, and a handicrafts distribution company in the US and in Australia, all grouped under the government-in-exile's Department of Finance.

The government was involved in running 24 businesses in all, but decided in 2003 that it would withdraw from these because such commercial involvement was not appropriate.

Several years ago, I asked the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance for details of its budget. In response, it claimed then to have annual revenue of about $US22 million, which it spent on various health, education, religious and cultural programs.

The biggest item was for politically related expenditure, at $US7 million. The next biggest was administration, which ran to $US4.5 million. Almost $US2 million was allocated to running the government-in-exile's overseas offices.

For all that the government-in-exile claims to do, these sums seemed remarkably low.

It is not clear how donations enter its budgeting. These are likely to run to many millions annually, but the Dalai Lama's Department of Finance provided no explicit acknowledgment of them or of their sources.

Certainly, there are plenty of rumours among expatriate Tibetans of endemic corruption and misuse of monies collected in the name of the Dalai Lama.

Many donations are channelled through the New York-based Tibet Fund, set up in 1981 by Tibetan refugees and US citizens. It has grown into a multimillion-dollar organisation that disburses $US3 million each year to its various programs.

Part of its funding comes from the US State Department's Bureau for Refugee Programs.

Like many Asian politicians, the Dalai Lama has been remarkably nepotistic, appointing members of his family to many positions of prominence. In recent years, three of the six members of the Kashag, or cabinet, the highest executive branch of the Tibetan government-in-exile, have been close relatives of the Dalai Lama.

An older brother served as chairman of the Kashag and as the minister of security. He also headed the CIA-backed Tibetan contra movement in the 1960s.

A sister-in-law served as head of the government-in-exile's planning council and its Department of Health.

A younger sister served as health and education minister and her husband served as head of the government-in-exile's Department of Information and International Relations.

Their daughter was made a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile. A younger brother has served as a senior member of the private office of the Dalai Lama and his wife has served as education minister.

The second wife of a brother-in-law serves as the representative of the Tibetan government-in-exile for northern Europe and head of international relations for the government-in-exile. All these positions give the Dalai Lama's family access to millions of dollars collected on behalf of the government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama might now be well-known but few really know much about him. For example, contrary to widespread belief, he is not a vegetarian. He eats meat. He has done so (he claims) on a doctor's advice following liver complications from hepatitis. I have checked with several doctors but none agrees that meat consumption is necessary or even desirable for a damaged liver.

What has the Dalai Lama actually achieved for Tibetans inside Tibet?

If his goal has been independence for Tibet or, more recently, greater autonomy, then he has been a miserable failure.

He has kept Tibet on the front pages around the world, but to what end? The main achievement seems to have been to become a celebrity. Possibly, had he stayed quiet, fewer Tibetans might have been tortured, killed and generally suppressed by China.

In any event, the current Dalai Lama is 72 years old. His successor — a reincarnation — will be appointed as a child and it will be many years before he plays a meaningful role. As far as China is concerned, that is one problem that will take care of itself, irrespective of whether or not John Howard or Kevin Rudd meet the current Dalai Lama.

 michaelbackman@yahoo.com,

www.michaelbackman.com

Michael Backman
- Homepage: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8426

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

How much!

24.03.2008 22:51

What utter rubbish the CIA would not be paying that much to the Dali Lama. Nor does the Dali Lama need to be on their pay role

the CIA may have been behind the protests by funding other activists, that much is known in history but not the Lama

cia


Ha ha ha!

25.03.2008 00:24

Well Michael Backman, that was a good laugh! Dalai Lama on the CIA payroll? CIA behind the recent protests in Tibet? Got any more howling tales like that or is this just an Easter holiday special?

Since the US, together with the rest of our western governments, is so keen to eat a big piece of China's new-found economic pie, i hardly think they would do anything to vex China. They certainly haven't rushed to help the Tibetans in the last 50 years, so why start now? If only they had, and our British government too, then maybe the lives of 1 million Tibetans wouldn't have been lost, thousands wouldn't have been imrisoned and tortured.

Whose payroll is Michael Backman on then i wonder? As a successful businessman in Asia, he must have done some serious sucking up to the Chinese government, and thought to hell with human rights and justice. i guess he needs to tell funny stories to distract himself from the horrors of the cruel regime which has helped shape his fortune.

