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WASHINGTON: A US senator influential on foreign
policy said Monday he was disappointed with China for “unfairly”
accusing Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of masterminding
protests in the Himalayan territory.
Richard Lugar, the ranking
Republican in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also
challenged China to allow journalists and diplomats full access to
Tibet to determine whether Beijing allegedly overreacted to the
protests.
“I am particularly disappointed
that officials in Beijing have chosen to attack the Dalai Lama and
unfairly blame him for the protests,” Lugar said in a statement.
“I am aware of no credible evidence that he encouraged or
instigated the protests, which occurred across a broad area of the
Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan areas of China.”
China has published an anonymous
confession from a Tibetan protester as part of a dossier of
“evidence” it said proved the Dalai Lama and his
government-in-exile were behind the unrests against Beijing’s rule
of the Himalayan region.
Lugar noted that the Dalai Lama
had deplored the violence and called for a stop to violent
activities, saying they appeared to have been heeded by most
Tibetans in the autonomous region and elsewhere.
“I have met the Dalai Lama
several times and I know him to be a man of peace,” the senator
said. “Contrary to repeated Chinese assertions, he has affirmed he
does not favor an independent Tibet, but rather a Tibet with genuine
autonomy as part of China.”
He urged the Chinese leadership
to work with the Dalai Lama to seek a “mutually agreeable and
peaceful solution” to the Tibet issue.
Beijing says rioters had killed
18 civilians and two police officers in the protests. Exiled Tibetan
leaders have put the death toll from the Chinese crackdown at 135 to
140 Tibetans, with another 1,000 injured and many detained.
Lugar also asked Beijing “to
open up more fully” to allow journalists, diplomats and other
independent observers into Tibet to determine the background to the
protests “to judge” whether Chinese authorities allegedly
overreacted to incidents of looting, burning and attacks on
individuals and whether they were detaining and lodging charges of
violence against monks and others who had expressed their views
peacefully.
“Greater access would also be
consistent with China’s promise to give wider freedoms to foreign
journalists in the period before the 2008 Olympics,” Lugar said.
--AFP
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