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Rome makes Dalai Lama honorary citizen

AFP

The Dalai Lama (L) receives honorary citizen of Rome by Rome’s Mayor Gianni Alemanno during a ceremony at the Campidoglio on 9 February 2009.Reuters/Tony Gentile/Italy

The Dalai Lama has become an honorary citizen of Rome as the city pledged its support for the Tibetan spiritual leader’s non-violent struggle for the Chinese-ruled province’s autonomy.

“From now on you will be not just a prestigious guest but you will also be a Roman citizen,” Mayor Gianni Alemanno told the Dalai Lama at a ceremony in the Italian capital.

“Your presence here is a sign of our moral rejection of injustice, violence and repression… aimed at defending a people’s identity and the right of each of us to express our spirituality and culture,” Alemanno said.

“We stand by you and strongly demand the full recognition of the autonomy of the Tibetan nation,” the mayor said, presenting the Dalai Lama with a statue of the she-wolf that raised Rome’s founders Romulus and Remus, according to legend.

The honour “is for me additional encouragement to pursue my non-violent action and gives me the courage to continue to the death,” the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate replied as he removed his white scarf and offered it to Alemanno.

The exiled Tibetan leader told a meeting with Italian lawmakers earlier on Monday that the Chinese authorities have stepped up repression in his homeland after a revolt by monks last year, the ANSA news agency reported.

“Recognising the Dalai Lama as the interlocutor is the first step to getting China to recognise him as such as well,” deputy Matteo Mecacci told ANSA.

“The Italian parliament and government cannot remain indifferent to the tragedy” of the Tibetan people, he said.

Protests against Chinese rule erupted in the Tibetan capital Lhasa on March 14 last year, spreading to neighbouring Tibetan-inhabited provinces of China.

The Tibet government-in-exile in India has said that more than 200 Tibetans were killed and about 1,000 hurt in Beijing’s ensuing military crackdown.

China has reported killing one Tibetan “insurgent” and says “rioters” were responsible for 21 deaths.

The International Campaign for Tibet, a rights group, said last week that China had launched a clampdown in Lhasa, investigating thousands of people and detaining dozens ahead of the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

The failed insurrection led the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in India.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

Published in The Age