Tells The FacTs and names The names aPril 16-30, 2008 alexander cockburn and Jeffrey St. clair vol. 15, no. 8 Bitter Struggle over Identity Fixers Indicated HRC was Key in Pardon Deal of 17th Reincarnation Bill Clinton and the Rich Women Who Will be the Dalai Lama’s Successor? By Jeffrey St. Clair espite her campaign’s ongoing lawyer Robert Fink called the “HRC op- By Peter Lee slurs against Bill Richardson, tion.” the nation’s only Hispanic gov- Who is Marc Rich? And why did he he Tibetan community’s inher- Dernor, Hillary Clinton probably feels like need a presidential pardon? ent suspicion about the sincerity she has Puerto Rico, the final primary, in Born in Belgium to Jewish parents, of Chinese engagement was cer- the bank. Those delegates were sown up Marc Rich moved with his family to the Ttainly deepened by the passage of a law nine years ago on August 16, 1999, when United States to escape Hitler. Young on September 1, 2007, that would regu- Bill Clinton issued commutations for 16 Marc soon went to work for a commod- larize selection of reincarnations by the members of the FALN Puerto Rican na- ity firm in New York called Phillip Bros., Chinese government and forbid recog- tionalist group serving long sentences later acquired by Salomon Brothers. nition of reincarnations outside China’s for robbery, bombings and sedition. That He soon made his mark as an oil trader boundaries. rare act of humanitarian intervention and, along with his friend Pincus “Pinky” Clearly, if the Dalai Lama dies in exile endeared the Clintons to many Puerto Green, he is credited with inventing spot outside Tibet, the selection of his succes- Ricans, obviating the sins committed market trading in oil, ferrous metals and sor will be subject to Chinese interfer- by the administration at Vieques Island, sugar. Billions flowed into the firm. ence and manipulation of the kind that which had been turned into a toxic But Rich and “Pinky” Green felt under- has attended the selection of the Panchen bombing ground. appreciated and underpaid. They bolted Lama. But if Hillary wants to claim credit for the firm, and Rich angrily vowed to The Panchen Lama is, after the Dalai the FALN pardons (a strategic decision “grind Phillip Bros. into oblivion.” In 1974, Lama, the most eminent figure in Tibetan at the time, geared to helping her win a the pair started their own holding com- Buddhism and a key figure in identify- U.S. senate seat in New York), she should pany, eventually known as the Marc Rich ing the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. also own up to her role in a much more Group, and began making oil deals with Thanks to Chinese meddling, there are problematic case, the midnight pardon of Iran, Iraq and wildcatters in Texas. He two Panchen Lamas now. One, a little billionaire fugitive Marc Rich. and Pinky were soon billionaires and big boy of six at the time of his selection by Hillary has never addressed her role shots in the global petrochemical trade. the Dalai Lama in 1995, was immediately in the Rich pardon. In fact, she’s rarely Around this time, Rich courted a detained by the Chinese and has spent been asked her opinion on the free pass buxom young Jewish singer/songwriter most of his life languishing in Chinese given to one of the world’s most wanted from Worchester, Massachusetts, named custody. The second Panchen Lama, sub- fugitives, a man who violated embargoes Denise. He whisked her off to his seaside sequently designated by the Chinese gov- against Iran and South Africa and fled villa in Marbella, Spain, where the couple ernment, has been unable to take up his the country rather than face trial in what were married and rapidly assumed the seat at Tashilhunpo Monastery because was billed as “the biggest tax evasion case life of international jet-setters and art of Tibetan opposition and currently re- in history.” The senator has variously said collectors. sides in Beijing. that she was “unaware” of the decision Then in 1983 crisis hit the Rich fam- But a charismatic successor to the and “surprised” by it. When pressed, she ily. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Dalai Lama apparently already exists in merely cackles. Southern District of New York notified the exile community at Dharmsala, in the Even though 300 pages of core docu- Rich and Pinky that they were under in- foothills of the Himmalayas, in northern ments relating to the pardon decision re- vestigation for fraud, illegal oil deals with India. main under seal at the Clinton Library, a Iran and the apartheid regime in South He is Ogyen Trinley Dorje, head of review of the available record tells a much Africa, and tax evasion. Documents the Kagyu (Black Hat) sect of Tibetan different story. In fact, the Rich legal were subpoenaed. Indictments were in Buddhism. He is the Karmapa – a mani- team viewed Hillary as a secret weapon, the works. Rich hired D.C. heavy-hit- festation of Chenrezi, the Buddha of and as one door after another closed on ter Edward Bennett Williams to fend off compassion in Tibetan Buddhism, as is their search for a pardon they focused assaults of a vicious young prosecutor the Dalai Lama – and is 17th reincarna- more and more on invoking what Rich – none other than Rudy Giuliani. Peter Lee conTinued on Page 2 st. cLair conTinued on Page 4 aPril 16-30, 2008 Peter Lee conTinued From Page 1 struggle for decades to come, no mat- tine guerilla war against China inside ter what skullduggery the Chinese try Tibet), Gyalo Thondup, even resorted to tion of the sect’s founder, the third most to commit when the current Dalai Lama assassination in order to quash the Kagyu revered figure in Tibetan Buddhism after passes on. sect’s attempts to create an alternate po- the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. litical power center in the Tibetan émigré A 2007 profile in theIndependent quoted community in 1977. the remarks of Tibet expert, Jane Perkins: Accusations Levelled at the At all events, Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s “He turns 22 next month, he now speaks Karmapa heroic escape, his charisma, and the Dalai six languages, and he’s becoming more To descend from high expectations Lama’s endorsement put the wind at the and more of a magnet here... There’s ab- to coarse political reality, the Karmapa young Karmapa’s back, and he apparent- solutely no doubt that he is the new star: is locked in a bitter struggle with a dis- ly won the loyalty of most of the Kagyu dynamic, powerful, full of young energy sident faction within his own sect. He’s monks and monasteries worldwide, with but with tremendous discipline and dig- been accused of being a Chinese mole. one important exception. nity, enormously sage for his age... In He’s unable to enter the seat of his order, That exception was the most powerful which case he could take some of the the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim. And he of the regents, Shamarpa Rinpoche. load off His Holiness’s shoulders .” might not even be the true Karmapa. Ogyen Trinley Dorje even comes The 16th Karmapa fled his traditional with his own heroic myth – a dramatic Battle over the Black Hat: seat at the Tsurphu Monastery in 1959 escape from Chinese minders over the Shamarpa Rinpoche Enters (subsequently leveled by the Chinese Himalayas to Dharmsala in 2000, when the Story army in 1966) with the relics of his sect, he was just 14. built a new seat, Rumtek, in Sikkim, and Shamarpa Rinpoche had from the be- The Karmapa comes to the United amassed great wealth and influence while ginning refused to accept the miraculous States May 15 through June 2 for the first in exile. He died in 1985. Four regents letter in the amulet or the recognition of time, to conduct public teachings in New were charged with finding his reincarna- Ogyen Trinley Dorje by the Dalai Lama York, Boulder and Seattle. tion. They apparently didn’t get along. – which he regarded as a gross intrusion It’s an important first step for the At a crucial juncture, after the search into the affairs of the Kagyu sect as well Karmapa on the world stage at a crucial had languished for a decade, one of the as an infringement upon his prerogatives time for Tibet. The visit may serve as a regents decided to look inside a keep- as its leading Rinpoche, a title is generally coming-out party for the next leader of sake the 16th Karmapa had given him and reserved for tulkus (incarnate lamas) and the Tibetan émigré community, one who found… a poem giving detailed instruc- those recognized by the proper authori- will inherit the Dalai Lama’s mantle and tions as to the location of his successor! ties within a lineage as “choje lamas” (“su- serve as the public face of the Tibetan The reincarnation, Ogyen Trinley perior dharma masters”). Dorje, the son of seminomadic herders In 1992, just as the Kamarpa was about inside Tibet, was identified in 1992. The to be installed at the restored Tsurphu Chinese accepted his designation, and Monastery inside China, Shamarpa Ogyen Trinley Dorje was installed in the Rinpoche showed up at the Rumtek mon- EDITORS restored Tsurphu Monastery for instruc- astery in Sikkim with an Indian army es- ALexander Cockburn tion under the eyes of his Chinese mind- cort to denounce the selection, triggering Jeffrey St. CLair ers.