CIA (Completely Idiotic Accusation)


The God King on the CIA

25.03.2008 01:56

A randomly seleceted God King is perhaps preferable to the inbred dynasties we still support, such ERII and the residual genetic dead-end of her inbred aristocracy and our subsequent middleclass but the Idiot Son of Donkey Kong, Bush II, should give us all pause for thought.


"I'm always against violence. But the Tibetan guerrillas were very
dedicated people. They were willing to sacrifice their own lives for the
Tibetan nation. And they found a way to receive help from the C.I.A. Now,
the C.I.A.'s motivation for helping was entirely political. They did not
help out of genuine sympathy, not out of support for a just cause. That was
not very healthy.

Today, the help and support we receive from the United States is truly
out of sympathy and human compassion. In spite of their desire for good
relations with China, the Congress of the United States at least supports
Tibetan human rights. So this is something really precious, genuine."

The Dalai Lama is a cretin. Not compared to our leaders, but compared to the mass of humanity. He is a God King. A lot of the people who decry Islam daily are supporting this God-KIng.

I sort of prefer buddhism, but I much prefer Thich Nhat Hahn to this wannabe Queen. All populations that want to gain national automity should sieze it - but really, fuck the aristocracy.

Danny


globalresearch.ca

25.03.2008 08:18

The Dalai Lama probably does have CIA connections. I mean as the CEO of bhuddism he's practically got an obligation to his shareholders to side with any ally against the Chinese and for Tibet doesn't he?

But globalresearch.ca has a funny way of spinning every single issue into a rant againt US imperialism that always seems to paint the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in a totally uncritical light. Maybe it's just kneejerk "the enemy of the my enemy" lefty anti imperialism. Yet while I don't have any evidence that it has links to Russian or Chinese intelligence, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a news source that sounds more like their propaganda!

anonymous


Black propaganda

25.03.2008 10:35


This article is rubbish, you know: a serious smear attempt which some people will take seriously. Just look at the paragraph where he accuses the Dalai Lama of eating meat! Tibetans do eat meat, it is in their culture. The Dalai Lama did stop, and was told by his doctors to start again. So what if they got it wrong?

Nice man hated by China and the corporations (who want the Olympics, badly, since they make the money out of it ) accused of being in pay of CIA, favouring his family, and meat eating. Doesn't get more stupid than that.

A


NED alert

25.03.2008 11:07

For a start, the Dalai Lama is not the CEO of Buddhism, outside of Tibet he is just another floor-sweeper. Even Buddha isn't the CEO, more like the employee of the month for the past millenia. It is not a hierarchical belief system like say Roman Catholicisms God-Priest-Sinner.

I spent some time investigating Global Research a few years back, suspecting some of their contributors of having links to the CIA via a political cult, but I found nothing. To suggest links to China or Russia is well, dismissable.without evidence. Your evidence is that they blame everything on the US imperialism so they must be in the pay of China or Russia is not evidence. Most people in the world blame everything on US imperialism, and mostly they are right to do so. Doubtless the Russians and Chinese operate fronts for their PRopaganda but nowadays they are mostly aimed at a domestic market, not at Westerners.

The Dalai Lama talks openly about Tibetan contact with the CIA in the 50's and 60's. This other article by the same GlobalResearch author shows the links between the Tibetans and the NED, the modern PR front of the CIA.:
 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530

I don't like the author. His calls for democracy for Tibet rather than polyarchy seem both unrealistic and perhaps undesirable. If Tibetans truly believe this giggly geek is a god-king then who are we to complain. I would like to see a free Tibet but I know I won't until I see a free and stable China. The NED aren't trying to help Tiet, they are trying to destablise China. And whatever you think of China today, well, it has been and could soon be a helluva lot worse - mainly thanks to hypocritical western imperialist aggression.

China has lifted more people out of poverty in the past twenty years than the rest of the world combined, and not just domestically. We gave Africa BandAid, while our companies stripmined the continet. The Chinese provided 17000 doctors. We provided extortionate loans for grandiose projects and the Chinese provided genuine long-term investment.. I don't think that is purely humanitarian but it shames the west, and it dirties all the Tibetan groups that have taken CIA money.

