XPost: alt.religion.buddhism, alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan, cn.   
   ulture.buddhism   
   XPost: tw.bbs.soc.religion.buddhism, uk.religion.buddhist   
   From: peter.terpstra7@gmail.com   
      
   The Dorje Shugden movement gets clandestine support from the Communist Party.   
   Their joint campaign to discredit the Tibetan   
   spiritual leader is paying off, especially in Britain.   
      
      
   ALDERSHOT, England – Thousands of Buddhists from all over Britain packed   
   into the Aldershot football stadium southwest of   
   London on June 29, quietly waiting under a hot sun to see the Dalai Lama.   
      
   Just outside the turnstiles, another group of Buddhists awaited the Tibetan   
   spiritual leader.   
      
   “False Dalai Lama, stop lying, false Dalai Lama, stop lying!” they chanted   
   over and over through megaphones, drummers   
   pounding out a rhythmic tempo. When he spoke, only snippets of his remarks   
   could be heard above the cacophony.   
      
   “China must be thrilled at this,” said Gary Beesley, a British devotee of   
   Tibetan Buddhism who had travelled from Manchester to   
   hear the Dalai Lama. “They really must love it.”   
      
   The Aldershot demonstration was part of a pattern: Noisy protesters are   
   following the globetrotting Dalai Lama almost   
   everywhere he goes, denouncing him in terms that echo the invective heaped   
   upon the Nobel Peace laureate by China’s ruling   
   Communist Party.   
      
   On the surface, the commotion appears to stem from an arcane, centuries-old   
   schism in Tibetan Buddhism. But a Reuters   
   investigation has found that the religious sect behind the protests has the   
   backing of the Communist Party. The group has   
   emerged as an instrument in Beijing’s long campaign to undermine support for   
   the Dalai Lama, a political exile who commands   
   the loyalty of millions of Chinese citizens and whom Beijing accuses of   
   plotting secession for Tibet.   
      
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   The protesters are members of a sect that worships Dorje Shugden, a deity its   
   devotees revere as a protector. The Dalai Lama   
   discourages the practice, advising his followers that Dorje Shugden is a   
   malevolent spirit. The Shugden worshippers accuse the   
   Tibetan spiritual leader of persecuting them for their beliefs.   
      
   This quarrel was once confined to the temples and monasteries of the remote   
   Tibetan plateau and exile communities in India. But   
   it has now been exported to the streets and stadiums of North America, Europe   
   and Australia.   
      
   Tibetan and foreign protesters say the demonstrations are organized by an   
   umbrella group called the International Shugden   
   Community, which in the United States is registered as a charity in   
   California. Members of this group say they are fighting purely   
   for religious freedom and deny China plays a role in the demonstrations.   
      
   "There is no connection at all between Dorje Shugden and the Communist Party,"   
   said Nicholas Pitts, a Hong Kong-based   
   spokesman for the International Shugden Community who frequently appears at   
   its protests.   
      
   But a leaked internal Communist Party document shows that China is intervening   
   in the dispute. The party document, issued to   
   officials last year, said the Shugden issue is “an important front in our   
   struggle with the Dalai clique”.   
      
   A monk and prominent former member of the Shugden movement who was based in   
   India and Nepal, Lama Tseta, told Reuters   
   that China paid him and others to plan and coordinate the activities of the   
   sect’s followers overseas. Tseta said officials from the   
   Communist Party’s powerful political special-operations unit, the United   
   Front Work Department, control the effort and allocate   
   funding. These officials direct the protests through senior Shugden monks in   
   China and the Tibetan exile community in India and   
   the West, who are the spiritual leaders of the sect, he said.   
      
   “The Chinese are using them as a tool to make the Dalai Lama look fake, to   
   achieve their own ends, to undermine Tibetan   
   Buddhism and to fragment Tibetan society,” Tseta said in an interview.   
      
   Read More:   
   http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-dalailama/   
      
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