Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy
by Michael Barker, Global Research
People familiar with Asian history will be aware that during Tibet=92s
popular uprising against their Chinese occupiers in 1959, his Holiness
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama (then aged 23), escaped from his
homeland of Tibet to live in exile in India. Subsequently, the Dalai
Lama formed a Tibetan government-in-exile, and to this day the Dalai
Lama and his government remain in exile. The Dalai Lama=92s tireless
efforts to draw international attention to the Tibetan cause received
a welcome boost in 1989 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and
since then the Dalai Lama has been able to demand sustained media
attention (globally) to his ongoing non-violent struggle for a free
Tibet. This part of Tibetan history is fairly uncontroversial, but a
part of Tibet=92s story that less people will be familiar with is
Tibet=92s historical links to the US=92s Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). Indeed, as Carole McGranahan (2006) notes =93the case of Tibet
presents a mostly unexplored example of covert Cold War military
intervention.=941
While in recent years far more information has been made available
concerning the CIA=92s violent linkages with Tibetan forces, to date
only one article has examined the connection between Tibet=92s current
independence campaigners and an organization that maintains close ties
with the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
A Brief History of CIA-Tibetan Relations
In 1951, the Chinese People=92s Liberation Army entered Lhasa (Tibet=92s
capital) and proceeded to force the Dalai Lama=92s government to sign a
=93Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet=94, which effectively
ratified the Chinese occupation of Tibet. This action combined with
the ensuing Chinese repression of Tibetan activists subsequently
inspired a popular revolution, which owing to its anticommunist
orientation drew upon strong sup****t from the CIA.2 As Jim Mann (1999)
notes, =93during the 1950s and 60s, the CIA actively backed the Tibetan
cause with arms, military training, money, air sup****t and all sorts
of other help.=943 Furthermore, as Michael Parenti (2004) has observed
at the same time:
=93=85 in the United States, the American Society for a Free Asia, a CIA
front, energetically publicized the cause of Tibetan resistance, with
the Dalai Lama=92s eldest brother, Thubtan Norbu, playing an active role
in that group. The Dalai Lama=92s second-eldest brother, Gyalo Thondup,
established an intelligence operation with the CIA in 1951
c5b05daff7704b3165b5a1f453602f063781fd7f7226829c576b26927ed4e3. He
later upgraded it into a CIA-trained guerrilla unit whose recruits
parachuted back into Tibet.=944
Indeed, according to formerly secret US intelligence do***ents
(released in the late 1990s), it turned out that =93for much of the
1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million a
year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of
$180,000 for the Dalai Lama=94.5 By 1969, however, it appears that
covert sup****t for the Tibetan cause had either served its
geopolitical purpose (or it was decided that these operations were
simply no longer effective), and the CIA announced the withdrawal of
its aid for the Tibetan revolutionaries. That said, sup****t for the
Tibetan freedom fighters was still provided by the Indian and
Taiwanese governments =93until 1974, two years after President Richard
Nixon normalized U.S. relations with China=94 (as were the U.S.
subsidies for the Dalai Lama, which also continued until 1974):
however, thereafter =96 especially once the Dalai Lama urged the
fighters to put down their weapons =96 the violent resistance collapsed
and the =93CIA quietly paid to resettle the survivors=94.6 With the
apparent end of CIA operations in Tibet, John Kraus (2003) observes
that although:
=93=85President Ford ended the U.S. government=92s involvement with Tibet
as=
part of its Cold War strategy. The next phase of the U.S. relation****p
with the Dalai Lama and his people was to be cast in terms of a
contest between human rights and political engagement with China.=947
Thus Kraus adds that in 1979 the Dalai Lama was =93finally granted a
visa by President Jimmy Carter=85 to visit the United States=94 and the
=93Tibetan cause then found new sponsors in a bipartisan group of
senators, members of Congress, and congressional staff assistants who
worked with the Dalai Lama=92s entourage to focus the attention of
successive U.S. administrations and a responsive world community on
the Tibet situation=94. As this article will demonstrate, a large part
of this freedom work is presently being actively sup****ted by the NED,
so the following section will now examine this organization and it
anti-democratic history.
