SYDNEY, Australia — The Dalai Lama began a series of meditation lectures in Australia on Wednesday, as human rights advocates criticized Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for failing to arrange a meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader.
A small group of devotees welcomed the Dalai Lama as he arrived early Wednesday in Sydney, where he was conducting five days of lectures.
Rudd was meanwhile in Japan and would later be travelling to Indonesia. The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said he was not due to return to Australia until late Sunday, while the Dalai Lama was set to leave early Monday.
Australia Tibet Council executive officer Paul Bourke said that as a vocal advocate of Tibetan human rights the prime minister should have arranged a meeting in Australia with the exiled Tibetan leader.
“The prime minister was quite outspoken during the recent uprisings in Tibet, even raising the issue strongly while he was in Beijing,” Bourke said Wednesday of recent violent protests in the Chinese-controlled territory. “It would have been appropriate for him to take the opportunity to meet the Dalai Lama here.”
Immigration Minister Chris Evans – acting prime minister on Friday and Saturday when both Rudd and his deputy will be overseas – was to meet the Dalai Lama in Sydney on Friday, the minister’s spokesman Simon Dowding said.
The Sydney Morning Herald cited an unnamed spokesman saying Rudd could not meet the Dalai Lama because he was scheduled to return to Canberra on Sunday night and that the Dalai Lama was due to leave Sydney on Monday morning.
Rudd’s spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment or to confirm his travel schedule.
China accuses the Dalai Lama of being a political activist campaigning for Tibetan independence and discourages world leaders from meeting him.
Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat to Beijing, met the Dalai Lama in Australia a year ago as opposition leader, but they have not met since Rudd was elected prime minister in November.
The prime minister provoked an official protest from Beijing earlier this year when he gave a speech in Washington calling on China to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in the interests of finding a peaceful resolution to the unrest in Tibet.
Beijing’s rule over Tibet came under the spotlight during anti-government protests in March that turned violent, prompting a crackdown by police and military.
China’s government accused the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in northern India of engineering the protests to agitate for independence and embarrass China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August. The Nobel Peace laureate denies that charge.
