Prince Charles used in campaign to boycott Beijing Olympics

Free Tibet Campaign urging public figures to stay away

Owen Bowcott
Monday January 28, 2008
Guardian Unlimited


Prince Charles won't be going to Beijing in August. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
The Prince of Wales' decision not to attend the Beijing Olympics is being used as the launchpad for an international campaign to persuade public figures to boycott the games.
Prince Charles has confirmed to the London-based Free Tibet Campaign that he has no plans to attend the opening ceremony in the Chinese capital. The Prince has not received a formal invitation but has recently been courted by the Chinese Ambassador in London in a bid to improve relations.

Prince Charles' public support for the Dalai Lama, Tibet's independent spiritual leader, and his disparaging remarks about Chinese officials at the handover of Hong Kong have been a public embarrassment for Beijing. In leaked diaries, written during in 1997, the Prince notoriously referred to senior Chinese officials as "appalling old waxworks".

The Free Tibet Campaign, which opposes the Chinese occupation of the Himalyan country, is not calling for athletes to stay away from the summer's Olympics. But it is hoping to encourage public figures to declare that they will stay away in protest at human rights abuses and China's refusal to grant Tibet independence.

"We are not calling for any sort of boycott by the athletes, they have been training for years," said Anne Holmes, director of the Free Tibet Campaign. "What we would like to see is as many as possible high profile public figures making a principled decision to stop at home - and watch it on TV. We would hope this would include Gordon Brown, who has been invited to go back to Beijing for the Olympics. We can't say what Prince Charles is thinking but Clarence House [the Prince's London residence] has written back to us to confirm that he is still very friendly towards Tibet."

The Prince has met the Dalai Lama several times. In a letter to the campaign, Clive Alderton, his deputy private secretary, confirmed the Prince would not attend the opening ceremony. "As you know, His Royal Highness has long taken a close interest in Tibet and indeed has been pleased to meet His Holiness the Dalai Lama on several occasions," he wrote. "You asked if the Prince of Wales would be attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. His Royal Highness will not be attending the ceremony."

Publication of the letter is likely to be regretted by the government, which has attempted to build strong economic and cultural ties with the China. A spokeswoman for Clarence House told The Guardian yesterday: "There are no current plans for [the Prince] to go to the Olympics. As a rule he doesn't attend. He went when the Princess Royal was competing in Montreal in 1976. The Prince of Wales ... takes an interest in the siuation in Tibet and he hopes as long term peaceful solution will be reached after some dialogue."

Both Princess Anne, who is president of the British Olympic Association, and Prince Edward are likely to go to Beijing.

Last month Tibetan exiles failed to convince the International Olympic Committee that they should allow their athletes to compete as an independent national team under the title 'Team Tibet'. The country has been occupied by Chinese troops since 1950.

Dalai Lama, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar meet Kalam

Source: Rediff.com

spiritual leader Dalai Lama [Images] shares a light moment with former President A P J Abdul Kalam and founder of the Art of Living Foundation Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at the launch of the Global Foundation for Civilisational Harmony in New Delhi on Tuesday.

The global peace initiative aims to work towards preventing conflicts in various parts of the world.

I am mentally an Indian, says Dalai Lama

Source: Times of India
BANGALORE: Spiritual leader of Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, said on Thursday that having spent many years as a refugee in this country, he has become mentally an Indian.

"I am a homeless person for 50 years," the Dalai Lama said at function organised here to felicitate former Defence Minister George Fernandes, adding, he has been a guest of the Indian government all these years.

The 72-year-old said he had become a refugee at the age of 24. "My best part in life is spent in this country. Major part of my life is spent in this country," he said.

The Dalai Lama said having spent many years in India, his "inner values" and "spirituality" come from this country. "Indian spirituality filled my mind. I am mentally an Indian".

According to him, India could solve many of its problems if Indians had the same zeal and spirit that they showed during the freedom struggle.

China says military buildup does not threaten U.S.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China defended its growing military prowess on Monday, saying it did not threaten the United States, and again urged Washington not to sell weapons to Taiwan.

"The distance between the Chinese and U.S. militaries is big. If you fear China's military buildup you don't have much courage," said Chen Bingde, chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army.

"We don't have the ability to make you afraid of us," he told reporters in Beijing, before meeting Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Command.

Some U.S. politicians have rung alarm bells about China's increased military spending and technological revamping of its armed forces.

Sino-U.S. relations were strained last year when China blocked a visit to Hong Kong by a U.S. aircraft carrier and accompanying ships.

China's actions prompted speculation it wanted to show irritation over U.S. plans to help Taiwan upgrade its missile system and over a meeting between President George W. Bush and exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province and the Dalai Lama as a separatist trying to win independence for Tibet, which Chinese troops invaded in 1950.

