Thu, Apr 05, 2001 page2

• Stateless Tibetans ask Dalai Lama for help

  ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS The refugees are hoping that the government will recognize them as such, which will give them the right to live and work legally in Taiwan

  • By Crystal Hsu / STAFF REPORTER
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  When President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) meets with the Dalai Lama today, over 100 Tibetans living illegally in Taiwan will be hoping that their spiritual leader takes the opportunity to help them out of their predicament.

  Currently stateless persons, almost all of the 109 Tibetans living in Taiwan entered the country with bogus passports, said Chueh-An-Tsering (覺安慈仁), a member of the Cabinet's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission.

  "Without nationality, they cannot travel overseas by any other means," noted the official, who has tried to help resolve their plight in the last two years.

  Some of the illegal immigrants were born to families who followed the Dalai Lama to India after the failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese regime in 1959. Others came to Taiwan to escape economic hardship in Tibet, according to the Cabinet commission.

  The Indian government, while willing to allow the Tibetan monks to establish a government-in-exile in its northern plateau city of Dharamsala, has not granted them citizenship.

  "As a result, even the Dalai Lama can only produce an identity certificate, rather than a passport, when he travels overseas," Chueh-An-Tsering pointed out.

  The Dalai Lama is in Taipei on a 10-day religious tour. During a meeting with leaders from the local Tibetan community on Sunday, he agreed to press their case when he meets with Chen today.

  The National Police Administration is currently reviewing the status of the illegal immigrants.

  "If they are found to be genuine refugees, the authorities should promptly grant them permanent residency," Chueh-An-Tsering said.

  Also to that end, KMT lawmaker Apollo Chen (陳學聖) is drafting an asylum bill whereby refugees, regardless of their origins, may all be given permanent residency. Aware of the huge effort required to seek legal remedies to such problems, Chen wrote the president a letter last year, asking him to pardon the illegal immigrants.

  The legislator held that Tibetans are internationally recognized refugees and that the government should treat them leniently. He made the appeal again on the eve of the Dalai Lama's arrival.

  Ironically, some Tibetan refugees claim that the problem was all the commissions making. They blame the commission for not doing anything to help them after they arrived in Taiwan. Being stateless, it was difficult for them to go anywhere else.

  In the past, the Tibetan government-in-exile discouraged Tibetans from traveling to Taiwan. Taiwan's position that Tibet was part of the ROC offended the government-in-exile. The Tibetan government relaxed this policy unofficially, gradually culminating in the Dala Lama's first visit to Taiwan in 1997.

  The government's growing friendship never extended to the commission. They still complain that some of the commission's policies are an insult to Tibetan people.

  The police said they are looking to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help verify the authenticity of travel documents presented by the Tibetans.

  The entire process is "frustratingly slow," admitted Hsu Kuei-hsiang (徐桂香), another official at the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission.

  The lack of legal status has proved a headache for the refugees and law enforcers alike.

  Without the right to work, the Tibetan refugees have difficulty making ends meet, said Chueh-An-Tsering. Although some manage to find menial part-time jobs, most have to rely on charity, he added.

  In fact, a few of them were invited to Taiwan for vocational training and then overstayed their visas. Between 1983 and 1999, the commission sponsored some 500 Tibetan refugees from India and Nepal to receive occupational training in Taiwan. Fearing that more participants might overstay their visas, the commission put the brakes on the program three years ago.

  Paradoxically, the illegal status of the Tibetans over the years has helped to get them freed when they have been caught by police. "The authorities just don't know how to deal with them," said one of Apollo Chen's aides. "Because they are stateless, they cannot be deported."
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