Policy On Tibet Could Change: Dalai Lama
(Reuters | March 9, 1994)
The Dalai Lama said he might have to abandon his non-violent policy of seeking talks with China about the future of Tibet unless international pressure made Beijing negotiate. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, said many of his followers were becoming disillusioned by the lack of talks.
"I must now recognise that my approach has failed to produce any progress either for substantive negotiations or in contributing to the overall improvement of the situation in Tibet," he said. "I have left no stone unturned in my attempts to reach an understanding with the Chinese," he said in a statement marking the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
"We have had to place our hopes on international support and help in bringing about meaningful negotiations, to which I remain committed," he said.
But he added: "If this fails, then I will no longer be able to pursue this policy with a clear conscience."
The Dalai Lama has sought talks with Beijing since 1979 when paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said that "except for the independence of Tibet, all other questions can be negotiated." The Dalai Lama has proposed that Tibet be given internal automony with China looking after foreign policy and defence.
"However, the Chinese government has even refused to enter into negotiations of any kind. It has also avoided discussing any question of substance, insisting that the only issues to be resolved are those pertaining to my personal return to Tibet," he said. Over the past few years, the Dalai Lama has regularly dampened calls, mostly from young Tibetans, for a guerrilla war to free a homeland most have never seen. He did not suggest an alternative to the non-violent policies he has travelled the world to promote.
If international pressure failed to get talks started, then he would consult his people "on the future course of our freedom struggle," the Dalai Lama said. The issue for Tibetans, he said, "is the survival of the six million Tibetan people along with the protection of our distinct culture, identity and civilisation."
The Dalai Lama repeated accusations that 1.2 million Tibetans had died at the hands of a Chinese government intent on flooding the Himalayan region with ethnic Chinese settlers. He said the policy threatened the survival of Tibetans in their own land, where protest was met with severe repression and abuses of human rights. "I am conscious of the fact that a growing number of Tibetans, both inside as well as outside Tibet, have been disheartened by my conciliatory stand not to demand complete independence for Tibet," he said.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org