Dharamsala, Feb. 11, 2009 – As the 73 year old Tibetan leader became honorary citizen of Rome and received the German Media award, Chinese government officials in Tibet have blamed the Dalai Lama of planning sabotage.
According to Reuters, Chinese officials said yesterday that fresh protests can not be ruled out as the Dalai Lama is determined to foment trouble.
“The biggest challenge for Tibet is the disruption and sabotage of the Dalai Lama and his group. The more chaotic Tibet becomes the better he feels. This is not good for the fundamental interests of the people in Tibet,” Reuters quoted the deputy head of the regional parliament, Nyima Tsering, as saying.
“There are some people who do not want to see the peaceful development of Lhasa’s economy,” Cao Bianjiang, deputy mayor of Lhasa, said at a news conference in the Tibetan regional capital during a government-organised and tightly controlled visit by a small group of foreign reporters.
China’s verbal attack on the Dalai Lama has become a routine with the Tibetan leader’s foreign tours. China, which sent military troops to occupy Tibet in 1949, reviles the Dalai Lama as a “separatist” trying to split Tibet from it, and regularly protests against countries that agree to visits by him or warns world leaders of diplomatic consequences if they meet him.
China blamed last year’s protests on the Dalai Lama who out rightly denied the allegations saying the protests were an “…outburst of long pent-up physical and mental anguish of the Tibetans and the feeling of deep resentment against the suppression of the rights of Tibetan people,…”
Chinese government says some 953 people have been detained and 76 convicted over last year’s unrest in Tibet but the exile right groups say the numbers are much higher.
