By Phurbu Thiney
Dharamsala, December 12: In a speech to Polish deputies Thursday, exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama called on the world community to bring China into the democratic mainstreams, according to AFP report.
“The free world has moral responsibility to bring China into the mainstream of world democracy. That is very essential, very important,” the Dalai Lama reportedly told members of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.
“The world community… should not isolate China — China must be brought into the mainstream of the world community.” The Dalai Lama added.
The Dalai Lama, who was speaking during an official visit to the Polish parliament, also called on the parliaments of Poland and other European Union states to champion the cause of civil right for Tibetans within China.
“Your influence and your persuasion is very, very important since our dialogue with the Chinese government is… faltering,” he said.
“My faith is thinner, thinner, thinner in (the) Chinese government, but my faith in (the) Chinese people is never shaken,” the Dalai Lama added, stressing he also hoped for “more openness” under China’s current President Hu Jintao, AFP reported.
The Dalai Lama is currently in Poland on an eight-day visit ending Friday at the invitation of Senate Speaker Bogdan Borusewicz and Poland’s Solidarity hero and ex-president Lech Walesa.
On Thursday, a day after President Lech Kaczynski met the Dalai Lama in Warsaw, China warned Poland that bilateral relations were at risk of being harmed.
The Dalai Lama is on the last leg of his three-nation tour of Europe, where he not only addressed a plenary session of European Parliament, but also met with respective heads of states and lawmakers in Czech Republic, Belgium and Poland, that upset China and made it to walk away from a long-planned summit with EU scheduled for December 1.
Defying China’s protest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week met with the Dalai Lama in Gdansk, northern Poland and said Europe shared the exiled Tibetan leader’s concerns over the situation in his homeland.
Apparently unfazed by Beijing’s latest protest, the Dalai Lama told reporters Thursday: “It is now routine — where I go, there is some special blessing from Chinese side.”
China, which sent military troops in 1949 to occupy Tibet, argues that the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, is seeking full independence for Tibet. Calling Dalai Lama a “separatist” trying to split Tibet from China, Beijing regularly protests against countries that agree to visits by him or warns world leaders of diplomatic consequences if they meet him.
Dalai Lama has dismissed Chinese allegations as “totally baseless”, saying he has effectively and sincerely pursued a “middle-Way” policy that calls for a “real and meaningful” autonomy for Tibetan people within China, and repeatedly warned fellow Tibetans against resorting to violence in their struggle for freedom.
Eight rounds of talks since 2002 by Tibetan envoys with Chinese leadership to find a negotiated solution for Tibet issue did not produce any result after China fully rejected a memorandum on “Genuine Autonomy for the Tibetan People” submitted by the Tibetan side during the latest round of talks held in Beijing last month.
Lack of progress in the talks forced hundreds of Tibetan representatives from around the world, during a six-day November “special meeting” in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, to call on their leadership to stop sending envoys to Beijing until China adopts a sincere approach to resolve Tibet issue.
Nevertheless, to defuse international pressure, China maintains that doors for dialogue with the Dalai Lama side is always open, but never stopping its usual malicious anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric.
In Europe the Dalai Lama urged the world community to stand firm when dealing with China. In order to protect the long-term interests of the Chinese people, world must not hesitate to raise human right issues with Beijing Communist Government, the Dalai Lama said during his Europe tour.