Chen also bought up Taiwan with Keating, telling him Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian "had stubbornly intensified secessionist activities", the official Xinhua news agency said.

"Chen urged the United States to be aware of the risk of such activities, to cut off its military contact with Taiwan, and to stop weapon sales," the report added.
China has never renounced the use to force to bring Taiwan under its wing.

"We have the ability and also relevant measures to resolve the Taiwan issue if the splittists dare to separate Taiwan from the motherland," Chen told reporters, without elaborating.

China has repeatedly asked the United States to help rein in an increasingly assertive Taiwan, which Beijing fears is moving to formally declare independence and ditch its official name of the Republic of China.

Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 under the principle there can only be "one China" in the world, but is obliged by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the democratic island defend itself.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jerry Norton)

A god in Nepal: second only to the Dalai Lama

Source: The Sidney Morning Herald
WELLINGTON: It is country in the shadows of the world's highest mountains, its valleys so deep that the towering peaks seem closer to the sky than the earth from which they rise. But in Nepal one shadow casts further and longer than any other. Here Sir Edmund Hillary is a god.

In a place often in political turmoil and geological upheaval, love for the New Zealander is one constant. By standing on a tiny patch of snow on top of the world's highest mountain, he gained a country. And from Hillary Nepal gained much more. His influence - and that of his Himalayan Trust is everywhere.

His picture hangs in homes, schools and monasteries, often near Buddhist shrines, and in the 46-year-old Khumjung School, which he helped found and build during his first foray into charitable work.

The school has since produced doctors, lawyers and pilots. It is an incredible, inspirational place.

Long after his most famous visit to this country in 1953, during which he conquered Everest with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, Hillary frequently returned to Nepal.

He will be mourned in villages like Pheriche, Monjo and Dengboche, along the trail to the Everest base camp, with the lighting of incense and in puja, spiritual offerings in which deities are satisfied. Other people will take to the mountains and hang prayer flags.

His death will almost certainly be felt in the house of Lhakpa Sonam, a Sherpa who once helped save Hillary's life by leading him down to the thicker air of the Himalayan valleys when he fell ill with altitude sickness.

Sonam runs a teahouse and museum above the hanging village of Namche Bazaar, a great trading post for Nepalese and Tibetans along the Solu-Khumbu trail that leads to the foot of Everest.

When I met Sonam, who completely lost his hearing to meningitis more than 20 years ago, he became animated when he realised Hillary was being discussed. He showed me photographs of him with Hillary, his eyes sparkling.

"To us, Hillary is a living god. Because of him, we have access to schools and medicine. Without him, how could we have this? He climbed Everest, yes, but to us he did much more," he said.

In Kunde and Khumjung, there are hospitals and schools. In Tengboche, there is the Buddhist monastery he helped rebuild after fire destroyed much of it in 1989.

Inside temples throughout the Solu-Khumbu, Hillary is considered a spirit. The Sherpa call him the Godfather, a truism rather than a nickname. In a recent poll of Nepalese children Sir Edmund rated second behind the Dalai Lama as a hero. The Dalai Lama once pronounced himself a Hillary fan.

During an interview in May 2003, not long before flying to Kathmandu to mark the 50th anniversary of his and Norgay's climb, Hillary said his feats on Everest and at the South Pole did not stand out as personal highlights. "I haven't any doubt that the most worthwhile things I have done have not been climbing mountains or going to the Poles or so on," he said.

"It has been helping my Sherpa friends, building the schools and medical facilities. I think that is what I would like to be remembered for."

Indian town `more Tibetan than Tibet'

Jade Hemeon
Special to the Star

McLeod Ganj, India–At an altitude of almost 2,000 metres, the little hill station of McLeod Ganj huddles in the shadow of the enormous, snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. But as home of the Dalai Lama and seat of the Tibetan government in exile, it is an important and unusual place.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and Tibet's Buddhist spiritual leader, has lived in McLeod Ganj (also called Upper Dharamsala) since 1959, when he escaped from Chinese-occupied Tibet. Since then, thousands of Tibetan exiles have settled in the town, creating a Tibetan world in India with restaurants and businesses, homes, monasteries, meditation retreats and schools. Everywhere you go, you see people with their Tibetan clothing, smell the Tibetan foods and view the curled-up rooftops of the Tibetan temples, rows of prayer wheels and lines of prayer flags.

"Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj are now more Buddhist Tibetan than Tibet, where the religious traditions and cultural history have been destroyed in the name of the Chinese cultural revolution," says our guide, Vipul Bansal.

"The Tibetans in exile have recreated their traditional way of life in India."

Next door to the Dalai Lama's house is the main Buddhist Temple and monastery. The inner sanctum of the temple is colourfully painted and adorned with thankas, silk wall hangings intricately painted with Buddhist icons. The temple also houses a giant carved and painted image of the Buddha as well as the 100-armed deity Avalokitesvara.

