The Tibetan government-in-exile and rights groups have called on China to free the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who was kidnapped 30 years ago and has remained missing ever since.
“At just six years old, he was abducted by Chinese authorities — an act that remains one of the starkest examples of China’s grave human rights violations,” Tenzin Lekshay, spokesperson for the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan exile government, known as the Central Tibetan Administration, told Radio Free Asia.
“We urgently call on the Chinese government to reveal the Panchen Lama’s whereabouts and ensure his well-being. As a spiritual leader and as a human being, he has the fundamental right to live freely and fulfill his spiritual responsibilities without fear or restriction,” Lekshay said.
On May 17, 1995, just days after the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, officially recognized Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th Panchen Lama, Beijing abducted the then-6-year-old boy with his family and teacher.
Their whereabouts have remained unknown, despite repeated calls by global leaders for China to disclose information about the fate of the Panchen Lama who turned 36 last month.
“30 years ago China disappeared a 6-year old boy because he represented freedom to Tibetan Buddhists facing brutal oppression. Today, we call for this horrible injustice to end and for China to free Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama,” said Asif Mahmood, Commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Succession of the Dalai Lama
Rights groups say the Panchen Lama’s continued disappearance and China’s installation of another boy, Gyaltsen (in Chinese, Gyaincain) Norbu, in his place, highlights Beijing’s plan to control the succession of the Dalai Lama, given the two lamas have historically recognized the other’s successive reincarnations and served as the other’s teacher.
“The Chinese government kidnapped a 6-year-old and his family and have disappeared them for 30 years to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama and thus Tibetan Buddhism itself,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
China says it can appoint the successor under Chinese law. In 2007, it decreed that the Chinese government would begin overseeing the recognition of all reincarnate Tibetan lamas, or “living Buddhas,” including the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama, for which China plans to use its own Beijing-appointed Panchen Lama to endorse.
“As the current 14th Dalai Lama will celebrate his 90th birthday on July 6, the question of his succession — and the future of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan people — is becoming increasingly urgent,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The Dalai Lama has said in a new book, that his reincarnation will be born in the “free world,” which he described as outside China.
Experts say China’s appointment of Gyaincain Norbu as Panchen Lama underscores Beijing’s attempts to not only interfere in the selection of the next Dalai Lama, but also to project its soft power across Buddhist nations worldwide and gain control and legitimacy among Tibetans, both inside Tibet and in exile.
“Abductions, surveillance, imprisonments and torture are standard tactics in China’s playbook of religious persecution,” said USCIRF’s Maureen Ferguson. She urged the U.S. Congress to prioritize religious freedom and ban any paid lobbying in the U.S. on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Cultural and religious suppression
China annexed Tibet in the early 1950s and has since governed the territory with an oppressively heavy-hand while seeking to suppress expressions of their Buddhist faith, and erase Tibetan culture and language.
“At a time when Chinese authorities are intensifying efforts to annihilate Tibetan culture and identity, the absence of the Panchen Lama is deeply felt. The 10th Panchen Lama played a vital role in safeguarding the Tibetan language, religion, and cultural heritage under Chinese rule,” said the exile government spokesperson Lekshay, referring to the previous Panchen Lama.
As a vocal critic of Chinese government policies in Tibet and their impact on Tibetan culture and language, the 10th Panchen Lama was subjected to house arrest in the 1960s and subsequent imprisonment for more than a decade, and torture in prison. He died in 1989 under mysterious circumstances.
One of the charges against him was that he had written, in 1962, a 70,000-character petition describing the destruction of Tibetan monasteries and suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950. The document had remained secret until obtained by Tibet scholar Robert Barnett, who revealed that Chinese leader Mao Zedong had condemned it as a “poisoned arrow shot at the party.”
“His (the 10th Panchen Lama’s) voice and vision are profoundly missed in today’s Tibet,” Lekshay said.
Edited by Mat Pennington.
