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World Tibet Network News Published by the Canada Tibet Committee Friday, March 10, 2006

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4. Dalai Lama wants to go to China (AP)

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As published in CNN (and also in Al Jazeera)

DHARMSALA, India (AP) -- The Dalai Lama said he wanted to travel to
China on a "pilgrimage" and to see the changes in the country,
addressing thousands of followers Friday, the anniversary of a 1959
uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule.

The supreme Tibetan spiritual leader said his envoys, who recently
returned from talks with officials in China, had conveyed his desire to
the Chinese government.

"My envoys reiterated my wish to visit China on a pilgrimage," he said
in an address to thousands of followers in Dharmsala, the seat of his
government-in-exile.

"As a country with a long history of Buddhism, China has many sacred
pilgrim sites," he said. "As well as visiting the pilgrim sites, I hope
I will be able to see for myself the changes and developments in the
People's Republic of China."

The Dalai Lama is understood to have conveyed the request to Chinese
officials earlier to go back and visit, but this is the first time he
has spoken of it in public.

In Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman reached by telephone
had no immediate response.

China has claimed Tibet as part of its territory for centuries, and its
forces occupied the region in 1950. Branded a separatist, the Dalai Lama
fled to the north Indian city of Dharmsala in 1959 where he formed a
government-in-exile. He hasn't been back since.

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said he wants autonomy, not independence,
for Tibet.

"It is a legitimate, just and reasonable demand that reflects the
aspirations of Tibetans, both in and outside Tibet," he said. "This
demand is based on logic of seeing future as more important than the past."

Tibetan and Chinese officials met last month in southern China. Lodi
Gyaltsen Gyari, the Dalai Lama's chief representative, led a four-man
team in their February 15-23 trip, during which the envoy said there was
a growing understanding between the two sides, though fundamental
differences persisted.

The envoys have attended four rounds of talks with China since 2002.
Specific details of those discussions have not been released, but they
are believed to have focused on the Dalai Lama's demands for more
autonomy for Tibet to protect its unique Buddhist culture.

"I have stated time and again that I do not wish to seek Tibet's
separation from China, but that I will seek its future within the
framework of the Chinese constitution," the Dalai Lama said.

"Anyone who has heard this statement would realize, unless his or her
view of reality is clouded by suspicion, that my demand for genuine
self-rule does not amount to a demand for separation."

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Articles in this Issue:

1. Statement of His Holiness the Dalai Lama for March 10th Anniversary:
2. Statement of the Kashag on the 47th Anniversary of the Tibetan Uprising Day
3. Dalai Lama 'wants to visit China' (BBC)
4. Dalai Lama wants to go to China (AP)
5. Dalai Lama calls for support for dialogue (ICT)
6. US Annual Human Rights Report Says China Commits Serious Human Rights Abuses in Tibet: President Bush to hold summit with Chinese President Hu in DC

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Other articles this month - WTN Index - Mail the WTN-Editors