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China launches fresh attack on Dalai Lama

PTI

The Dalai Lama addresses at a public gathering in Gulabgarh, about 310 kilometres (192 miles) from Jammu, India, on 5 June 2010. The Dalai Lama is on a two day visit to the area.File photo/AP/India

In a fresh attack on Dalai Lama, a mouthpiece of the Chinese government today criticised his call for greater autonomy for Tibet and questioned whether he was really qualified to speak for six million Tibetans.

In an article, the Peoples Daily, slammed the demands submitted by the spiritual leader’s representatives during their talks with Chinese officials early this year and said the Dalai Lama’s demand implies “greater Tibet,” which he never represented.

“In early 2010, the Dalai Clique filed a note relating to the Memorandum on Genuine Autonomy for All Tibetans to the Chinese government, requesting talks on the welfare of 6 million Tibetans,” the write up said inferring that his demand included all Tibetans living in four other provinces, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan, besides Tibet.

The article titled ‘Is the Dalai Lama qualified to speak on the ‘welfare of 6 million Tibetans?’, said the Dalai Lama himself hails from Tibetan majority Qinghai, which suffered heavy earthquake in April this year in which over 2600 people were killed and thousands injured.

“Prior to the 1950s, (Before the take over of Tibet by China) Tibetan society was still extremely closed and backwards, and the production level and the development of the entire society were at an exceptionally low level. Countless Tibetans died from hunger, cold, poverty or disease,” it said.

It said the 14th Dalai Lama could not even guarantee the most fundamental rights of survival for numerous Tibetan farmers, and therefore “he is not qualified to talk about the welfare of 6 million Tibetans”.

Furthermore, “6 million Tibetans” implies a concept of a “Greater Tibet”.

As the 14th Dalai Lama had never managed any Tibetan region outside Tibet, he is even further from being qualified to discuss the “welfare of 6 million Tibetans,” it said.

In the several rounds of talks that were held between the Dalai Lama’s envoys and the Chinese officials, the Tibetan spiritual leader is believed to have called for more autonomy for Tibetans under the Chinese constitution.

China rejected it stating that it would not allow Tibet the kind of autonomy granted to the territories of Hong Kong and Macau. China in the past dismissed the demand for demand for autonomy for Tibet as “disguised independence”.

The latest tirade against the Dalai Lama comes as China poised to open Tibet, regarded as the roof of the world, to international tourism.

The government planned to take a team of international journalists for tour of Tibet later this month to showcase the progress made in the area which now boasts of four airports, besides a vast network or roads and railways.

The criticism is also timed along with current tour of Tibet by 11th Panchen Lama, the 20-year-old monk being projected as the successor to Dalai Lama.

Copyright © 2010 PTI

Published in Hindustan Times