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Dalai Lama will visit Australian parliament

By Lobsang Wangyal | Tibet Sun

Speaker of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile Penpa Tsering (seated right) and Information and International Relations minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile Kesang Y Takla (seated left) with federal parliamentarians representing the Australian All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet: Michael Danby (seated center); and from left: Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, MP Melissa Parke, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, MP Hon Peter Slipper and Independent Senator Nick Xenophon poses for a photograph after a press conference in Dharamshala, India, on 3 July 2009.Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

A six-member Australian parliamentary delegation representing All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet, currently on a visit to the Dharamshala, has invited the Dalai Lama to visit their parliament.

“The Dalai Lama has accepted our invitation to visit the Australian parliament at the end of November this year,” says Labour Party MP Michael Danby, who is also the Chair of the Australian All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet.

The Australians’ visit to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile aroused the ire of the Chinese government.

The Chinese Embassy in Canberra had made representations to the Australian government over the meeting saying “We firmly oppose any interference by outside forces to support the separatist activities of the Dalai clique.”

China opposes any country that allows a visit by the Dalai Lama, or his meeting with any head of state.

Rejecting Chinese interference in Australian affairs, Labour MP Melissa Parke from Fremantle, Western Australia said, “We decide who we invite to our parliament.”

“To defuse the situation, and to have a good reputation in the world, China should allow free and independent media access into Tibet,” Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

The Dalai Lama told the Australians that supporting the Tibetan cause is not anti-China, but is pro-justice.

He also told the Australians about his commitment to the middle-way policy, and the alternatives to his successor as a future Tibetan leader in his absence.

The delegates expressed their support for the Dalai Lama’s middle way approach to achieve autonomy rather than independence for Tibet.

“We support, strongly, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s middle-way proposal for a peacefully negotiated settlement for the Tibetan situation and regret that the Tibet-China dialogue has so far failed to bring genuine progress towards a mutually acceptable resolution,” the delegation’s press statement said.

The delegates expressed disappointment at the Chinese government’s outright rejection of the “Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People” given to China by the envoys of the Dalai Lama last November.

“We support the memorandum as a basis for constructive negotiations on Tibet’s future and will continue to encourage the Chinese government to enter in to sincere and substantive discussions with the Dalai Lama or his representatives outlined in this important document.

Danby says several members of the delegation are hoping to travel to Tibet later in the year during an official visit to China.

It is the first such visit by an Australian Parliamentary delegation to Dharamshala.

Apart from meeting the exile government officials including the Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche, the tourists visited Tibetan schools, institutions, monasteries and met with NGO leaders.

The six parliamentarians arrived in Dharamshala on 1 July, and will leave on 6 July after attending the 74th birthday celebrations of the Dalai Lama.

Australia is home to over six hundred Tibetans, and the numbers will increase at least by 100 a year as the Australian government brings Tibetan ex-political prisoners to the country in a re-settlement project.

Copyright © 2009 Tibet Sun

Published in Tibet Sun