Dalai Lama Ends Mongolia Trip
(AFP | Ulan Bator | November 8, 2002)
Tibetan religious leader the Dalai Lama, ended a five-day visit to Mongolia Friday, during which the country's leaders steered clear of him for fear of offending powerful southern neighbour, China.
The Dalai Lama, who normally lives in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based, left Ulan Bator aboard a Mongolian Airlines flight to Tokyo and Seoul, sources here said. Mongolian leaders avoided meeting the Dalai Lama, but put him up at Ulan Bator's Ikh Tenger area where the government elite lives.
The only leader of any prominence who got close to the Dalai Lama in this fervently Buddhist nation was former parliament speaker Radnaasuramberel Gonchigdorj, who was in the audience at the Mongolian National University Thursday, witnesses said. The National University, as well as the Science and Technology University, conferred honorary doctorates on the Tibetan leader.
Mongolian railway officials on Wednesday said Chinese authorities had blocked several trains the previous day, stranding hundreds of passengers at Zamiin Uud border station.
The situation eased Wednesday afternoon, they said.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan in Beijing confirmed Thursday that some trains were stopped but said this was due to technical reasons, refusing to link the matter to the Dalai Lama's visit. But Kong said China remained strongly opposed to any visit by the Dalai Lama to other countries and urged Mongolia not to grant him a forum for "splittist" activities.
China has ruled Tibet in an often brutal fashion since 1951. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an abortive uprising in 1959 and formed a government-in-exile in India.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org