Talking About the American Presidential Emissary’s Visit to the Dalai Lama
Some years back the two well known Tibetan stand-up comedy artists, Thupten la and Migmar la, had an item in which they talked about the Guinness World Records and joked about how Tibetans could set many records in things peculiar to the Tibetan people.
I was reminded of this as news came out of Dharamsala in India of the visit there by President Obama’s emissary, Ms. Valerie Jarrett. The Office of H.H. the Dalai Lama has carried a statement on its website and the International Campaign for Tibet has also commented on the significance of the visit.
I feel the visit sets some records. It is the first time in the post-1959 period that an American President has sent an envoy to meet the Dalai Lama in his temporary headquarters in Dharamsala and to carry a communication from him.
It is also a record of sort that so far most of the prominent serving American officials visiting Dharamsala have been women. Ms. Jarrett was accompanied by Ms. Maria Otero, the State Department Under Secretary and designated Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. Last year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Dharamsala in March. Even earlier, both Mrs. Julia Taft and Ms. Paula Dobriansky visited Dharamsala during their tenure as US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues.
Talking about an American presidential “envoy” visiting the Dalai Lama’s headquarters and carrying a communication, one should note that this is the second time such a development has taken place. In 1942, two American army officers, Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan, went to Tibet, arriving in Lhasa in December of that year. They carried a letter from then President Franklin Roosevelt. That was the time of World War II and the visit was a political plan by the Americans to seek the Tibetan assistance in providing shipping route for transporting goods through Tibet to China.
President Roosevelt’s letter (U.S. Foreign Relations, China, 1942, 103.91802/687, Letter from President Roosevelt to Dalai Lama, dated 3 July 1942) is interesting. It said,
“Your Holiness:
“Two of my fellow countrymen, Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan, hope to visit your Pontificate and the historic and widely famed city of Lhasa. There are in the United States of America many persons, among them myself, who, long and greatly interested in your land and people, would highly value such an opportunity.
“As you know, the people of the United States, in association with those of twenty-seven other countries, are now engaged in a war which has been thrust upon the world by nations bent on conquest who are intent on destroying freedom of thought, of religion, and of action everywhere. The United Nations are fighting today in defense of and for preservation of freedom, confident that we shall be victorious because cause is just, our capacity is adequate, and our determination is unshakable.
“I am asking Ilia Tolstoy and Brooke Dolan to convey to you a little gift in token of my friendly sentiment toward you.
“With cordial greetings [etc.]
“Franklin D. Roosevelt”
That was more or less a covert visit. Although the two met the young Dalai Lama and presented him the presidential letter, reports say that they did not raise the issue of seeking a route because they found that the “Tibetan attitude” was not “favorable.” Tibet wanted to be neutral during the war.
Now, 66 years and six months later, another set of American officials have visited the headquarters of the same Dalai Lama (although much grown up and living at his “temporary headquarters”), carrying a communication from President Barrack Obama. This time they are not there to seek Tibetan assistance but to reiterate “President Obama’s commitment to support the Tibetan people in protecting their distinct religious, linguistic, and cultural heritage and securing respect for their human rights and civil liberties.” They were there to discuss “the best way the United States could assist in the resolution for the Tibetan issue, particularly in the light of the first visit by President Obama to China in November.”
Even though 2009 is different from 1942, some of the sentiments expressed in President Roosevelt’s letter, particularly the reference to many people in the United States interested in “your land and people,” are valid even now.
Caption: US President Barack Obama’s emissary, Valerie Jarrett (center) and US State Department Under Secretary Maria Otero (right) talking to His Holiness the Dalai Lama during their meeting at his residence in Dharamsala. (http://www.dalailama.com)
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We filipinos love Barack Obama. we think that he would be the best president of the United States and that he always makes wise decisions when it comes to foreign policy.
Como o colega disse anteriormente, rezo sempre para que de algum modo esse problema seja resolvido,para o bem desse povo Tibetano tão sofrido.
I pray every night, for the solution of all this.
No man has the right to take away freedom.
We want a Free Tibet!
To a better world!