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Hatred and Holiness

The Dalai Lama's Moment of Truth

By Erich Follath and Wieland Wagner

At this summer's Olympic Games, Beijing’s Communist Party wanted to present China as a gleaming new superpower. But its brutal suppression of Tibet has jeopardized this image -- and placed the Dalai Lama himself under pressure to keep angry Tibetans on a course of non-violence.

He sits hunched over, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, his famous and often so liberating smile frozen, his characteristic and consistently bubbling optimism dissipated. The 14th Dalai Lama seems depressed as he receives the world press in his Indian exile. He is a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who has apparently lost the support of all partners in peace, a god-king without a country.

He's at a loss over what to do about the bloody unrest in Tibet. He has called for an independent international investigation of the recent riots and military crackdown, knowing Beijing will never agree. And he's urged the Chinese leadership to exercise restraint and respect human rights. But the Dalai Lama also preaches nonviolence to his fellow Tibetans. "I lack the means to defuse the conflict," says the world's most famous asylum seeker, a man revered by people around the world -- in Germany even more so than the pope.

"We would need a miracle for that," says the Dalai Lama, 72, whose real name is Tenzin Gyatso. (His title means "Ocean of Wisdom.") "But miracles are unrealistic." The Dalai Lama has even broached the idea of stepping down as political leader of Tibetans and returning to private life. Over and over he says: "I don't understand the Chinese, I really don't understand them. This sort of escalation cannot be in their best interest."

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has called the Dalai Lama a "hypocrite" and holds him responsible for the recent violence in the streets of the Tibet's capital, Lhasa. Other leading Chinese Communists have heaped derision on the Tibetan leader-in-exile, calling him everything from a "divider of the nation" to a "wolf in monks' robes."

His native Tibet has again moved into the international spotlight, but not in a way the apostle of nonviolence welcomes. China, which occupies Tibet, has declared a "people's war" there and has largely cut off the region from the outside world. Tibetan Communist Party leader Zhang Qingli has called it a "fight for life and death." After a period of silence about the incident, the Communist Party in Beijing announced that there were 16 dead on the streets of the Lhasa. But Tibetan exiles believe the death toll is closer to 100.

Since last weekend, tanks have rolled through the city's streets and soldiers have been stationed at all key points, sealing off the Jokhang Temple in downtown Lhasa and the nearby Sera, Drepung and Ganden monasteries. Distraught Tibetans who have managed to find a functioning telephone or Internet access report house-to-house searches, arrests, beatings and torture. The Chinese apparently set an ultimatum that expired on Monday evening. Those who were recognized as protesters by the government, who failed to turn themselves in and denounce fellow protesters by the deadline -- thereby accepting a supposedly "mild punishment" -- faced "the full severity of the law," as the Communist Party called it.

Eyewitnesses say that more than 1,000 people were arrested, with dozens of them paraded through Lhasa in open trucks, their heads bowed and their hands handcuffed behind their backs. More than 100 women and men had turned themselves in voluntarily, reported the region's vice-governor, who claimed: "Some were directly involved in looting and arson." Qiangba Puncog, the region's governor, offered an accountant's assessment of the "serious crimes of the Dalai Lama clique," saying that during the riots of the last few days 214 shops went up in flames, 56 cars were damaged and 61 police officers were injured.

An Illusion of Calm

Nevertheless, the Chinese failed to quell the resistance. The clashes between rioters and security forces continued on the outskirts of Lhasa on Tuesday, and in the city residents placed toilet paper on the streets -- a message calling on the Chinese to finally withdraw from Tibet.

But by mid-week official TV broadcasts showed images of Chinese merchants clearing debris from their ruined shops, while others covered burned-out window openings with plastic tarps. The Communist Party leadership wanted to demonstrate that calm had returned to Lhasa. A reporter stood in front of a burned middle school to suggest that rioters had not even drawn the line at schools. And rumors, probably started by Communist Party officials, spread among the Chinese in Lhasa that the drinking water was contaminated. The Dalai Lama had ordered the water supply poisoned, a merchant told Norwegian tourists who were the last to leave the city, on Air China Flight 4111 to Beijing.

If Lhasa had become deathly quiet by mid-week, though -- because few residents dared leave their homes to challenge Chinese forces -- protests spread like wildfire to other parts of the People's Republic.

Demonstrators took to the streets in Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces, where there are more Tibetans than in the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, an arbitrary entity created by Beijing. According to Tibetans in exile, 39 people died during protests in these areas by Wednesday. Many of the demonstrators were monks and devout Buddhists openly celebrating the Dalai Lama, defying the ban on displaying his likeness and swearing eternal obedience to their revered god-king. But students also joined the demonstrators in several cities.

In Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, roads leading to Tibet were closed, and the town of Xiahe in Ganan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture was also sealed off. Xiahe is home to the Buddhist Labrang Monastery, where, according to eyewitness reports, 400 monks took to the streets and, joined by several thousand sympathizers, swung the Tibetan flag and sang songs praising the Dalai Lama.

In Aba, in Sichuan Province, demonstrators set fire to a market with Molotov cocktails, and several of them were allegedly shot by police. "I have spent the last four days hiding in my house with my family," a Tibetan police officer responsible for security at the temple complex in Aba told SPIEGEL by telephone. He said his police station was burned to the ground during the protests, and that the police initially sought protection from the army. He was only able to return to his family late at night.

In Gansu Province -- as photographs taken by two Canadian television reporters show -- demonstrators on horseback stormed down from the mountains and congregated in front of the Bora Monastery near the city of Hezuo. Together with monks and demonstrators on mopeds, the Tibetans surrounded a government building, took down the Chinese flag and hoisted the Tibetan flag in its place before police and soldiers regained control over the area after hours of street skirmishes.