The official policy of accommodation translates into a legitimatization of colonial status, a kind of national suicide.

The Anguish of Tibet
Edward Lazar

The Dalai Lama’s decision to pre-emptively announce the new Panchen Lama was, to say the least, politically inastute ... To be sure, it made Tibetans and their Western supporters feel good to see the Dalai Lama exert his authority over the issue, but the price he paid was substantial and the gains were minuscule. In practical terms, ... he has in effect relegated the boy he chose to a life of house arrest …

Moreover, his announcement has badly undermined the credibility of the more moderate Chinese officials who sold the State Council on the idea that the ethnically sensitive selection process would be in China’s best interests. It has therefore reinforced the hard-liners’ contention that China cannot trust or work with the Dalai Lama and has set back chances that China will agree to renew talks with him.

The Snow Lion and the Dragon
Melvyn C. Goldstein

In May 1995, [the only independent Tibetan newspaper, Democracy] published a piece about Shoko Asahara, the Japanese cult leader, highlighting the fact that he had been friends with the Dalai Lama before being accused of killing eleven people in a nerve gas attack on the Tokyo Subway. The article suggested that perhaps the government should be careful about who it conducted relations with in the future. Not long after that, in March 1996, the newspaper ceased publication.

'Paper Tigers', Tibetan News, Spring 1997
Palden Gyal

As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him.

He is now studying film in Madrid and has denounced the Buddhist order that elevated him to guru status. “They took me away from my family and stuck me in a medieval situation in which I suffered a great deal,” said Torres, 24, describing how he was whisked from obscurity in Granada to a monastery in southern India. “It was like living a lie,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

The Guardian, 31 May 2009
Dale Fuchs

Sydney Morning Herald

Cult gave Dalai Lama $2m

Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Aum Shrinrikyo doomsday cult, maintained personal and financial links with Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Asahara donated over $2 million to the Nobel prize-winner for the preservation of Tibetan Buddhism and culture in an apparent attempt to win his favour and endorsement.

According to the Japan-based representative of the Tibetan leader, Karma Gelek Yuthok, who released details of the relationship this week, Asahara began making contributions to the Dalai Lama from 1988, soon after the two met.

Asahara, 41, has repeatedly claimed the Dalai Lama gave him a divine mission to spread "real Buddhism" in Japan. He said the Tibetan leader had told him he was ideal for the mission because he had the "mind of a Buddha".

The Aum cult exploited the connection with the Dalai Lama to recruit new members and to pass itself off as a legitimate Buddhist organisation. Posters depicting Asahara and the Dalai Lama and carrying the Tibetan leader's endorsement were used extensively in cult promotions.

DNA

Dalai Lama’s Middle Way has failed

Jamyang Norbu: “There’s now a very strong voice among Tibetan people, especially among young people. ... A lot of them, who are coming out of Tibet into exile, are not so reverent of the Tibetan government-in-exile. They are now saying that the Tibet government’s policy – and the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Way’ approach – is a failure. The Dalai Lama in some ways is desperate. He doesn’t comprehend the nature of modern politics – and I don’t think he has an understanding of totalitarian regimes.”