So what evidence do we have of US involvement in this latest round of Tibetan violence? History suggests it might be the case. The CIA gave the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama money and support through the 1950s and 1960s. On September 15, 1998, a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed that during "the 1960s, the CIA provided the Tibetan exile movement with $1.7 million ($1.83 million) a year for operations against China, including an annual subsidy of $180,000 ($193,500) for the Dalai Lama". The CIA trained Tibetan guerrillas in Nepal and in Colorado during that period. This CIA support petered out in the 1970s.
So what is the situation today? Michael Barker, a PhD student at Griffith University in Brisbane who studies social and political movements, says much of the present international campaigning for a free Tibet is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is closely linked to the CIA.
Mr Barker, in a paper written in August last year, notes that the NED was established in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. The role of the NED, which admits to receiving funds directly from the CIA, is to foster democracy throughout the world.
The NED has financed the work of the International Campaign for Tibet, the Tibet Fund and the Tibetan Information Network, the three leading anti-Chinese Tibetan advocacy organisations. In short, the CIA/NED directly bankrolls the apparatus that runs the Dalai Lama's international campaign for a non-violent revolution in Tibet to overthrow the Chinese.
So what is the situation today? Michael Barker, a PhD student at Griffith University in Brisbane who studies social and political movements, says much of the present international campaigning for a free Tibet is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is closely linked to the CIA.
Mr Barker, in a paper written in August last year, notes that the NED was established in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan. The role of the NED, which admits to receiving funds directly from the CIA, is to foster democracy throughout the world.
The NED has financed the work of the International Campaign for Tibet, the Tibet Fund and the Tibetan Information Network, the three leading anti-Chinese Tibetan advocacy organisations. In short, the CIA/NED directly bankrolls the apparatus that runs the Dalai Lama's international campaign for a non-violent revolution in Tibet to overthrow the Chinese.
[ ... ]
The Dalai Lama heads an elite of families and religious figures that once ruled Tibet. And the Tibet they ruled was one of the most backward and inhumane societies in the world. Almost 90 per cent of Tibetans were slaves before the Chinese invaded the country.
As an Indian commentator, Aniket Alam, wrote last week: "Far from any democratic rights, for an overwhelming majority of Tibetans, the rule of the Dalai Lama was one of unending unpaid labour, cruelty and debt-bondage and not some spiritual Shangri-La. Some historians have even asserted that Tibetan feudal oppression was even worse than its Chinese counterpart, while one prisoner in the Dalai Lama's prison in the 1950s called it hell on Earth."
As an Indian commentator, Aniket Alam, wrote last week: "Far from any democratic rights, for an overwhelming majority of Tibetans, the rule of the Dalai Lama was one of unending unpaid labour, cruelty and debt-bondage and not some spiritual Shangri-La. Some historians have even asserted that Tibetan feudal oppression was even worse than its Chinese counterpart, while one prisoner in the Dalai Lama's prison in the 1950s called it hell on Earth."
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