Danny


don't praise china

25.03.2008 14:57

The chinese ruling class/government/political elite has bulldozed its own people's homes and businesses out of the way, without any compensation, to make way for building facilities for the Olympics. It has no interest whatsoever in the safety of the building workers who are working on the facilities, and some of them have died. The survivors have been threatened with arrest and imprisonment (without trial) if they talk about the deaths. China has not provided even development for its rural areas and most rural chinese are still living in relative poverty. Chairman Mao managed to kill millions of his own people by pursuing an insane economic policy that caused a famine in the 1950s. He instigated his "red guards" to murder and dispossess most of the country's skilled professionals and intelligentsia during the 60s and 70s...China is a vicious totalitarian state whose rulers have no particular concern for the welfare of their people in general. There is nothing to choose between this and any western government. If China gives aid anywhere, it is with the same motives as western governments: to enhance its political standing and influence in other parts of the world. If the aid benefits anybody, this is incidental to the motive for giving it.
Oh, and not forgetting that the Chinese have been systematically destroying Tibetan culture and religion for decades, for the same reason as they have been imprisoning and torturing Falun Gong practitioners and Chinese christians. You just can't have people "worshipping" anything other than the ruling communist party! That would make totalitarian rule impossible to maintain.

spartaca


hm

25.03.2008 18:59

I agree with the preceding poster regarding China. I don't know what you mean Danny, that "China" has "lifted people out of poverty". My remarks on globalresearch.ca were simply speculation, but I don't think they were empirically unfounded. There are occasional articles by retired Russian military personel, for example, cross propagation from sites like pravda.ru and asiatimes. Nearly all coverage of SCO states either dismisses all criticism of their repression and lack of human rights as either Western propaganda or a justified reaction to American aggression and attempts at destabilization.

It's true that Chinese capital is creating a new investment market in Africa and in the short term this is a positive alternative to US hegemony. However, the whole premise of the anti globalisation movement is that public pressure on the capitalist class can create reforms in the less developed countries in which their capital is invested, and that this is some sort of alternative to revolution. But the same sort of fools who believe this also think that Chinese, Russian and Indian capitalists are somehow more benevolent than the West's. But the conditions for dissent have already been abolished in these third world and state capitalist regimes, negating the potential for any anti-globalisation type movement there. So any assumption that the SCO countries are a legitimate alternative to US imperialism is just based on arbitrary faith, dumb, white, Western middle class guilt and the distant spirit of apologism for Stalinism / Maoism etc........

As for the Dalai Lama - he's a theocratic monarch or whatever.. so why shouldn't he take money from the CIA? What would be odd about that anyway? He doesn't pretend to be a fucking anarchist (tho most anarchists these days don't know themselves from buddhists) Obviously Tibet can't remain neutral. It's either going to be a client of America or annexed to China. And the Chinese have shown that for internal ideological reasons, they can't even do a good PR job, and make it seem like they're prepared to offer cultural if not economic freedom. This shows A) that the CCP is still very ideologically repressive (PR win for the US) and B) that the CCP knows the DL has real support and Tibetans really want independence. And since I don't think there's a large Tibetan capitalist class, it probably isn't just for economic reasons either. The Americans would love Tibet to become China's Chechnya.

I read recently that the DL was quite the lefty in the 70s and said he was "half buddhist. half marxist". This was shortly after the CIA funding described in the article stopped... perhaps it gives the article some credence.. and considering how good an anti-Chinese PR asset the DL is towards middle class Western public opinion, it would make sense for the CIA to have continued covertly funding him.

anonymous


What a dismal, embarrassing article

25.03.2008 20:10

cripes! just how lacking in self -respect and shame must you have to be to be a willing black propagandist for the chinese govt, of all people!

Daansaaf
mail e-mail: jezza_cox@yahoo.co.uk


Just 2 Anon

25.03.2008 23:21

> I don't know what you mean Danny, that "China" has "lifted people out of poverty".

Shit, don't take my word for it. This is an intro to a World Bank report. I could have chosen numerous left-wing sources but I assume you don't think the World Bank is a communist front ?