The National Endowment for Democracy: Revisiting the CIA Connection
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was established in 1984
with bipartisan sup****t during President Reagan=92s administration to
=93foster the infrastructure of democracy =96 the system of a free press,
unions, political parties, universities=94 around the world.8
Considering Reagan=92s well do***ented misunderstanding of what
constitutes democratic governance,9 it is fitting that Allen
Weinstein, the NEDs first acting president, observed that in fact =93A
lot of what we the NED do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the
CIA=94.627c54df33d74fa546933b514e554be2184408933fa6d661f55e6dd622a199 So
for example, it is not surprising that during the 1990 elections in
Nicaragua it is has been estimated that =93for every dollar of NED or
AID funding there were several dollars of CIA funding=94.
1fea415a454030ae647a57df5554fe66
By building upon the pioneering work of liberal philanthropists (like
the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations=92) =96 who have a long history of
co-
opting progressive social movements =96 it appears that the NED was
envisaged by US foreign policy elites to be a more suitable way to
provide strategic funding to nongovernmental organizations than via
covert CIA funding.1e03731acac427b4a5090ec914bdc8e6 Indeed, the NED=92s
=91new=92 emphasis on overt funding of geostrategically useful groups, as
opposed to the covert funding, appears to have leant an aura of
respect to the NED=92s work, and has enabled them, for the most part, to
avoid much critical commentary in the mainstream media.
The seminal book exposing the NED=92s =91democratic=92 modus operandi, is
William I. Robinson=92s (1996) Promoting Polyarchy, which as it=92s title
suggests, lays out the argument that instead of promoting more
participatory forms of democracy, the NED actually works to promote
polyarchy. Robinson argues that the NED=92s active promotion of
polyarchy or low-intensity democracy =93is aimed not only at mitigating
the social and political tensions produced by elite-based and
undemocratic status quos, but also at suppressing popular and mass
aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life in
the twenty-first century international order.=94 His book furnishes
detailed examples of how the NED has successfully imposed polyarchal
arrangements on four countries, Chile, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and
Haiti; while similarly, Barker (2006) has illustrated the NED=92s anti-
democratic involvement in facilitating and manipulating the =91colour
revolutions=92 which recently swept across Eastern Europe. More
recently, both Barker and Gerald Sussman (2006) have provided detailed
examinations=92 of how the NED works to promote a low intensity public
sphere (globally) through its selective funding of media organizations.
3165b5a1f453602f063781fd7f722682 This article will now extend these
three initial studies by critically examining the NED=92s sup****t for
Tibetan media projects from 1990 onwards.
=91Democacy Promoters=92 and Tibet
The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) was founded in 1988 and is
a non-profit member****p organization with offices in Wa****ngton, DC,
Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels. Their website notes that they
=93fundamentally believe that there must be a political solution based
on direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and his representatives and
the People=92s Republic of China.=94 ICT received their first NED grant
(of the 1990s) in 1994 to:
=93=85enhance Chinese knowledge of Tibet by contributing articles about
Tibet to newspapers and magazines within China and abroad; translating
books about Tibet into Chinese; and facilitating a series of
discussion meetings among key Chinese and Tibetan figures, focusing on
bringing Chinese journalists and pro-democracy leaders together with
Tibetan leaders in exile.=94
Since then, the ICT has received regular sup****t from the NED,
obtaining subsequent grants in 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003
(all for media work except the 1997 grant). Like many groups that
obtain NED aid, ICT are not afraid to boast of their =91democratic=92
connections, and in 2005 they even awarded one of their annual Light
of Truth awards to the president of the NED, Carl Gershman.
Furthermore, the year before (in 2004) ICT gave the same award to both
Vaclav Havel (who had received the NED=92s Democracy Award in 1991, and
serves on the advisory board of the Project on Justice in Times of
Transition), and also to one of the earliest =91democracy promoting=92
organizations, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. (For a summary of the
key =91democratic=92 connections of the Project on Justice in Times of
Transition and all the other groups mentioned in this article see,
Barker (2007) Hijacking Human Rights: A Critical Examination of Human
Rights Watch=92s Americas Branch and their Links to the =91Democracy=92
Establishment. Due to this article=92s heavy reliance on internet
sources most links have been omitted from the paper, however, a fully
referenced paper can be obtained from the author upon request.)
