Veteran Tibetan Communist longs for Dalai Lama’s return

DHARAMSHALA, March 6: A veteran Tibetan communist Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal or Phunwang as he is popularly known among Tibetans has called for the return of Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet. Phunwang, whom the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama often refers to as a friend, wrote in his upcoming book ‘A Long Way to Equality and Unity’ that if the Dalai Lama returns to Tibet, “the homecoming would be peaceful and not chaotic.”

The book condemns the political environment in China, where the emphasis on stability overwhelms everything and “even requests by Tibetans to learn their own language have become frightening words”.

“If he returned to China the antagonistic Tibetan issue that has been internationalized would change into a non-antagonistic domestic issue,” Phunwang writes.

Phunwang, founder of Tibet’s Communist Party which he later merged with Mao’s, asks Chinese leadership to treat the Tibetan leader as it has leaders of Taiwan, through reconciliation and abandonment of grudges, adding that simply marking time until the Dalai Lama dies will “only worsen the threat of social unrest.”

The book is due to be published this week by New Century Press in Hong Kong, known for publishing politically sensitive works in the past including the autobiography of disgraced Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. “It is significant that someone who has spent his whole life working with the Central government shows this kind of dissatisfaction with its policies,” said Bao Pu, the book’s publisher.

Phunwang, who spent several years in the Chinese Communist Party, condemns the political environment in China and warns the Chinese leaders against stumbling into a “Chinese Empire” mentality, and against becoming “intoxicated with self-publicity.”

“We cannot be afraid of the small trouble that may come up today and leave the big trouble for tomorrow,” he writes. He says that a view among his Tibetan friends is that stability in regions such as Tibet cannot be maintained with “the gun and the renminbi [Chinese currency]”, writes Phunwang.

Now 92, Phunwang is reportedly in a rapidly declining health.

Since 2009, 127 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in Tibet to protest against China’s occupation of Tibet and its hard-line policies. Many of them have also called for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet.