War Is All About Business: Rinpoche
(by Angus McDonald | AP | March 24, 2003)
The United States is willing to try toppling Iraq's regime — but not help liberate Tibet from Chinese occupation — because there is "no oil in Tibet," the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile said.
Violence is always related to business in the modern world, Samdhong Rinpoche, the prime minister of the exile government, said Sunday at a political forum for Tibetans.
Nearly 1,000 people attended the meeting, held at the exile government's headquarters in Dharmsala, India and organized by the Tibetan nationalist Gelshen Lhenzom or Patriotic Front.
"Innocents who don't deserve to die are killed for business purposes," he said.
China occupied Tibet in 1950, citing historical claims to the territory. The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, fled in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and set up the government-in-exile in northern India.
Asked why Washington was not prepared to go to war to liberate Tibet from China, Samdhong said: "There is no oil in Tibet."
He said, however, that Tibetans wouldn't accept any US military assistance.
"The struggle of Tibet has always been a nonviolent one. Even if the United States volunteered to fight to liberate Tibet from China, we would say `No Thank you,'" he said.
Tibetans are seeking autonomy within China, he said.
The US-led coalition launched its attack on Iraq after months of trying to get Saddam Hussein to disarm his nation of weapons of mass destruction, and after Saddam refused an ultimatum to leave Iraq.
Friends of Tibet (INDIA),
PO Box 16674, Bombay 400050
www.friendsoftibet.org