Chinese media to dish out Dalai fare

BEIJING, Aug 14: China plans to air a 90-minute television documentary that portrays the life of the Dalai Lama, the official media reporte...

BEIJING, Aug 14: China plans to air a 90-minute television documentary that portrays the life of the Dalai Lama, the official media reported today.

The documentary, titled, The Dalai Lama includes interviews with about 20 people who talk about the truth of the 14th Dalai Lama, the China Daily said.

Among the interviewees are the Dalai’s fellow villagers, relatives, cooks, serfs, religious figures, prominent historians and the elderly, the report said.

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The programme will focus on a pivotal time in the history of Tibet between the 1930s and the 1950s, from the selection of Tenzin Gyatso, a son of peasant family in Qinghai, as the 14th reincarnation of Tibetan Buddhism’s highest-ranking monk, to the time when he turned away from China’s Communist Government and followed a separatist path.

The Dalai and thousands of his followers fled Tibet after Chinese forces crushed a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.The documentary will also focus on the dispute over the selection of the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, a major point of contention between Beijing and the Dalai.

Two years ago, Beijing declared the boy chosen by the Dalai a pretender, and crowned its own reincarnation of the Tibetan Buddhism’s second-highest ranking monk. The boy chosen by the Dalai has since vanished, and is widely believed to have been detained by Chinese authorities, concerned the boy will be kidnapped by Tibetan pro-independence groups.

Nearly half the documentary contains footage never before seen in China, the report said.China’s Communist party has long waged a vicious propaganda campaign aimed at vilifying Dalai’s image in China and Tibet as a traitor and a tool of Western, anti-China forces determined to seek Tibetan independence.

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The article ended with comments from high-ranking Tibetan Communist Party official Gyancain Norbu, who said Beijing was prepared to welcome the Dalai back to the motherland provided he stops advocating Tibetan independence and admits that Tibet is an integral part of China.

The Dalai told US President Bill Clinton in April that he seeks only self-rule for Tibet, not independence, but was concerned about human rights and religious freedom in the region.The Chinese Government has banned the worship of the Dalai in Tibet, and has forced Tibetan monks and nuns to denounce their God-king.