By NNN-PTI
Dharmsala : Tibet spiritual leader in exile Dalai Lama Friday renewed his appeal to China to hold a “meaningful dialogue” with Tibetans to resolve the Tibet crisis and also urged the Chinese leadership to “exercise wisdom”.
“I urge the Chinese leadership to exercise wisdom and to initiate a meaningful dialogue with the Tibetan people,” the Dalai Lama said in an appeal addressed to “Chinese brothers and sisters” across the globe.
The spiritual leader also made it clear through the appeal that he neither had any desire to seek Tibet’s separation nor any wish to drive a wedge between the people of Tibet.
Asking the Chinese leadership to understand his position, the Dalai Lama urged them to work to resolve all the problems related to Tibet by “seeking truth from facts”.
The appeal was released by the Tibetan government-in- exile here Friday.
“I also appeal to them (Chinese leadership) to make sincere efforts to contribute to the stability and harmony of PRC and to avoid creating rifts between the nationalities.
“The state media’s portrayal of the recent events in Tibet using deceit and distorted images could sow the seeds of racial tension with unpredictable long-term consequences,” he said, adding “this is of grave concern to me”.
The spiritual leader also reiterated his support for the 2008 Olympics to be held in Chinese capital Beijing this August.
Meanwhile in BEIJING, China said it would “not punish” a group of daring monks who embarrassed authorities by pouring out a litany of complaints against Beijing in front of visiting foreign reporters in riot-scarred Lhasa.
The young Buddhist monks had forced their way into the room where a foreign media contingent was being briefed by a senior official at the Jokhang Temple, a holy shrine, Thursday with some shouting and crying, saying government was “telling lies”.
According to accounts given by foreign journalists present during the nearly 15-minute dramatic scene, the monks also said they lacked religious freedom, were troubled by the troops and government always told lies.
“What they (the monks) said is not true. They were attempting to mislead the world’s opinion,” Baema Chilain, Vice-Chairman of the regional government told reporters on a three-day government organized trip in Lhasa.
The monks who disrupted the tour “are not to be punished”, he was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
“The facts should not be distorted,” he told the journalists who were flown to Lhasa by the government allowing the first access to foreign media 12 days after the Tibetan capital was rocked by violence during the most vicious anti-Chinese protests in two decades.
The International Campaign for Tibet, meanwhile said there are “serious fears for the welfare and whereabouts of the monks, whose peaceful protest shattered the authorities plans to convey an image that the situation in Lhasa was under control”.