Some of ICT=92s directors are also integral members of the =91democracy
promoting=92 establishment, and include Bette Bao Lord (who is the chair
of Freedom House, and a director of Freedom Forum),14 Gare A. Smith
(who has previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary in
the U.S. Department of State=92s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and
Labor), Julia Taft (who is a former director of the NED, the former
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and Special Coordinator for Tibetan
Issues, has worked for USAID, and has also served as the President and
CEO of InterAction), and finally, Mark Handelman (who is also a
director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, an organization
whose work is ideologically linked to the NED=92s longstanding
interventions in Haiti).15 The ICT=92s board of advisors also presents
two individuals who are closely linked to the NED, Harry Wu, and Qiang
Xiao (who is the former executive director of the NED-funded Human
Rights in China).16 Like their board of directors, ICT=92s international
council of advisors includes many =91democratic=92 notables like Vaclav
Havel, Fang Lizhi (who in 1995 =96 at least =96 was a board member of
Human Rights in China), Jose Ramos-Horta (who serves on the
international advisory board for the Democracy Coalition Project),
Kerry Kennedy (who is a director of the NED-funded China Information
Center), Vytautas Landsbergis (who is an international patron of the
British-based neoconservative Henry Jackson Society =96 see Clark,
2005), and until her recent death, the =93mid-wife of the neocons=94 Jeane
J. Kirkpatrick (who was also linked to =91democratic=92 groups like
Freedom House and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies).
54be2184408933fa6d661f55e6dd622a
Next up is the Tibet Fund, who first received NED aid in 1990 to
=93produce audio cassettes that will bring world and Tibetan news into
rural communities in Tibet.=94 They then received continued NED sup****t
for this work in 1994 and 1996, whereupon the distribution of the
audio tapes was extended to Tibetan exile communities in India and
Nepal as well as those in Tibet. In 1996, the Tibet Fund also received
NED aid on behalf of the Tibet Voice Project, =93for an educational
initiative based in Dharamsala, India, aimed at raising the social,
political, economic and environmental awareness of Tibetans through
audio-visual media.=94 The NED notes that:
=93Particular emphasis will be given to speeches of the Dalai Lama on
the topics of democracy and human rights. In Dharamsala, it will
continue a series of lectures and films emphasizing social issues,
politics, the economy and environment for new refugees and Tibetans in
exile; and will organize grassroots level dialogues between Tibetans
in exile and Indian youth to increase awareness and sup****t for the
Tibetan cause in India.=94
The Tibet Fund=92s work with the Tibet Voice Project was continued in
1998, and the Fund also received NED aid to run =93an electronic media
workshop for Tibetan journalists, and to introduce a bi-monthly
Chinese language news magazine about Tibet.=94 Tenzing Choephel is the
Tibetan scholar****p program co-ordinator for the Tibet Fund, and it
im****tant to note that he previously helped =93lay the foundation of the
Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy a group that was founded
in 1996 and received NED funding in 1999, where he worked as an Office
Administrator / English Researcher for three years in Dharamsala.=94
Finally it is interesting to observe that three people who are
involved with the International Campaign for Tibet are linked to the
Tibet fund, these are Lodi G. Gyari (who is the the executive chairman
of the board of the ICT, and an emertius director of the Tibet Fund),
Gehlek Rinpoche (who serves on ICT=92s advisory board, and is a director
of the Tibet Fund), and Tenzin N. Tethong (who serves on ICT=92s
advisory board, and is a founder and emeritus director of the Tibet
Fund).
