Tibetan Independence Movement - Western Support For Tibetan Resistance

Western Support For Tibetan Resistance

Agents of Western governments had infiltrated Tibet by the mid-1950s, a few years after Tibet was annexed by the People's Republic of China. British MI6 agent Sydney Wignall, in his recent autobiography, reveals that he travelled to Tibet with John Harrop in 1955 posing as mountaineers. Captured by the Chinese authority, Wignell recalled that he was surprised to find two CIA agents were already under Chinese detention.

Clandestine military involvement by the U.S. began following the series of uprisings in the eastern Tibetan region of Kham in 1956. Several small groups of Khampa fighters were trained by the CIA camp and then airdropped back into Tibet with supplies. In 1958, with the rebellion in Kham ongoing, two of these fighters, Athar and Lhotse, attempted to meet with the Dalai Lama to determine whether he would cooperate with their activities. However, their request for an audience was refused by the Lord Chamberlain, Phala Thubten Wonden, who believed such a meeting would be impolitic. According to Tsering Shakya, "Phala never told the Dalai Lama or the Kashag of the arrival of Athar and Lhotse. Nor did he inform the Dalai Lama of American willingness to provide aid".

Following a mass uprising in Lhasa in 1959 during the celebration of the Tibetan New Year and the ensuing Chinese military response, the Dalai Lama went into exile in India. Some sources state that the Dalai Lama's escape was assisted by the CIA. After 1959, the CIA trained Tibetan guerrillas and provided funds and weapons for the fight against China. However, assistance was reduced during the course of the 1960s and finally ended when Richard Nixon decided to seek rapprochement with China in the early 1970s. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, in The CIA's Secret War in Tibet, reveal how the CIA encouraged Tibetan revolt against China — and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. The New York Times reported on October 2, 1998 that the Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the CIA, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000. The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said.