(en) Reuters, Dalai Lama's brother dies in US, ABC News, September 6, 2008 : « He left Tibet after the Chinese takeover in 1950, worked as a translator for the CIA in Saipan in 1957 and helped train the first Tibetan resistance fighters who were parachuted into Tibet to fight a guerrilla war against the People's Liberation Army ».
archive.org
L'opérateur radio Robert W. Ford, qui séjourna au Tibet à la fin des années 1940 et passa plusieurs années dans les prisons chinoises, rapporte dans ses mémoires l'avoir rencontré à Londres, des années plus tard et avoir parlé avec lui en chinois ; cf (en) Wind Between the Worlds, David McKay Company, Inc., 1957, p. 331 : « I met Tagtsher Rimpoche, the dalai Lama's eldest brother, at the home of a mutual friend in London. (...) We talked in Chinese, in which I was now more fluent than in Tibetan. »
(en) Nathan Hill, « compte rendu de Sam van Schaik, Tibest: A History, London and New York, Yale University Press, 2011 », Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Londres, School of Oriental and African Studies (Université de Londres), vol. 75, no 1, , p. 190-192 (DOI10.1017/S0041977X11001108, lire en ligne) : « "Finally, the remark that 'Yonten Gyatso [...] remains the only non-Tibetan to have held the role of Dalai Lama' (p. 177) presents a Monpa (sixth Dalai lama), and a Monguor (fourteenth Dalai Lama) as Tibetan although neither spoke Tibetan natively." » (Pour finir, la remarque selon laquelle "Yonten Gyatso ... reste le seul non-Tibétain à avoir exercé la fonction de dalaï-lama" (p. 177) présente un Monpa (le sixième dalaï-lama) et un Monguor (le 14e dalaï-lama) comme Tibétains alors que ni l'un ni l'autre ne parlait le tibétain comme langue maternelle" »).
(en) Elaine Woo, Tibetan scholar, symbol of independence struggle, Los Angeles Times, 11 septembre 2008. « In 1957, President Eisenhower granted Norbu political asylum. Three years later, he married the sister of a high lama and lived for a brief time in Seattle before accepting a job as curator of Tibetan artifacts at the Museum of Natural History in New York. He became a U.S. citizen during this period. »
memoriesofmoving.wordpress.com
(en) Jamyang Norbu, Remembering Rangzen, sur le site Memories of Movement, september 18, 2008 : « Rimpoche’s language skills: Tibetan, Mongol, Japanese, Chinese, English and his native Sining patois... ».
(en) Nathan Hill, « compte rendu de Sam van Schaik, Tibest: A History, London and New York, Yale University Press, 2011 », Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Londres, School of Oriental and African Studies (Université de Londres), vol. 75, no 1, , p. 190-192 (DOI10.1017/S0041977X11001108, lire en ligne) : « "Finally, the remark that 'Yonten Gyatso [...] remains the only non-Tibetan to have held the role of Dalai Lama' (p. 177) presents a Monpa (sixth Dalai lama), and a Monguor (fourteenth Dalai Lama) as Tibetan although neither spoke Tibetan natively." » (Pour finir, la remarque selon laquelle "Yonten Gyatso ... reste le seul non-Tibétain à avoir exercé la fonction de dalaï-lama" (p. 177) présente un Monpa (le sixième dalaï-lama) et un Monguor (le 14e dalaï-lama) comme Tibétains alors que ni l'un ni l'autre ne parlait le tibétain comme langue maternelle" »).
(en) (en) John Gittings, « Thubten Jigme Norbu », sur The Guardian, Thubten Jigme Norbu. « the previous Taktser Rinpoche was their father's maternal uncle. »
(en) Obituary - Thubten Jigme Norbu, TibetInfoNet, 17 septembre 2008 : « Like his brother Gyalo Thondup, he also assisted the CIA in their support for Tibetan resistance. »
(en) Obituary - Thubten Jigme Norbu, TibetInfoNet, 17 septembre 2008 : « He had a strong personal interest in historical studies and vernacular culture, in particular that of the nomads of his native Amdo. He spoke several of their dialects as well as the Mongolian language. »
(en) Obituary - Thubten Jigme Norbu, sur le site TibetInfoNet, 17 septembre 2008 :« As a whole however, he was more a political individualist than a leader figure and occasionally expressed some reservations about the Tibet support movement. He also kept a distance from the exile leadership in Dharamsala and notoriously claimed in the 1990s that the exile establishment was "dominated by a few families, including my own". Finally, despite his early involvement with the CIA, Thubten Jigme Norbu was rather disillusioned with the role of the US in the Tibet issue. In an interview with the Indian journalist Mayank Chhaya he said: "I don't think the US can do anything because the US is interested in green paper [dollars] and how much Mr Coffee they can sell. They are not concerned with Tibetans' suffering. They are concerned with trade". »