Another group that has received strong NED backing is the London-based
Tibet Information Network (TIN), who between 1999 and 2004 received
annual NED grants (excepting 2000) to =93provide comprehensive, accurate
information about political, social, and economic developments in
Tibet to Tibetan audiences, the international community, human rights
groups, and the media.=94 TIN was cofounded in 1987 by Nicholas Howen
(who is now the secretary general of the International Commission of
Jurists) and Robert J. Barnett. Robert J. Barnett was the Director of
TIN between 1987 and 1998 and now works at the Weatherhead East Asian
Institute, alongside fellow faculty member Andrew J. Nathan (who is an
editor of the NED=92s Journal of Democracy, and also serves on the
advisory board for the NED-funded Beijing Spring magazine). It is
im****tant to note that between 1998 and 2002 =96 the time coinciding
with the start of the NED=92s sup****t for TIN =96 the organization was
directed by Richard Oppenheimer who incidentally had just spent 22
years working for the BBC World Service. In 2002, Oppenheimer was then
replaced by the world famous Tibetologist, Thierry Dodin, who left TIN
in 2005 when it was announced that TIN =93had to close down for lack of
funds=94, and he subsequently went on to direct the TibetInfoNet.18
The Tibetan Literary Society received NED aid between 2000 and 2005 to
publish the Bod-Kyi-Dus-Bab (Tibet Times), a Tibetan language
newspaper which was founded in 1996 and is published three times a
month in Dharamsala, India. In 1998 and 1999 the newspaper itself also
received direct sup****t from the NED. Another group to receive NED
sup****t is the Tibet Multimedia Center, which received three grants
from the NED between 2000 to 2002 to:
=93=85provide objective information about Tibet for Tibetans in the
country and in exile as well as for audiences in China. The center
will produce audio and videocassettes, organize debates among Tibetan
high school students in exile and publish a Chinese language magazine
to educate the Chinese public about the situation in Tibet and the
struggle for human rights.=94
Between 1999 and 2005 the Tibetan Review Trust Society received four
grants to publish the Tibetan Review, a monthly English-language news
magazine based in New Delhi, India, =93that covers Tibet-related news
and analysis.=94 The Tibetan Review was founded in 1968 and it=92s
precursor was Lodi G. Gyari=92s (see earlier) The Voice of Tibet: in the
early 1970s the Tibetan Review was published by Tenzin N. Tethong (who
at the time headed the International Campaign for Tibet), and after
passing through the hands of a number of other Directors it is now
being edited by Pema Thinley (who is the former Executive Editor of
Tibetan Bulletin, the =93official journal of the Central Tibet
Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama=94).
Finally, in 2001 and 2002, the Voice of Tibet =96 a Tibetan-language
shortwave radio station which was founded in 1996 =96 obtained NED aid
to provide =93regular news about Tibet, the Tibetan exile community, and
the Tibetan government-in-exile, for listeners in Tibet and in exile
in neighboring countries.=94 According to their website =93every day Voice
of Tibet broadcasts a 30 minutes news service in the Tibetan language
and a 15 minutes news service in Mandarin Chinese.=94 Voice of Tibet was
founded by three Norwegian NGOs; the Norwegian Human Rights House, the
Norwegian Tibet Committee and Worldview Rights. The final group is
particularly interesting as it is also known as the Points of Peace
Foundation, which is a =93human rights organisation based in Stavanger,
Norway, with a mandate to sup****t Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in
urgent need of media, dialogue and communication assistance in their
home countries and internationally.=94 Crucially, the Points of Peace
Foundation=92s advisory board includes Jose Ramos-Horta, John Hume (who
is a former patron of the British version of the NED, the Westminster
Foundation for Democracy), Aung San Suu Kyi (who is a member of the
international advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, and
is an honorary director of the International Institute for Democracy
and Electoral Assistance), Wangari Maathai (who is a member of the
international advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, and
is a trustee of World Learning), Mairead Corrigan Maguire (who is a
member of the international council of advisors for the International
Campaign for Tibet), and Muhammad Yunus (who is on the advisory board
of Stockholm Challenge, where he sits alongside NED director Esther
Dyson, and US Institute for Peace advisory board member John Gage).
(Two other groups to receive NED aid for communication work in Tibet
since 1990 for which no further information could be ascertained
include the Tibet Justice Center (which received a single grant in
2002), and the Tibet Museum (which received NED sup****t in both 2004
and 2005).)
Conclusion
This article has demonstrated the close ties that exist between the
Dalai Lama=92s non-violent campaign for Tibetan independence and U.S.
foreign policy elites who are actively sup****ting Tibetan causes
through the NED. This finding is particularly worrying given the high
international media profile of many of the groups exposed in this
article, especially when it is remembered that the NED=92s activities
are intimately linked with those of the CIA. This funding issue is
clearly problematic for Tibetan (or foreign) activists campaigning for
Tibetan freedom, as the overwhelmingly anti-democratic nature of the
NED can only weaken the legitimacy of the claims of any group
associated with the NED. In this regard it seems only fitting that
progressive activists truly concerned with promoting freedom and
democracy in Tibet should first and foremost cast a critical eye over
the antidemocratic funders of many of the Tibetan groups identified in
this study. Only then will they be able to reappraise the
sustainability of their work in the light of the NED=92s controversial
background. Once this step has been taken, perhaps progressive
solutions for restoring democratic governance to Tibet can be
generated by concerned activists, so that Tibetan people wanting to
reclaim their homeland will able to be more sure that they are
bringing democracy home to Tibet, not polyarchy.
Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University,
Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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