By Tenzin Choephel
Phayul Correspondent
Kathmandu, July 22: Mr. Thomas Mann, a member of the European Parliament talked exclusively to the Tibetan Media here in Kathmandu and told that the European Parliament supports re-opening of the Tibetan Welfare Office in Nepal that was closed down a year back by the then Royal Government of Nepal.
Mr. Mann is a member of the European Parliament Delegation who are on a six-day mission to Nepal. He said, “Tibetans have the right to have this Tibetan Welfare Office and not like an NGO or other names. Also always in our resolutions, we table the necessity to have an official office of the Dalai Lama. We have tried the best during our last days’ stay here in Nepal and many people from the NGOs and many parliamentarians have supported this. It’s a very long long fight but we will never lose this fight. I am absolutely convinced, as we in the European Parliament, with the Tibet Inter Group along with the SAARC Delegation, and the Development Committee, we try to do the utmost to help you and all the others. I hope I have some good news in couple of months. We had the opportunity to meet authorities from Nepal, from the government and also some parliamentarians, leaders of NGOs. Whoever we met in the last few days always urged the necessity of opening again this Welfare Center and we tried the best to convince them but of course there was no clear answer and also in all our resolutions in the Parliament (EU), we tabled the necessity of opening again the office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. So, it’s in all the resolutions we tabled in the Parliament and the President of the Tibet Inter Group in the European Parliament and we always got majority support from all the Parliamentarians from 25 countries. We have tried to have a clear answer but not now.
“I think the most important was that we always tabled the questions of Tibetan refugees and for us it is impossible to declare the existence of people staying here as illegal, so they have the right to have these identity cards, these refugee cards. They have the right to stay here and later on go to India, some of them to Dharamsala and some of them to other places. You must have education, you must be in good health and everything should be done, this was a very clear message. It is important that we always table this question and we don’t want to be silent. Nepalese now have other issues with peace process, constitution, it is not easy to integrate Maoist etc but for us the quality of the society is counted and how they act with minorities, so this is very important”, he added.
When asked about EU’ stand on the recent news of resettling 5000 Tibetans to USA, Mr. Mann replied, “We have got information about this news. There is no doubt that they are trying to help personally, individually, and also for the whole Tibetan society. I don’t know if this is the solution of all problems; it is like one drop on to a hot stone but it is a very important initiative. This is very new and I think we should know later on what’s behind. So, when we meet again in European Parliament, also with friends of the European Commission and with European Council, we will try to act and ask the Americans to realize it, but to also have a very clear important information that this Center (Tibetan refugee welfare) should live. This Center is very important. All the people should have the opportunity to be here. This (US resettlement) only could be one of the solutions but we should have more solutions. Here we had some information from our American friends; it’s very important information. Others said we had to find out what’s behind this, if it was clear or it was an official or unofficial version. So I think it’s a process and it is the first step of a very important process. Here we did not specifically talked about this. We are here to support the process of democracy in this country, but we always said ok we don’t want to go out of the rooms of all the offices when we didn’t table the very important question of the Tibetans”.
