Dalai Lama nixed tour to save talks

For the sake of his 6 million fellow Tibetans, spiritual leader Dalai Lama said on Thursday that his plans to visit Taiwan had to be reconsidered to secure negotiations with the Chinese government.

At a crowded Schiller Theater in Berlin, the Dalai Lama presented the Light of Truth award to former Czech president Vaclav Havel, former German minister of economic affairs Otto Graf Lamdsdorff and Irmtraut Waeger, Chairperson of Deutschen Tibethilfe e.V., a German charity giving aid to Tibetans.

The annual award to prominent, long-time supporters of the Tibetan people has been presented since 1995.

During the ceremony, the Dalai Lama stressed that people should help each other to fight for freedom.

"So far, Tibetans have not found the way to freedom. We do appreciate the assistance and support from all over the world," he said.

At a press conference after the ceremony, the Dalai Lama said that his government-in-exile had been negotiating with the Chinese government for three years, but the latest talks last year had made progress.

It was this progress that had resulted in the canceling of plans to visit Taiwan last year.

Not Forgotten

"I'm eager to visit Taiwan. The cancellation did not mean that I've forgotten Taiwan. I have to seriously consider what the real meaning of the Taiwan issue could be while taking the interests of 6 million Tibetans into account," he said.

The Dalai Lama stressed that in his visits to Taiwan in 1997 and 2001, he had been impressed by the development of economic development, freedom and democracy, all of which deserved to be protected.

Taiwan's representative to Germany, Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), was invited to attend the ceremony.

"Human-rights issues should not be discussed in terms of borders, ethnicity or gender. Taiwanese people have fought for democracy not only for themselves but also for people in the rest of the world," Shieh told the Taipei Times.

At a party prior to the ceremony, Shieh passed on President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) regards to Havel, who visited Taiwan last November. Havel said that he was strongly opposed to China's "Anti-Secession" Law, adopted in March, which authorizes the use of force to block Taiwanese independence.

In 1990, the Dalai Lama was invited to the former Czechoslovakia by Havel.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since a failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese government in 1959.

Preservation

At the party, Volker Schloendorff, director of the German film The Tin Drum, told Taiwanese reporters that supporting Tibet was in the interests of cultural preservation.

When asked about Taiwan, Schloendorff said that he had thought about the matter for a long time.

"If Taiwan was attacked, I would petition, definitely," he said.