By Xinhua Writer Zhou Yan

    LHASA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Tuesday is a special date for Tibetans. For the 2.8 million residents in the southwest China autonomous region, it marks 50 years since feudal serfdom was abolished; but for the 14th Dalai Lama and his "government-in-exile," it marks five decades of futile attempts at independence.

    Fifty years after he fled China and having failed time and again to foment widespread unrest in Tibet and other Tibetan communities in western China, the Dalai Lama is apparently at his wit's end.

Tibetan pilgrims turn the pray wheels in front of the Potala Palace during the Grand Summons Ceremony in Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on March 10, 2009. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    In a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of his exile, the Dalai Lama abruptly shook off his pacifist outlook and smiles to give some gibberish far below the intelligence of the "spiritual leader" himself, and poles apart from truth.

    In this speech, delivered in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala, the Dalai Lama denigrated Tibet's 50 years of democratic reform, sustained economic growth and improved human rights as "untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet."

    He also slandered the Chinese government as having killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans and transformed the plateau region into a "hell on earth.

    "The Tibetan people are regarded as criminals, deserving to be put to death," the spiritual leader said.

    The Dalai Lama might have staged some fanfare in front of the "Tibet independence" forces overseas, and bewitched some Westerners with his assumptions that though groundless, sometimes sell well internationally -- the "nearing extinction" of the Tibetan culture and identity, for instance.

An elderly Tibetan holding a prayer wheel walks on the famous market street, Pogor near the Jokhang Temple in central Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, March 10, 2009.  (Xinhua/Gong Bing) Photo Gallery>>>

    The Dalai Lama calls Tibet a "hell on earth." But many Tibetans I know, particularly the elderly people who still remember the past, say Tibet is at its best stage of development . Why do the opinions vary so much?

    With no exception, the 14th Dalai Lama and all his predecessors represent the aristocrats and serf owners in old Tibet. So when the democratic reform took place and all the serfs stood up to own land and become men with dignity, Tibet became "hell on earth" for the Dalai Lama and his likes.

    This "hell on earth" is precisely "paradise on earth" for the ordinary Tibetans. Under no circumstances would these people allow the Dalai Lama to restore the old social strata in their homeland, under the name of the "middle way" or "meaningful autonomy."

    Anyone with the least knowledge of Tibet knows clearly, under the governing Communist Party of China, how schools, hospitals, quake-resistant homes and other facilities have been built to improve the quality of Tibetans' lives; how roads, airports and a railway have been constructed to bring in some of the most-needed supplies and how modern technologies have enabled farmers to produce vegetables and fruits on former infertile land.

    Anyone who has been to Tibet cannot help exclaiming at its well-preserved culture: the centuries-old treasures housed in the Potala Palace, the Jokhang Temple and more than 1,000 other monasteries; the traditional artwork and opera; the elegant, Tibetan-style homes; the eating habits, featuring yak butter, highland barley and other cuisine, and the unique language, one of the few Chinese dialects that are still widely used in both written and spoken forms.

An ethnic Tibetan monk walks in front of a giant "thangka", a sacred painting on cloth, to be displayed on a hill outside a monastery in Tongren, northwest China's Qinghai province Monday, Feb. 2, 2009. (Photo: China Daily) Photo Gallery>>>

    Ask Loga, 85, if the Tibetans are living in a "hell on earth." The Lhasa resident, who speaks only Tibetan language, has been a pilgrim to Sera Monastery nearly every day since he was 13. Thanks to the improved quality of life, the average life expectancy of Tibetans has nearly doubled since the democratic reform, to about 67.

    With the interpretation of a Tibetan colleague, Loga told me he was "in good shape except that he was blind in one eye." The hearty smile on his weathered face tell me he is happy and content.

    Fifty years after the Dalai Lama's flight from China, some Tibetans still revere him as their "spiritual leader." They do this because as devout Buddhists, they worship him as the reincarnation of all previous Dalai Lamas. It's this status, rather than his words or deeds, that earned the 14th Dalai Lama some awe.

    For the Dalai Lama, 50 years is a long time. Tibet is no more the former land of poverty from which he fled. Its people are no more living under the serf owners' whips, totally ignorant to what is going on in the wide world.

    If the Dalai Lama really wants to do something beneficial for his fellow Tibetans, he should stop lying, abandon his separatism mentality and show some sincerity in settling the Tibet issue properly. 

 (Xinhua correspondents Niu Qi, Pempa Tsering and Soinam Norbu contributed to this story)



Dalai Lama's utter distortion of Tibet history

     BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- On March 10, 1959, the Dalai Lama and his supporters started an armed rebellion in a desperate attempt to preserve Tibet's feudal serfdom and split the region from China.

     On Tuesday, exactly 50 years later, the Dalai Lama claimed that Tibetans have been living in "hell on earth," as if the Tibet under the former feudal serfdom ruled by him were a heaven. Full story

Commentary: What a hell of Dalai Lama's crisis management? 

     BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Enjoying celebrity like a Hollywood star, the Dalai Lama can by no means be too patient for only one day to the negligence of world media which are occupied by economic concerns since the global financial crisis.

     His time to shine comes in March, an eventful month in Tibetan history. The aura around him captured limelight again when on Tuesday he, with his supernatural power as a divine monk, turned a happy land into "hell on earth." Full story 

Playing with outside forces, "religious figure" stakes heavy on de facto secession  

    BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- As the anniversary of his exile approaches, more evidence has surfaced that the Dalai Lama and his followers have pursued a long road of splitting up the homeland despite allegations of the "nonviolent" middle way.

    Explicitly acknowledging his "middle way" of nonviolence a failure, the 73-year-old Tibetan Buddhist warned the Chinese government of possible future confrontations in the Himalayan region. Full story

Spanish Tibetologist: "What I see and hear in Tibet differs from Dalai Lama's propaganda"

    MADRID, March 7 (Xinhua) -- "What I have seen and heard in Tibet completely differed from the distorted propaganda by the Dalai Lama," a renowned Spanish Tibetologist has said.

    The March 14 riot in Lhasa in 2008, involving violent crimes against people and property, was premeditated and masterminded by followers of the Dalai Lama, Inaki Preciado Idoeta told Xinhua in a recent interview. Full story