By SANDRA CORDON
OTTAWA, April 22 – Substantial talks on human rights for Tibet will be on an expanded agenda when the Dalai Lama meets Prime Minister Paul Martin on Friday.
Despite earlier suggestions by officials that the session would focus strictly on spiritual issues, Martin said he’s open to discussing human rights, a major priority of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
“I’m always open to discussing the question of human rights,” Martin said after a cabinet meeting Thursday.
“I’m convinced it will be one of the subjects discussed.”
Canada is in a strong position to influence China on human rights and autonomy for Tibet because it has a very good relationship with Beijing, the Dalai Lama said Thursday.
“Canada has good relations with China. . .I think Canada is better positioned to influence our Chinese brothers and sisters.”
That kind of help is essential because Tibet’s unique culture is in grave peril, the 68-year-old Buddhist monk warned one day after arriving in Ottawa.
“One nation with a unique cultural heritage (is) dying,” the Dalai Lama, wearing his trademark saffron robes, told MPs and senators in a joint meeting of their foreign affairs committees.
“So things are serious.”
Martin will be the first sitting prime minister to meet the Dalai Lama despite loud protests from Beijing, which calls the Nobel Prize winner a separatist.
To placate China, a major trade partner, federal officials have downplayed the get-together by insisting the agenda won’t be political.
To further emphasize that point, it’s being held at the home of Most Rev. Marcel Gervais, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Ottawa.
The Dalai Lama, on a19-day Canadian tour, said he will leave it to the prime minister to set the tone of the meeting.
“My visit, generally speaking (is) non-political,” he said as he opened a packed, four-day Ottawa schedule.
But it is his duty to explain the Tibetan situation and that country’s relationship with China, he added.
“So that part, maybe (has) some political implication,” the Dalai Lama said in remarks frequently punctuated by self-deprecating jokes and his distinctive giggle.
The issue set off political sparks in the House of Commons where Opposition Conservative leader Stephen Harper accused Martin of allowing China to dictate Canadian policy.
“Is the prime minister capable in fact of taking these decisions on his own?”
Martin responded that human rights “are a spiritual issue. . .and I certainly have no difficulty raising issues of human rights with anybody anywhere at any time.”
Inspired by a luncheon speech from the spiritual leader, 18-year-old Dylan Bretheor of Ottawa said Martin should more forcefully assert Canada’s independence by talking politics with the Dalai Lama.
“He was just great, very inspirational in what he says and does,” Bretheor said.
“I’m disappointed that the prime minister doesn’t stand up for him and for us.”
The Dalai Lama has lived much of his life in exile in India. He fled there in 1959 following a failed uprising against China which has occupied Tibet since 1951.
From exile, he has lobbied not for independence, but rather for Tibet to become an autonomous region with cultural and religious freedom.
Individual Canadians can help win such freedoms for Tibet and Chinese citizens who are repressed under a communist regime, the Dalai Lama told his lunch audience.
“Whenever you talk to our Chinese brothers and sisters, talk about Tibet. . .educate them, that’s very important,” he said.
“And travel, go to Tibet and see, as a tourist by yourself, then come back and tell the truth,” about conditions there.
The Dalai Lama, who rubs shoulders with Hollywood stars, Nobel laureates, and Buddhist acolytes alike, brushed off comparisons made by an angry Chinese government between his cause and Quebec’s aspirations for independence.
As part of Beijing’s efforts to dissuade Martin from meeting the Dalai Lama, it suggested Canada’s experience with Quebec’s independence movement should make Ottawa more sensitive about encouraging separatists.
But the Dalai Lama said globalization has made borders irrelevant anywhere in the world.
“We are not seeking separation, we are not seeking independence,” he said.
“I believe the world is becoming smaller, in (the) economy field, in the environment field, our national boundaries are not important.”
If Beijing permits Tibet autonomy of culture and religion, Tibetans could see great benefits from being a part of China, he added.
And times are changing in communist China.
The massive nation’s cautious move towards free markets is creating greater demands for other kinds of freedom by the people, he said.
“Today’s China, compared with 10 years ago, 20 years ago, is much changed. . .but change must come smoothly, peacefully,” said the Dalai Lama.
“So my approach is actually helping China to a smooth transition.”
