The Tibetan Freedom Movement (TFM), a Tibetan non-governmental organisation (NGO) working for the ‘Chinese-occupied’ Tibet’s independence in exile, has expressed its resentment over China’s installing a nine-year-old boy as the Panchen Lama last month. The Panchen Lama is second in hierarchy only after the Tibetan spiritual and temporal head, the Dalai Lama.

According to TFM sources, the Chinese authorities last month, under the watchful eyes of military sharpshooters and wailing police sirens, brought nine-year-old Gyanchen Norbu, who it claims is the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, to Tashi Lhunpo monastery at Shigatse in Lhasa under the cover of darkness.

The TFM said the ‘public welcome’ of the young Panchen Lama of the ‘soul boy’ as all reincernated Panchan Lamas are fondly known in Tibet, was less pompous for security reasons. The boy was brought to the monastery after completing four years of studies of the Buddhist sutras in Beijing. The issue of the Panchen Lama is the bone of contention between the Chinese Government and the Dalai Lama with both claiming their nominees as the real Panchen Lama.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after the Chinese overran the country in 1959. The Dalai Lama still commands the hearts of Buddhist faithfuls around the globe. The battle for the Panchen Lama started after the death of the 10th Panchen Lama. He died in 1989 at the Tashi Lhunpo monastery, the spiritual seat of the Panchen Lama. The Panchen Lama had spent years in Chinese prisons and under house arrest, after the Chinese overran Tibet.

Following his death, the authorised monks at the Lhunpo monastery organised a search to find the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama. At the same time, the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile at Dharmashala in Himachal Pradesh too began a separate hunt and recognised Gedun Choekyi Nyima from a village in northern Tibet as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

Following the selection deadlock, emissaries passed between the rival camps in an effort, seemingly blessed by Beijing, to find a ‘common candidate’, said the TFM sources. But in the end, things fell apart. The Dalai Lama unilaterally announced his choice in May, 1995. In July that year, an ‘infuriated’ Beijing held a ‘lottery’ to choose a different boy. Gyanchen Norbu’s name was drawn from a golden urn in the Chinese capital, the TFM sources said.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama’s nominee just vanished without a trace and his family was put under house arrest while the abbot of the monastery that led the search team for the Dalai Lama’s choice is in jail on treason charges. The Dalai Lama’s selection — Gedun Choekyi Nyima —— who turned 10 on May 14 last, has never been seen publicly ever since his ‘disappearance’. Only the Chinese authorities know about his whereabouts, the TFM alleged.

President of the TFM Sikkim unit Soman Topgyal said that if China is hoping to use the return of Gyanchen Norbu to ‘test’ the loyalties of ordinary Tibetans or gauge the ‘popularity of its own Panchen Lama’, it has got its answer. "We feel sorry for the Chinese-appointed boy. He is only being used as a pawn in the bitter struggle for power. And in a wider sense, the political future of Chinese-ruled Tibet.

Mr. Topgyal said. "We are pained by the Chinese move to force us to accept the fake Panchen Lama. over 1, 40, 000 Tibetans in exile in India and several thousands around the globe don’t accept the Chinese Panchen Lama. Only the Dalai Lama is authorised to select the reincernation of the Panchen Lama." The TFM leader said, "the return of the fake Panchen Lama has only underscored the failure of Beijing to destroy the ligitimacy of the Dalai Lama in Tibet." Quoting, what he claimed were eyewitness accounts, Mr. Topgyal said, "Security was so elaborate that even army sharpshooters were posted on rooftops and the Panchen Lama was brought to the main Jokhang temple at the Tibetan capital’s Shigatse monastery under the cover of darkness.