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DHARAMSHALA, India : Tibetan exiles on Saturday
backed continued negotiations with China to try to achieve autonomy
for the region, after the Dalai Lama asked followers to review the
troubled policy.
The spiritual leader had summoned
nearly 600 leading exiles after admitting his “middle way”
approach of attempting to secure concessions from China had failed
to achieve a breakthrough.
“We wish to pursue the
‘middle way’ further,” Karma Chophel, speaker of the Tibetan
government-in-exile, told delegates at the closing session of the
special meeting to a loud burst of applause.
The week-long talks at the
exiles’ base in Dharamshala in northern India sought to offer new
guidance to the Dalai Lama, but—49 years after he fled
Tibet—they also highlighted the exiles’ divisions.
Many participants had called for
the “middle way” approach to be replaced by an unequivocal
demand for independence.
But most expressed equally strong
opinions against dropping the policy, saying the shift would lose
Tibetans international support and further antagonise China.
“His policy is practical,”
Jamyang Jinpa, a 29-year-old monk attending the meeting, told Agence
France-Presse. “It’s one that can move with the times.”
Delegates had divided into 15
committees, each of which presented a report, and the final
consensus was decided Saturday.
Lhadon Thethorg, a delegate and
New York president of Students for a Free Tibet, said the meeting
had heard many calls for independence, but she accepted her hopes of
a significant policy change had been dashed.
“We are in a democratic system,
but the opinion of the majority may not be the right one,” she
said.
“Whether for the ‘middle
way’ or independence for Tibet, people are calling for more
vigorous action.”
--AFP
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