Picket of Dalai Lama planned

A protest of Washington’s anti-China policies is planned for July 17 when the Dalai Lama will be speaking at Radio City Music Hall here. The U.S. government has been involved in the “Free Tibet” campaign from the beginning, while the media facilitates its execution.

The latest efforts began in mid-March, when the Dalai Lama covertly encouraged Tibetans to riot. The rioters looted, burned and attacked non-Tibetan ethnic groups, killing and wounding scores. Then in April, protesters attacked Olympic torch runners in several countries in a clear campaign against this year’s Beijing Olympics. These attacks and accompanying protests were glorified by a media that has failed to exhibit similar enthusiasm for covering anti-war protests.

The Dalai Lama and the U.S. imperialists have worked hard to erase the Dalai Lama’s past as a feudal leader, and these days hardly anyone in the Western media questions the fact that he is supposed to be a living deity. “Spiritual” leaders, it seems, are condemned or elevated according to their strategic utility to the ruling class. In the U.S., the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, for example, was raked over the coals by the media for his preaching against racism. But Washington, which was comfortable with Tibet’s status as a part of China before the Chinese Revolution, now considers the Dalai Lama to be of great importance and therefore greatly “spiritual.”

The Dalai Lama also supports past and present U.S. military operations in south Korea, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Iraq. He is hardly a representative of peace.

Not everyone has such short memories, however. The twelfth Samding Dorje Phagmo, Tibet’s only living female Buddha, a critic of the Dalai Lama and vice-chairwoman of Tibet’s regional government, says that “Old Tibet was dark and cruel, the serfs lived worse than horses and cattle.” (Reuters)

Join FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) at 2 p.m. on July 17 at 1260 Sixth Ave. to protest the Dalai Lama and his policies.