DHARAMSALA – Tibet’s government-in-exile Monday took to task the Chinese ambassador to Nepal who said Tibetans fleeing to India were “illegal immigrants” and not refugees. “Tibetans leave their home in Tibet to flee in to exile because they do not have the basic human rights such as political, religious and educational in Tibet,” said Sonam Norbu Dagpo, spokesman of the government-in-exile based in the Indian hill station Dharamsala.
“They are refugees who suffer in their homeland which forces them to flee in to exile,” he told a press briefing. Chinese Ambassador to Kathmandu Sun Heping said Friday that Beijing was “going to make necessary arrangements” to stop the unauthorised movement of Tibetans into Nepal.
“There is no Tibetan refugee problem between us (China and Nepal) but those who have been creating problems are illegal immigrants crossing over to Nepal,” Sun told reporters in Kathmandu.
According to the government-in-exile’s records, 3,000 to 5,000 Tibetans arrive each year in India, where Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled in 1959 amid a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
