A Grudge Runs Through It
Part One: How the CIA, the Beastie Boys and One Road Helped Put the Last Autonomous Tibetan Culture at Risk of Extinction.
There are about a dozen of us on horseback, advancing on the city at a slow pace. It’s November and it’s cold. We had been staying in villages seemingly unaccustomed to hosting guests wanting more than a plate of warm dal bhat and a cold mattress. There had been a day or two of hot water showers only, our rooms were never heated, and requests for wi-fi passwords were too idiotic to even consider. We had left Jomsom (just 50 kilometers south, as the crow flies) ten days earlier, journeying through the most jaw-dropping landscapes anywhere in the world.
Above us, wind-eroded ochre monoliths, hundreds of meters high, pierce an alice-blue sky, while below, the canyon formed by the Kali Gandaki River, remains almost always in sight. Tibetan prayer flags adorn every high place, adding welcome pops of color to the raw, desolate moonscape. Ancient chortens and centuries-old monasteries round out the view.
We would get our first glimpse of Lo Manthang, the ancient, walled capital and former medieval kingdom of Upper Mustang, Nepal from the unusually windless Lo La pass. At nearly 4,000 meters, the high-alpine desert was cold, calm and quiet, no sound save for the bells that found their way onto our horses’ bridles, reins and saddles when tacking up. It was easy to imagine ourselves as ancient traders, plying the primitive route set out before us, indistinguishable and unaltered for centuries. That there was nothing in the landscape that suggested modernity of any kind helped in this regard. No buildings in the distance, no far away lights from far away towns.
This little daydream dissolved when a convoy of Nepalese Army personnel carrier shattered the stillness of the alpine desert. Their appearance has increased of late, we were told, for ‘security reasons’.
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, almost unimaginably and in a very short time, the ground below us will be paved, full of honking diesel lorries and busloads of tourists, when the road connecting Lo Manthang to the rest of the world is complete. It was to be the first of many revelations about how quickly, and inevitably, change was coming to Lo Manthang, reminding us, with no exaggeration or flair for the dramatic, that we may be the very last people to see Lo Manthang in its unchanged state, the last to bear witness to the only authentic, indigenous Tibetan culture in existence.
While the advent of thousands of more annual visitors will serve to unmoor the social, cultural and economic foundations that anchored Lo Manthang to its past, there is a more immediate, influential, and often overlooked history that will define its future. Upper Mustang was once a base for CIA funded rebels fighting a guerrilla war against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for it’s occupation of Tibet. It is this history, and the subsequent acts of Tibetan resistance it continues to inspire, that might be responsible for having the most transformative and irreversible effect on Lo Manthang since history began being recorded here centuries ago.
You can be forgiven for never having heard of Lo Manthang, and more easily forgiven for never having traveled there. Lo Manthang has a long history of isolation and discouraging visitors from outside. For centuries, the Loba (as the villagers are called) were accustomed to closing their trademark gates each night to guard against nocturnal bandits, a tradition that wasn’t abandoned until just a few years ago. So protected was this city, and the region that surrounded it, foreigners were all but excluded from visiting the Upper Mustang Region and Lo Manthang until 1992, when Nepal began issuing travel permits to the region. But those days of isolation are coming to a close, and the gates that once guarded Lo Manthang will be impotent to stop the oncoming advance of a new kind of interloper,
Admittedly, a major draw for tourists was always, in the words of the present-day Dalai Lama, “to see what Tibet was like before the Chinese invasion.” Unmolested (and uncared for) centuries-old temples, monasteries, artwork and shrines populate the former Kingdom. Until just recently, the Loba carried on with life as they had for centuries, Lo Manthang is as Tibetan as it gets, and the culture continues to be defined by its symbiotic relationship with Tibetan Buddhism today. Centuries-old festivals, rituals and ceremonies still remain as indelible and important facets of life.
Oftentimes, tourist towns will have a welcome center, even if that’s just a tiny kiosk hiding a ruse to sell expeditions or tours. Lo Manthang plays it differently – you are instead offered an invocation that seems to have more in common with a promise made in a storm than an actual prayer:
Please bless this world, protect it from becoming a piteous ruined place
Where all humans are troubled with new diseases arising from human actions
Having polluted the air we breathe and all the space around us
With heaps of stinging smoke and poison clouds from uncountable factories.
