By Tenzin Choephel
Phayul Correspondent
Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) President Kelsang Phuntsok and TYC International Relations Head Dhondup Dorji briefed about TYC activities, aims and objectives to about 40 important members of around eight different Tibetan alumni and sports organizations of Kathmandu.
Mr. Dhondup Dorji first addressed the gathering and stressed on various matters like understanding public opinion, loyalty to our nation, time for youth to take up responsibilities of our society, preparing ourselves when there would be political change in China, new political campaigns of TYC like protesting against Qinghai-Tibet Railways, alumni and sports organizations supporting TYC, career counseling for young Tibetan students to take up specialized education etc.
TYC President Kelsang Phuntsok briefed the gathering about many current Tibetan affairs and activities of TYC. He said that nowadays everything is changing in Tibetan Diaspora, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s way of thinking is changing every year, the policies of Kashag (Tibetan Cabinet) are also changing and people should understand and know about the changes in our society and freedom struggle. He thinks that in the past few years our Tibetan freedom struggle has become very indifferent and people have become lazy to react to any political changes probably since the change to Middle Path of His Holiness, so I think people should all be aware of such changes. “I think it is very clear that the Tibetan issue could not be resolved by Tibetan Parliament and Kashag alone, if we follow the democratic system of Tibetan Government in Exile, I personally don’t think that a person could achieve his political goal because many of the top Tibetan Government officials are former members of TYC Working Committee; they say that being an official they have to follow the policy of TGIE but personally they still wish independence for Tibet, so I don’t think it is correct to have such bias opinions”.
He said that TYC has not achieved very much even after 30 years of its founding, so he think TYC should work more for Tibetan struggle but there are difficulties as the organizations need to consider democratic values of people, so it is important that people should be consulted before any political activities are done.
Being the President of TYC, according to his experience, he thinks that, “China is definitely concerned and fears TYC but China strongly feels that it is easy for them to manipulate Tibetan struggle by fooling some leaders, it is very clear, they try it by various means like bribing. So I think it is very important for us to be honest and watch our society closely”. When asked about if China tried to bribe him, he said that Chinese have tried to offer him money, they strongly believes that if they could manipulate some leaders then they could manipulate Tibetan struggle for 4-5 years during that person’s office tenure; so I think all Tibetans should be honest.
There has been no political activity in Nepal by Tibetans since many years because Nepal is not allowing any anti China activities on its land as they have to depend heavily on China. In Nepal, it might be difficult to organize any political activity but if we organize any political activity under difficulties then I think it would be more effective, but we should not do anything if it is jeopardizing the peace of the whole society. However, we should first understand the law of Nepal and under what circumstances we could organize political activities, then I think we might be able to organize political activities.
In Nepal many scholars and former important people might know very well about status of Tibet before Chinese occupation and Tibet-Nepal relationship then. There are several books written on such matters and he thinks it is important for young Tibetans to take up such matters as their major subject and come up with facts and try to find Nepalis who truly knows Tibetan history.
He also feels that it is time for Tibetans to let His Holiness the Dalai Lama retire according to His wish and take up the responsibility of Tibetan freedom struggle.
