Society

Dalai's announcement of 'retirement' a farce

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-03-29 06:23

LHASA - The Dalai Lama's announcement of his plan to step down as the political head of the "exiled Tibetan government" is "a self-directed and played out farce", said Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak, a living buddha of Tibetan Buddhism, on Monday.

The Dalai Lama's announcement on March 10, in which he said that he would resign his political role, makes it very clear that he is not just a religious leader but also a politician who disrupts the Buddhist orders, said Tenzinchodrak, who is also vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Tibet autonomous rgion's People's Congress.

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Tenzinchodrak made the comment at a seminar that commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the emancipation of about one million Tibetan serfs, or more than 90 percent of the region's population back then.

Monday is the third "Serfs Emancipation Day," an occasion celebrated across the plateau region. During the celebrations, Tibetans dressed in traditional costumes and sang, danced and staged dramas based upon the lives of their ancestors.

"The Dalai Lama wanted to use his 'retirement' rhetoric to attract more listeners and to fan the efforts for splitting Tibet from the motherland," said Tenzinchodrak.

"The Shakyamuni Buddha required Buddhists to pursue spiritual improvement, rather than meddling in politics. But the Dalai Lama has long engaged in activities that aim to split China apart," said Tenzinchodrak.

The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India and created the self-declared "Tibetan government-in-exile" after the central government foiled an armed rebellion he and his supporters staged in 1959.

"The Dalai Lama's separatist nature is unchanged. Just as the Tibetan saying goes, 'A black charcoal will never become white no matter how many times you wash it," said Tenzinchodrak.

On March 28, 1959, China's central government announced that it would dissolve the aristocratic local government of Tibet and replace it with a preparatory committee for establishing the Tibet autonomous region.

That meant the end of serfdom and the abolition of the hierarchal social system that was characterized by theocracy. The Dalai Lama was at the core of that social order.

The move came after the central government foiled an armed rebellion staged by the Dalai Lama and his supporters, most of whom were slave owners attempting to maintain the region's serfdom.

"All ethnic groups will commemorate that day forever," said Padma Choling, chairman of the regional government, since the Tibetans were freed from the cruel and dark rule of feudal serfdom, which forever changed the human rights situation in Tibet.

Tenzinchodrak, now 61, became the 14th living buddha of Shingtsa Temple in Tibet's Nagarze County in 1955. He was elected vice chairman of the region's People's Congress Standing Committee in 2008.