Aspirational at best, it has all the hallmarks of the pithy yet poignant distillations of modern society Tibetan Buddhism is known for. It alludes to the greed and selfishness that accompanies and stimulates most progress, as well as providing a realistic understanding of its genuine cost. Having kept the modern world at bay for centuries, it also suggests acquiescence to a wave of change that will soon drown them, and an underlying, well-earned anxiety about those changes.
What greeted us next was the not-so-gentle reminder of the adage that travel is about the journey and not the destination. The last bastion of Tibetan culture wasn’t the Shangri La we envisioned. At first blush, the city lacks any distinction. The unpopulated streets are nothing more than corridors of dust, the ancient buildings wind shorn and weathered. I remind myself that it’s November, and most villagers have already decamped for Kathmandu or warmer climes for the winter. Streets the size of alleys disappear at right angles, forming long, thin labyrinthine and disorienting corridors that eventually spit out to the main square, an uncharacteristically bright affair, decorated with even more of the ubiquitous prayer flags we had been following for days.
It would be easy to dismiss this ancient, lackluster and nondescript village, to downgrade it to just another hardscrabble town, with a local population eking out a subsistence-level existence. A remote and unremarkable whistle-stop tethered to the roof of the world. Nothing, I would learn, could be further from the truth.
Here, in this tiny, isolated and remote village, a movement was born. Lo Manthang is responsible for forever tarnishing China’s reputation with human rights atrocities - years before Tiananmen Square, a mark that has marred China’s international credibility for decades. Astonishing, also, to imagine that without the Loba, the worldwide popularity of the Dalai Lama, now a household name, might have gone unrealized, the Nobel Committee might never had known to consider him for the Peace Prize. The Beastie Boys, Bjork, U2 and a host of celebrities would never have coalesced around a mission to ‘Free Tibet.’ Because it was here that a legacy of resistance was born, fueled by a well-funded CIA program and nurtured for a decade.
It is also terrifying, for none of this has been lost on the Chinese.
Part 2
A Rich History: Buddhism, Guerillas & A Covert CIA Mission
Well inside of Mustang, and close to its capital, Chungsi Cave holds a special place in the evolution of Tibetan Buddhism. Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), known to many adherents of the faith as ‘the second Buddha’, posted up inside this dark cave, occasionally lit by the flicker of oil lamps, for four years in silent meditation before establishing the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet. There, Padmasambhava would introduce Tantric Buddhism, a combination of mantras, meditation and ritual that distinguishes Tibetan Buddhism and is reflected in its practice today. It is safe to say that without Guru Rinpoche, Tibetan Buddhism, as we know it, would not exist. It’s no coincidence, then, that Lo is recognized as the touchstone of Tibetan Buddhism.
Centuries later, a medieval Tibet would recognize the important legacy Lo Manthang had in the development of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. In the 14th century, Ame Pal, a devout Buddhist from Western Tibet, built the walled kingdom with his sons to protect it from local warlords and shifting political allegiances. This feat allowed lamas from Lo Manthang to study in Tibet, and cultivated an exchange between religious teachers and pilgrims traveling from their monasteries in Tibet, an activity that ceased only when the Chinese closed the border after the annexation and take over of Tibet by the PRC. The fundamental drive to preserve and protect Lo Manthang from destructive outside influences is now experiencing a well-intentioned resurgence, albeit for reasons Ame Pal could never imagine.
China and Tibet - A Tortured History
The 14th Dalai Lama was just a child when he assumed the throne, and a teenager when the Western World went to war for the second time that century. Without a prescient understanding of world affairs, the fledgling leader was out of his depth and remained ill equipped to navigate the political landscape that was about to unfold. The only advice he had at that time was a prophecy from his previous incarnation, ‘if we do not dare to protect our territory, our spiritual personalities including the [Dalai Lama] may be exterminated without trace, the property and authority of our… monks may be taken away. Moreover, our political system… will vanish without anything remaining.”