Fighting Poverty: Findings and Lessons from China’s Success

Across China, there were over 400 million fewer people living in extreme poverty in 2001 than 20 years previously. By 2001, China had met the foremost of the Millennium Development Goals — to reduce the 1990 incidence of poverty by half — and it had done so 14 years ahead of the 2015 target date for the developing world as a whole.

As countries prepare for the United Nations Summit in September 2005 to evaluate progress toward these goals, researchers Ravallion and Chen have assembled new data going back to around 1980 and extracted critical findings and lessons from China’s success in the battle against poverty. China’s success against poverty since the reforms that began in 1978 is undeniable.

> There are occasional articles by retired Russian military personel, for example, cross propagation from sites like pravda.ru and asiatimes.

AsiaTimes is a damn good read, certainly better than the London Times. You can't compare that or Global Research to Pravda. See, you are obviously a newbie so let me explain how to smear by association. If you wanted to smear GR then you would falsely link them to things that are worse. So Pravda was a good attempt, but your smear fell flat with the Asia Times. Too many people here read the Asia Times.

>But the same sort of fools who believe this also think that Chinese, Russian and Indian capitalists are somehow more benevolent than the West's.

In Africa, China has done more good in the past 20 years than the west has ever done. More doctors, more partnerships, more good. I am not pretending this is proof of good intent, the Chinese state may have ulterior motives. They certainly don't have any qualms helping rather dodgy regimes but that applies to us to. The US/EU could still turn that around and out contribute to Africa, and in fact that has started but only to the countries with oil or mineral reserves.


>As for the Dalai Lama - he's a theocratic monarch or whatever.. so why shouldn't he take money from the CIA?

Because it is hypocritical. The CIA commit mass-murder. Because it is dangerous. The CIA don't give a fuck about Tibetans except what advantage their suffering gives them. I honestly can see why they took the aid, I probably would in their circumstance, but it is both hypocritical and suicidally dangerous. Where most Tibetan exiles live there is a saying, 'A drowning man will clutch at snakes'.

>Obviously Tibet can't remain neutral.

You are in a room with a gunman and your family. There are police outside shooting in randomly. Opposing that gunmans grievances isn't that smart. Tibet can not afford to not be neutral.

>The Americans would love Tibet to become China's Chechnya.

No, the Russians flattened Chechnya without much internal cost. It would be more accurate to say they would love Tibet to become China's Afghanistan, although that disaster has since been overwritten by a new failed occupation. However, your analogy of Chinas Chechnya is much closer to what would obviously happen to Tibet under open revolt. The Chinese will lose the Olympics before they lose an inch of territory, and you, me and the USA can do nothing to stop that short of nuclear war.

Danny


Keep it simple

26.03.2008 02:05

Well, although i still dislike the tone of Michael Backman's post, i realise now it is true that the Tibetans have received CIA money. But even so, let's keep things simple and not forget the main point here: Tibet was invaded brutally and illegally by China and has seen its people killed, tortured, imprisoned and its freedom, language and culture eroded ever since. In the light of this, how much does it really matter that the Tibetans received money from sources which they might in hindsight think better of?

The simple truth is that the main event here is not about US imperialism versus Chinese communism, but about gaining justice for a country and its people who have been, and continue to be, gravely wronged.

paula


BBC documentary

26.03.2008 16:48

If there are people who doubt about CIA-financing of Dalai, they can watch
the BBC documentary about the the Shadow circus

I saw it and a CIA official states the brother of the Dalai was a very good officer of us

 http://www.asianamericanmedia.org/shadowcircus/
 http://www.whitecranefilms.com/film/circus.html

About CIA and the events now you better read Asia Times
 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JC26Ad02.html

Jan from Brussels

Jan J
mail e-mail: jan.jonckheere@skynet.be


Different empire, same shit

26.03.2008 21:49

Many German people are reluctant to criticise the Israeli state. British people never feel that sense of shame mainly because we were never defeated militarily so our understanding of our empire is more informed by Kipling than a genuine historical awareness of our own crimes. One British soldier on slaughtering Tibetans in 1904:

"I got so sick of the slaughter that I ceased fire, though the general’s order was to make as big a bag as possible, I hope I shall never again have to shoot down men walking away. I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them to at last to negotiate."

Danny
- Homepage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet#British_Invasion