Our arrival coincided with the Dalai Lama giving a public audience. We joined hundreds of red-robed monks and Dalai Lama followers, all rushing to find a spot to sit on the temple floor.

The Dalai Lama was to speak in Tibetan, but the shops along the way sold transistor radios for those who wanted to tune into an English station to hear the instant translation. I picked up a radio and earphones. At the gates, an enterprising family had staked out a spot for a breakfast stand, and was busy selling tea and deep fried Tibetan dumplings and pastries.

Everyone was searched before entering the temple. No cameras or recording devices were allowed. I found a spot with a view through the open windows of the inner sanctum where the Dalai Lama was speaking, but the room only held what looked like a couple of hundred people and there were many more in the outside corridors. The Dalai Lama's message was that a meaningful life revolves around benefitting others.

"Helping others is what we are supposed to do. That's what this life is meant for. It makes sense out of your life and gives meaning to your life," he said with an impish smile.

During the talk, monks would come by with giant tin kettles and fill our cups with soothing Tibetan tea – salty and fortified with melted butter. They also served dry pancake-like Tibetan bread.

Local restaurants have names that reflect the Buddhist – and hippie – influences of the town, such as the Om Restaurant, Café Shambala, Yak Restaurant, Moonview Café and Rising Moon Restaurant.

They serve traditional Tibetan dishes, such as Tibetan thali, a kind of sampler, as well as delicious noodle or Tibetan momo (dumpling) soups.

Below the main temple, a steep road leads to the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives, also a study centre for Buddhism and the Tibetan language. There's also the Kangra Art Museum which has artifacts from the local Kangra valley dating back to the fifth century. The Norbulingka Institute just outside of town was founded to promote and preserve Tibetan culture in exile and promotes the study of traditional arts and literature.

We spent a day visiting the Tibetan Children's Village, established on the outskirts of McLeod Ganj in 1960 by the Dalai Lama's sister, Tsering Dolma Takla, to care for the many orphans and destitute children that result from the continuing Tibet migration.

It provides a Tibetan-style upbringing and education and a family atmosphere – children are placed with foster parents in group homes on the property. Many children grabbed our hands to show us their bedrooms; each one has a clean, neatly made bed, with its own stuffed animal. The school is partially financed by sponsors from around the world who "adopt" individual children.




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China hits back at critics of activists' arrest

By Lindsay Beck
BEIJING, Jan 8 (Reuters) - China hit back on Tuesday at critics of its human rights record, saying the world was using the Olympics, which Beijing will host in August, as an excuse to make a villain out of its government.
Rights groups have condemned the arrest of activist Hu Jia last month on charges of inciting to subvert the government, but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu rejected accusations that China was cracking down ahead of the Games.
"On the contrary, some organisations and individuals take the Olympics as an opportunity to play up some subjects as a way to vilify China," Jiang told a regular news conference.
"We resolutely oppose that because it violates the spirit of the Olympics."
But the criticism is not only coming from foreign watchdogs.
A group comprising dozens of Chinese lawyers, academics, editors and writers signed an open letter condemning Hu's arrest and urging the government to improve its human rights record ahead of the Games.
Hu, 34, first came to prominence over his advocacy for AIDS sufferers. He has since closely followed the trials of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and civil rights campaigner Chen Guangcheng among others, e-mailing regular updates on their cases to reporters.
Police have also prevented Hu's wife, fellow activist Zeng Jinyan, their newborn baby and Zeng's elderly mother from leaving the couple's Beijing home.
Jiang defended China's justice system.
"The Chinese government, according to law, protects the freedoms and other rights of Chinese citizens," she said. "Only if you violate the law will you be punished by the law."
Jiang also criticised reports that Chinese authorities have been forcing Tibetans to sign a petition opposing the return of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism who China considers a traitor.
"Some Tibetan indepedence forces are engaged in anti-China and separatist activities," she said.
"The Dalai Lama has always been engaged in separatist activities under the guise of religion."
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, but many in ethnic Tibetan regions of western China still revere him as a spiritual leader and hope for his return.

Tibetans seen forced to oppose Dalai Lama's return

By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have been forcing Tibetans to sign a petition opposing the Dalai Lama's return, a London-based group said, in apparent retaliation for the award of a high U.S. honour to Tibet's spiritual leader.

President George W. Bush gave the exiled god-king the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington in October, infuriating Beijing. It came on the heels of the Dalai Lama's reception by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in September.

The Dalai Lama, 72, has lived in exile in India since fleeing his predominantly Buddhist homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against Communist rule. Closed-door talks between Beijing and his envoys have made little progress.

"The Chinese authorities are really stepping up their anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric and propaganda," Anne Holmes, acting director of the Free Tibet Campaign, said in an e-mail on Sunday.

