By AFP
New Delhi : Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Wednesday appealed for international pressure on Beijing to halt what he charged was a mounting Chinese military crackdown in his homeland.
“Chinese authorities have deployed large contingents of troops in these traditional Tibetan regions and have not only started to crack down heavily on the Tibetans allegedly involved in the unrest, but also sealed off the areas where protests have taken place,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement.
He asked “world leaders, parliamentarians, NGOs and (the) public” to call “for an immediate end to the current crackdown, release of all those who have been arrested and detained, and the provision of proper medical treatment.”
Quoting “reliable sources” in his homeland, the exiled spiritual leader said there were also reports of “many injured Tibetans being afraid to go to Chinese-run hospitals and clinics.”
“I would also request you to encourage the sending of an independent international body to investigate the unrest and its underlying causes as well as allow the media and international medical teams to visit affected areas,” he said.
An international presence would “not only instill a sense of reassurance in the Tibetan people, but will also exercise a restraining influence on the Chinese authorities,” the Buddhist spiritual icon added. Exiled Tibetan leaders have said at least 135 Tibetans have died in the Chinese crackdown with another 1,000 injured and many detained.
China has reported a total of 20 deaths, 19 of them in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, which was shaken by violent anti-Chinese riots last month in which Western tourists said Tibetans attacked Chinese civilians with rocks and torched buildings.
The Dalai Lama’s appeal came two days after New Delhi told the 72-year-old Nobel laureate not to use India as a springboard for an anti-Chinese political campaign.
“The Dalai Lama can stay here as India’s guest but he should not do anything that harms India’s diplomatic ties with China,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a public function on Monday.
“There has been no change in this policy formulated by (India’s first prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru,” Mukherjee said in the eastern state of West Bengal, which has a sizeable Tibetan population.
“Tibet is an autonomous region of China,” Mukherjee said, referring to India’s stand on the Himalayan territory. The Dalai Lama’s headquarters in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala declined to react to Mukherjee’s comments but said Tibetans are grateful to New Delhi for granting them sanctuary on Indian soil since 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.
“We’re very grateful to the people and the government of India for all they have done for Tibetans and the Indian government has done as much as it can in areas where it has been able to,” the Dalai Lama’s spokesman Tenzin Takla said by telephone.
The protests began in Lhasa on March 10 to mark the anniversary of the abortive uprising in the remote Himalayan region and escalated into deadly rioting in Lhasa four days later. It also spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations.
The Dalai Lama fled to India after the 1959 uprising disguised as a Chinese soldier.