After World War 2, the Dalai Lama was reluctant to join the newly created United Nations. As he states, somewhat naively, in his autobiography, "It never occurred to us that our independence… needed any legal proof to the outside world.” Consequently, Tibet has never been a nation-state in the modern sense of the word, nor has any country ever recognized Tibet as such. The failure to join the UN would prove to be fatal for Tibet, allowing China to claim it as its own.
In 1949, after a protracted and bloody civil war, Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China, threatened Tibet with ‘liberation’ and China’s occupation of Tibet began when troops from its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded the country in 1950. In the aftermath, the PLA took full control of Lhasa and Tibet, instituting martial law and cleansing Lhasa of any ongoing resistance. The PRC would begin meting out punishments designed to challenge anyone’s faith in humanity - slaughtering tens of thousands of men, women and children, executing the Dalai Lama’s guards and destroying Lhasa’s major monasteries along with thousands of their inhabitants.
The story could have easily ended there, with China’s subsequent iron-grip on Tibet they could have controlled the narrative, and the world would be left with almost as little knowledge of Tibet as we had before the ousting of the Dalai Lama in 1959.
But a rebel movement formed alongside the porous international border, using the rugged terrain as cover and Lo as a safe haven, for the rag-tag group of resistance fighters known as the Khampa Guerrillas. Lo Manthang’s shared culture and border with Tibet made it the logical place to base the resistance.
A Once Covert History
No longer the domain of tinfoil-hatted conspiracy theorists, the CIA’s covert action to support Tibetan resistance fighters in its struggle to liberate itself from Mao’s army has recently come to light in a variety of well-substantiated articles and a 1998 documentary, The Shadow Circus.
While many of the details are sketchy, what we do know is that a 2,000 strong force of armed fighters, trained and funded by the CIA, used Upper Mustang, and, specifically, Lo Manthang, as a base for resistance from 1960 until 1974. So central was the role of Lo Manthang in the ongoing Tibetan rebellion that when the guerilla campaign was deemed inconsistent with the non-violent ethos promoted by the exiled Dalai Lama, the call for resistance fighters to lay down their arms was only respected when it came to Lo Manthang in a recorded speech by the Dalai Lama. The intransigent force based in Mustang needed to hear his voice before complying.
The common consensus now is that the CIA ‘used’ the Tibetan Resistance as a means to advance the goals of containing the ‘Red Threat’ at the expense of thousands of Tibetan lives, it had the unintended consequence of bringing to light Chinese atrocities and galvanizing international opposition to China’s violent campaign. If China had planned on drawing the iron curtain to shield its atrocities from the outside world, the resistance force prevented that outcome.
And word did get out. A quarter of a century later, calls for a ‘Free Tibet’ exploded into international consciousness, thanks to a chance meeting between Erin Potts and Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys fame, one night in Kathmandu, in 1992. Potts, an activist and scholar, would stay in contact with Yauch, peppering him with photos and information about demonstrations in Tibet and news from the activist community.
In 1996, the result of their collaboration was realized when the two successfully launched the first Tibetan Freedom Concert at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Over the span of five years, the concerts brought in millions of dollars and received international attention through online broadcasts and MTV. Exiled Tibetans formed an integral part of each performance, educating audiences between performances.
This tradition of resistance continues today, realized by an unending campaign for human rights in Tibet cultivated by the Tibetan Government in Exile and promoted tirelessly by the Dalai Lama. This resistance has guaranteed that China’s human rights legacy will be forever defined by the two ‘T’s — Tibet and Tiananmen Square.
Part 3
Which Brings Us To The Road: Highways, Power Grids and Chinese money.
It’s called the The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Established in 2013 and labeled a ‘development strategy’ by the PRC. In true Chinese fashion, the scope of the project promises to be the largest infrastructure and investment project in history, covering more than 152 countries. For Lo Manthang this means highways and roads and power grids and construction. All built with Chinese money.
Prior to the initiative, the PRC had begun making inroads to the ancient city. The turn of the century saw the completion of a 20-kilometer road from the Chinese border at Korala Pass to the border at Lo Manthang. The BRI promises to join Lo Manthang with Jomsom, yet we need not rely on our imagination to envision how this will forever change life in Upper Mustang. The preliminary plan alone served as de facto permission for entrepreneurs with Land Rovers to ferry passengers along the preliminary scar of a road into Upper Mustang and Lo Manthang.
