The Dalai Lama was due to arrive in Germany yesterday at the start of a tour of Western powers, two months after China’s crackdown on violence in Lhasa sparked international condemnation.
The visit will keep the issue of Tibet center-stage until the Olympic Games start in Beijing in August. After Germany the Tibetan spiritual leader will also visit the US, Australia, Britain and France.
The Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala in India, where the Dalai Lama fled in 1959, says 203 Tibetans were killed and 1,000 injured in Beijing’s crackdown following anti-Chinese riots in March in Tibet.
Beijing says Tibetan “rioters” and “insurgents” killed 21 people and accuses the Dalai Lama of being behind the violence and of fomenting trouble ahead of the Olympics — an allegation rejected by the Buddhist cleric.
This month representatives of the Dalai Lama held talks with China to try to defuse tensions.
In Germany, the Nobel peace laureate’s schedule has raised eyebrows as he will be meeting neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in Latin America, nor Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
When the Dalai Lama last came to Germany in September last year, a meeting with Merkel at the chancellery caused a deep chill in relations betweeen Berlin and Beijing which only recently began to thaw.
A government spokesman denied that his schedule this time meant that Berlin was giving in to diplomatic pressure from China — a key market for German firms like Volkswagen, Siemens and Bayer.
The Dalai Lama’s representative in Europe, Tseten Chhoekyap, branded Steinmeier’s decision not to meet the Dalai Lama “an unhappy one,” but his spokesman Tenzin Takla later downplayed the statement.
“His Holiness does not wish to create any inconvenience for anyone or any country,” Takla said in Dharamsala.
In place of Merkel or Steinmeier, Berlin has designated Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul to meet the Dalai Lama on behalf of the government on Monday.
He was also due to hold talks with the speaker of parliament Norbert Lammert and the state premiers of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, Roland Koch and Juergen Ruettgers, and to address the foreign affairs committee of parliament.
The chairman of the committee, Ruprecht Polenz, told the Muenstersche Zeitung regional daily yesterday that the Chinese embassy in Berlin had urged it to cancel the meeting, but that the committee had declined. While in Germany the Dalai Lama will also give talks on human rights, religion and globalization in Bochum, Moenchengladbach and Nuremberg.
The second leg of the five-nation trip will take the 72-year-old to Britain for nine days, where he will hold talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Brown drew fire on Wednesday after it emerged that he would not meet the Tibetan spiritual leader on May 23 in his Downing Street office, as his predecessors Tony Blair and John Major had done.
The head of an all-party committee said the decision to meet at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s residence, appeared to be designed to allay Chinese anger at the talks by presenting them as not entirely formal.
“It is deeply disappointing to us that the prime minister appears to be willing to kowtow to the Chinese leadership,” Norman Baker said.
But Brown said the location of the talks was not as important as the substance.
“What matters is not what part of [London] we meet but what issues we discuss about Tibet,” he said in parliament.
“All issues of substance relating to our views of what’s happening in Tibet will be discussed ... and we will be pressing the Dalai Lama to join us in facilitating negotiations between the Chinese government and the Tibetans,” he said.
The Dalai Lama was also due to give “evidence” on human rights issues to British parliament’s foreign affairs committee, his spokesman said, and will also give talks in London, Oxford and Nottingham.
The Dalai Lama returns to India on June 1 and after a brief pause will leave for Australia, the US and France, wrapping up the tour on Aug. 20 — just four days before the Olympics close.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
RSS