WASHINGTON: Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will appeal
to US President George W. Bush in talks this month to prod Chinese
leader Hu Jintao to give genuine autonomy to the Himalayan
territory, an official said.
The meeting with Bush is to take place during the Dalai Lama's
high-profile 10-day visit to Washington beginning November 8, said
Lodi Gyaltsen Gyari, the Tibetan leader's special envoy.
"Obviously His Holiness will ask the president to take the
opportunity to once again convey to the Chinese leadership His
Holiness's sincerity and commitment to finding a solution (to the
Tibetan question)," he told reporters.
Gyari said the Dalai Lama would stress to Bush in his third meeting
with the US leader since he took office in 2001 that the Tibetans
were not seeking independence but "the right to self
governance."
"I must say that President Bush, on this issue, has been consistent
and we very much appreciate his strong support.
"He does it not because he is pro-Tibet or anti-Chinese but because
he understands that resolving the Tibetan issue can bring more
stability in that part of the region," Gyari said.
Bush, whose previous two meetings with the Dalai Lama drew angry
complaints from China, is scheduled to visit Beijing on November 19
for talks with Hu and is expected to raise the Tibet issue with
him.
Bush is expected to "raise the Tibet issue is a strong manner,"
Gyari said, basing the prediction on the US president's past
meetings with the Chinese leadership.
The Dalai Lama, 70, has lived in India since he fled from Chinese
troops in 1959, basing his government-in-exile in the hill-top
northern Indian town of Dharamsala.
Beijing formally established a Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965
but Gyari said there was no genuine autonomy.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his
non-violent struggle for Tibet, has been pushing for greater
autonomy for the Himalayan kingdom, as the head of an unrecognised
government and de facto diplomat.
The International Campaign for Tibet, a group spearheading a
campaign for human rights and democratic freedoms for the people of
Tibet, said the Dalai Lama was coming to Washington at a "key
moment," citing the current Sino-Tibetan dialogue on the
territory's future status.
The first-ever talks between the Dalai Lama's envoys and Beijing
officials outside Chinese soil were held in the Swiss capital Berne
in July.
The talks were the fourth between the two sides since direct links
were resumed in 2002.
Gyari said he hoped there would be another meeting with the Chinese
before the end of the year.
"This possibility had been conveyed to me by my Chinese
counterpart," he said.
Chinese President Hu, once Communist Party secretary of the Tibet
Autonomous Region, recently reasserted Beijing's claim that Tibet
had been an "inalienable part of Chinese territory" from the 13th
century onward.
The Dalai Lama "has remarked several times in the past that he
would like to see President Hu as someone much more easier to
engage because of his personal knowledge of Tibet," Gyari said. -
AFP/de