We can already see the impact of what a trickle of tourists - a tiny fraction of what’s to come - will have on the Loba. Livelihoods that formerly centered around animal husbandry, agriculture, and petty trade are being substituted for range of hospitality-driven options. Even in November, ersatz concrete stalls were being built - the out-of-place, pre-eminent box-style architecture used to house gift shops, stores and businesses that cater to tourists.
Seemingly purpose-built to guarantee a spot on World’s Most Dangerous Roads, this unimaginable highway cuts through the heart of Upper Mustang’s stubborn and stunning geology, as well as its fragile ecosystem. Currently it’s a kidney busting, harrowing journey not for the faint of heart. At times these transports skitter along a narrow ribbon of icy road, with just inches separating them from a thousand meter plummet to the gorge below. Travelling to Lo Manthang once implied a willingness to spend days on foot or horseback. The new road will get you there comfortably, in a few short hours.
And as more hotels, shops, restaurants are slated for construction; it’s proving to be more than the local population can handle. Workers and entrepreneurs from the South, Nepalis from Kathmandu and elsewhere, have arrived in Upper Mustang seeking opportunities. Ethnically, culturally, and linguistically different from the Loba - their presence will serve to dilute its historically monolithic population.
Note the dichotomy that exists - while Nepal still manages access to the area, discouraging trekkers with prohibitive permit fees and quotas, it simultaneously encourages this type of development. Just a few years earlier, this type of growth would have seemed inconceivable, and it begs the question as to what is motivating the Nepalese government. One far more cynical than I might find reason in the $8.3 billion dollars committed in 2017 to numerous tourism-related schemes by Chinese investors.
In thrall with the possibility of some semblance of economic reform, Nepal, one of the poorest nations in the world. has already found itself forced to accept Chinese money at the expense of accommodating its political worldview, namely Beijing’s “one-China policy” which declares both Taiwan and Tibet as integral parts of China. More disturbing, they have committed to prohibit actions deemed ‘anti-China’ within Nepal. It remains to be seen if the unforgiving criteria for ‘anti-China’ activity will be shared by the Nepali government.
For years Beijing has pressed that supporters of the Tibetan cause - wherever they may originate - play a leading role in fomenting unrest among ethnic Tibetans in China. ‘Support’ takes on various definitions, depending on who is being asked. For the PRC, displaying a Tibetan flag is a revolutionary act, resulting in immediate arrest and severe punishment. Owning a picture of the Dalai Lama is an overwhelmingly ‘anti-China’ offense.
As it will prove fundamentally challenging for any Loba to deny affiliation with the Dalai Lama - the revered religious leader the resident population owes their allegiance to - it begs the question as to how much control the PRC will want the Nepali government to enforce in Lo Manthang. Considering the grudge that Beijing has harbored for more than half a century, and noting recent military crackdowns in other Tibetan communities in Nepal, the forecast does not look promising.
The PRC made this point clear to Nepal after the 2009 riots in Kathmandu. Demonstrations and street protests erupted on March 10 to honor ‘Tibetan Uprising Day’ in Boudhanath, only to be met with violent resistance from Nepalese authorities. In the aftermath and under pressure from Beijing, Tibetans can no longer gather, peacefully or otherwise. Standing orders remain to arrest and take legal action against anyone who protests against China. Rather than blame the uprising on the historical treatment of Tibetans since the resistance, or ongoing policies established by the PRC that continue to marginalize Tibetans in their own country and abroad, the PRC instead blamed the separatist ideals of the Dalai Lama.
And the situation has only worsened in recent years. According to HRW, the signing of several security agreements has morphed into ‘intelligence sharing’ involving surveillance of suspected ‘activists’ - and using this excuse to closely monitor Tibetan neighborhoods. It is not uncommon to find heavily armed Nepali forces out on the streets of Kathmandu in Tibetan enclaves such as Boudhanath on days deemed significant to Tibetans.
