May 22, 2008
by Nico Hines
The Dalai Lama appeared at the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to not show enlarge option
The Dalai Lama today accused the British Government of failing to sufficiently help Tibetans who he claimed were being subjected to a “cultural genocide”.
The monk was in the House of Commons this morning to discuss the situation in Tibet when he was asked by MPs whether the UK was doing enough to support his homeland.
“I think not enough,” he replied, ending the non-political cordiality that has characterised the start of his 11-day tour of the country.
Gordon Brown was apparently looking to avoid any direct criticism of China during the visit which will see him become the first world leader to meet the Dalai Lama since violence flared in Tibet earlier this year.
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Mr Brown has been accused of kowtowing to Beijing by refusing to invite the Dalai Lama to Downing Street for formal talks. Instead he will meet the spiritual leader at Lambeth Palace on Friday enabling the Prime Minister to claim that he is receiving the 72-year-old monk in a spiritual rather than political capacity.
The Dalai Lama however insisted that he was not concerned about the Prime Minister’s choice of venue and confirmed that he would hold political discussions with him.
“For me - no differences. So long as meeting and talk - that is important,” he said. “I always meet on the level we are human beings.”
Today the Dalai Lama plunged into debating the political situation in Tibet during an appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
He acknowledged that there was a “limitation” as to what the UK - or even the United States and European Union - could achieve in Tibet but insisted that more could be done.
Two months after the authorities suppressed a series of anti-Chinese protests across the Tibetan region, he claimed that arrests and “severe torture” were still taking place.
“One thing I find very painful. When they arrest - severe torture before asking questions,” he said, describing one case where an elderly abbot at a Buddhist monastery was left with a broken leg after a beating by the Chinese.
He said that it was still very difficult to discover what was happening inside Tibet and repeated his calls for an international investigation into what happened.
At the same time he expressed concern about the continuing influx of Han Chinese settlers into Tibet, which threatened to reduce the Tibetan population to an “insignificant minority”.
He said that two-thirds of the population in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, were now Han Chinese while a leak from military sources in the city suggested there were plans to settle another 1 million Chinese immigrants once the Beijing Olympics were over.
“The government is, I think, deliberately promoting nationalism and Han chauvinism,” he said. “Whether intentional or unintentional, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place.”
He said that the Chinese language was now more useful than Tibetan in Lhasa, while many of the Chinese immigrants looked down on the Tibetans.
“Those Chinese who think Tibetans are dirty and bad smell – better go,” he said.
1 comments:
As long as the Han Chinese Communist cabal in Beijing is in power there is little hope that any sense, or even some semblance of accepted standards will prevail.
Little hope of a let up of the oppression, racist subjugation and exploitation of Tibet and its hapless people.
They will continue to plough their inane, by now well and truly hackneyed line, that Tibet was and always will be a part of China.
It appears utterly impossible to elicit any reaction or response from this depraved cabal, which would resemble even just slightly a human trait.
So calls for a dialogue, appeals for common sense, or restraint are falling, not on death ears, but will never even enter a mind that could possibly comprehend such rational behaviour.
Of course there is never any mention of the fact that Tibet was exclusively populated by a completely distinct race with a unique culture and its own sovereign government before the Han Chinese Communist hordes invaded the country.
The uprising must be seen in context of the most barbaric repression and subjugation of a people that were independent for millennia and have endured this tyranny for over 50 years without any letup.
Nor has the world stood up for the victimized Tibetan people, or shown any sympathy, but in fact has tacitly approved of this heinous crime in order to pursue lucrative trade with the most populous nation on the planet.
Every government has prostituted itself so as not to offend the tyrants in Beijing, for trade and the mighty $ is all that matters in this ‘modern day’ world.
Forget about principals, ethics or morals, the suffering and genocide is someone else’s, and there is no oil there anyway.
Realpolitik = Prostitution
This is the 21st century and the year this regime is allowed to host the Olympics, an event that is supposed to be in the spirit of freedom, cooperation, friendship and harmony.
But events all around China and particularly Tibet belie this illusion and the games must be a defining event for the oppressed people of Tibet.
If only the so called “free press” would live up to this nomer and report the truth and facts about the Chinese atrocities in all its starkness.
For in insight into the Riots: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a2ory5hr4g
The history as it really happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhjad2MJsT0
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