Tibet: May 2007 Archives

By Reuters - by Benjamin Kang Lim
via (uncensored) yahoo!news INDIA | May 22, 2007

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top official in Tibet has vowed to tighten security ahead of a Communist Party meeting in the autumn and the 2008 Beijing Olympics to ensure the Himalayan region remains firmly under Communist control.

In a speech to about 600 party members in regional capital Lhasa on Friday, Zhang Qingli, Tibet's Communist Party secretary, claimed a "transitional victory" over the influence of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

"We must have a more vigorous will to fight, a more tenacious style and do a more solid job of uniting and leading the region's various ethnic groups and throwing ourselves into the struggle against splittism," the official Tibet Daily on Monday quoted Zhang as saying.

"From beginning to end... we must deepen patriotic education at temples, comprehensively expose and denounce the Dalai Lama clique's political reactionary nature and religious hypocrisy," Zhang said in a speech carried by Xinhuanet and other Web sites.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Communist rule, says he wants greater autonomy, not independence, for his predominantly Buddhist homeland.

China and the Dalai Lama's envoys have been engaged in painfully slow dialogue since 2002, which analysts say is partly driven by fears that if the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize dies in exile, it could lead to radicalisation of Tibetan youth and trouble in his homeland.

But hawks like Zhang appear convinced they have the upper hand and regularly denounce the Dalai Lama for trying to split Tibet from the Chinese "motherland".

Zhang pledged to maintain stability to ensure the success of the 17th Communist Party Congress later this year and the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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By AFP | via (uncensored) yahoo!news
May 21, 2007

Tibet's top Chinese official has declared "victory" over the Dalai Lama but accused him of linking up with prominent groups intent on ending communist rule in China, state press said Monday.

"After an arduous year of struggle, we have achieved a transitional victory in repelling the concentrated campaign of the Dalai Lama clique to carry out damaging splittist activities," the Tibet Daily quoted Zhang Qingli as saying.

"The pipe dream of the Dalai Lama clique will forever be doomed to failure," the head of the Tibetan Communist Party committee said in a May 18 speech.

The Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's most revered figure and still the spiritual leader for many in his homeland, fled China after an aborted uprising in 1959.

China has ruled Tibet since sending troops in to "liberate" the region in 1951 and has violently suppressed a number of uprisings since then.

In recent years the Dalai Lama has acknowledged China's rule over the Himalayan region but called on Beijing to allow greater religious and cultural freedoms there.

China has all but ignored such comments, insisting the Dalai Lama is bent on separating Tibet from China.

Zhang accused the Dalai Lama of linking up with "hostile forces" within and outside of China who want to overthrow China's socialist system.

"The basic goal of overseas hostile forces is to bring chaos into Tibet, overthrow the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system and change the complexion of Tibet and the map of China," Zhang said.

"The Dalai Lama clique is preparing to infiltrate inside our borders with plans of renewing domestic splittist activities."

Zhang accused the exiled government of seeking to link up with movements for Taiwan independence and groups pushing for an independent East Turkestan in China's Muslim-majority Xinjiang region.

The Dalai Lama was also forming alliances with China's beleaguered democracy movement and the banned "Falungong" spiritual movement, he said.

"They plan to link hands in a 'big alliance' aimed at splitting the motherland," Zhang said.

The Dalai Lama established his exiled government in the Indian town of Dharamsala after fleeing Tibet and won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent campaign.