So what does this all mean for Lo Manthang? One might be inclined to take refuge in the fact that there hasn’t been the quashing of anti-China activities in Upper Mustang or calls to keep Tibetan Day protests to a dull roar for the simple fact that currently, the Loba have nothing to protest. Despite their ethnicity, they are completely removed from the identity politics playing out in areas with large concentrations of Tibetan refugees. While they may certainly share sympathy for their Tibetan cousins, they are very distant cousins – the Loba are not from Tibet - or anywhere else, for that matter.
But when the Loba recognize that their actions are being monitored, the only logical assumption they can make is that they are suspect of being suspect, disrupting the tight-knit social fabric of trust that has bound them for generations. This Orwellian imposition will also undoubtedly influence their quotidian affairs. There may be dominant social pressures to conform – or resist. Never before has an alien and external force exhibited so much control over the Loba.
I sat down with Khenpo Kunga Tenzin, head of Lo Manthang's Monchoe Dragkar Thegchen Ling monastery at his winter monastery near Boudhanath in Kathmandu. I wanted to discuss the fears he had, if any, about the increased presence and authority of Chinese troops and officials now making near-daily appearances in Upper Mustang and Lo Manthang. Initially I had hoped to interview Khenpo Kunga Tenzin in Lo Manthang, but, in retrospect, it seemed more appropriate to have the conversation here, just a few hundred meters from the place where exiled Tibetans protested the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising against China, and where that protest was violently put down. To my surprise, Khenpo Kunga seemed more than a little nonchalant about the issue.
There seemed to be a whole lot of cognitive dissonance going on that forced me to remind the Khenpo, carefully, to avoid appearing patronizing, about what actually happened in Tibet at the hands of the Chinese, about the treatment of Tibetans in Nepal, and the cooperation the Nepali authorities agreed to provide the PRC in the surveillance of Tibetans suspected of being ‘activists’. I was hoping his lack of any real concern belied an actual ‘master plan’ or secret strategy he had for the future. Instead I learned the only play he had was to rest in the confidence of international law and geopolitical boundaries, ‘Do you see any Tibetan flags in Lo Manthang?’ He offered this fact for two reasons – one to show that the Loba are not actively supportive of Tibet, the second to confirm their nationality. “No. They are Nepal flags only. Lo Manthang is Nepal, not China – we are not subject to their laws.”
Khenpo’s justification was more than a bit conflicted. On one hand he was arguing for the fact that Nepal is autonomous from China, they are free to act as they wish. On the other, he was suggesting that by not displaying a Tibetan flag, the Loba weren’t actually doing anything to incur the wrath of the Chinese. It was cold comfort when he confided in me that he had spoken to the Dalai Lama himself, who gave him advice on how to deal with the Chinese. He didn’t elaborate, but I recognized the Tibetan word for compassion as he spoke to his translator. I was left wondering, if he didn’t think the Chinese presence would be a problem – why would he discuss it with the Dalai Lama?
——————-
A few years after the Free Tibet concerts, I had the opportunity to spend a few days with Lama Palden, the Tibetan monk who endured 27 years of torture at the hands of the Chinese in Lhasa’s infamous Drapchi prison. Lama Palden is remembered for his appearances at the concerts where, in between acts, Palden would take to the stage with an electric cattle prod in hand, displaying his torturer’s favorite tool. Palden would then remove his dentures and open his mouth to illustrate what years of having a live cattle prod inserted into one’s mouth will do.
One afternoon I asked Lama Palden about karma, and whether or not this concept extended to countries as well as people. He seemed to think so, which demanded the follow up, ‘what did Tibet ever do to deserve the wrath of the Chinese government?’ Lama Palden considered the question for the briefest of moments before replying, ‘we kept all that knowledge, all that wisdom to ourselves. We didn’t share it.” Palden referenced the prophecy foretold, that when this time comes to pass, the flames of Buddhism would rise higher, suggesting that one could not exist without the other. It will be up to history to determine if the sacrifice was worth it.
The next chapter in this tortured history will inevitably be played out in the dusty corridors of Lo Manthang, along the banks of the once-pristine Kali Gandaki, and in the days and lives of every indigenous Loba. In thinking about the future of the Loba and Lo Manthang, I am again reminded of the sign that greeted me when I first set foot in Lo, and while it didn’t resonate with me then, it has now taken on an entirely new meaning, “Please bless this world, protect it from becoming a piteous ruined place…