During a public meeting in December in Lithang in the Kham area of Gansu province, which is populated largely by Tibetans, residents were asked to raise their hands if they opposed the Dalai Lama's return. No one obliged, the campaign group said.

Residents were then asked to raise their hands if they did not have weapons at home. As it is illegal to possess firearms, everyone raised their hand. A photo was then taken and sent to state media, claiming residents were opposed to the Dalai Lama's return, the Free Tibet Campaign said.

Also in December, secretaries and accountants in townships in Gansu were invited on a nationwide tour paid for by the government, the group said.

FORCED TO SIGN

Before setting out, they were called to a meeting in Lanzhou, capital of the northwestern province, and forced to sign a petition on behalf of the people they represent opposing the Dalai Lama's return, the Free Tibet Campaign said. The meeting was apparently broadcast on local television.
An old man from Amchok town, Hezui city, refused to sign and was taken away and beaten, Holmes said. She said the beating had led a group of young Tibetans to attack township secretaries and accountants while they were eating at a restaurant in Gyelmogon.
Several secretaries were seriously injured and taken to hospital in Ganan city, Holmes said, quoting a monk who had witnessed the attack and spoken to the injured.
Matt Whitticase, spokesman for the group, said Tibetans in Gansu had been forced to celebrate the New Year by slaughtering pigs, contravening their earlier decision not to butcher hogs so as to pray for long life for the Dalai Lama who was born in the Year of the Pig.
Many in Tibet still pledge loyalty to the Dalai Lama despite Beijing's condemnation of him as a separatist. While he advocates a "middle way" approach that advocates autonomy for Tibet within China, Beijing officials do not trust him.
Several Tibetans were arrested last year for burning furs after the Nobel Peace Prize laureate called on Tibetans not to wear the furs and skins of endangered animals.
Qin Yizhi, Communist Party boss in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, has urged residents to "make new, greater contributions in opposing splittism, maintaining stability and promoting lasting peace", the regional government's official Web site said.
China regularly defends its rule in the Himalayan region, saying the Communists ended centuries of serfdom and brought prosperity to the underdeveloped region.
In December China dismissed accusations that religious repression was increasing in Tibet, and accused the Dalai Lama of wanting to reintroduce serfdom.

Exiles plan to march into Tibet from India to protest Beijing Olympics

Source: Associated Press
NEW DELHI – Hundreds of Tibetan exiles will attempt to march from India across the border into Tibet to protest China's hosting of this year's Olympic Games, an exile group said Friday.
The march will be one of a series of protests in India before the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Games, which the exiles say are being prepared amid China's continued attempts to subvert Tibetan Buddhist culture and strengthen Beijing's hold on the Himalayan region.
“The Chinese have said in the past that Tibetans are welcome to return home, so we are going to test that,” said Tsewang Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, which is organizing the march.
Rigzin said hundreds of members of his organization would depart from Dharmsala in northern India on March 10 – the day Tibetans commemorate a failed uprising against the Chinese in 1959.
Dharmsala has been a center for exiles since the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled there after the uprising and set up a government in exile.

Rigsin said the marchers intend to try to cross the border and walk all the way to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. He would not give details on the route of the march, and it remains unclear what sort of reception the marchers would receive from the Chinese authorities.

The Tibetan Youth Congress, which takes a more radical line in its protests against China than the Dalai Lama and Tibetan government in exile, said it had not consulted the Dalai Lama over the protests.

The group called on all Tibetans to use peaceful means to protest the Games and Chinese plans to have the Olympic torch carried through Tibet.

Beijing insists that Tibet is historically part of China, but many Tibetans argue that the Himalayan region was more or less independent for centuries.

Exiles have recently expressed concern about rising numbers of Han Chinese migrating into Tibet, especially since a railroad route opened up in 2006.

Foreign Reporters in China Face Official Interference

By VOA News
Foreign journalists in China say they continue to face official interference, despite new rules relaxing media restrictions ahead of the Summer Olympics.

The Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents Club of China Tuesday said it had recorded more than 180 incidents of interference, including beatings and intimidation, in 2007.
The group noted that officials continue to obstruct foreign reporting in China's minority-dominated Western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

But the group also said new rules introduced by Chinese authorities generally have improved reporting conditions for foreign journalists.

The rules introduced at the beginning of 2007 were intended to allow foreign reporters to conduct interviews with Chinese people rather than having to seek government permission first.

A senior Chinese government official said last week that the rules might be extended beyond the 2008 Games, rather than expiring in October as scheduled.

The Chinese government continues stringent control over domestic media, with restrictions limiting discussion on democracy, religious freedom, or any material Beijing considers subversive.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.

Happy New Year!

TIBETREPORTER WISHES ITS READERS A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS 2008.