No concessions, Dalai Lama says
Published: Mon, Apr. 14, 2008 12:30AM
Modified Mon, Apr. 14, 2008 01:42AM
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closeSEATTLE -- The Dalai Lama said Sunday that Tibet cannot make more concessions to China and renewed his calls for the government to cease repression in his former homeland and withdraw troops.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader denied Chinese claims that he has called for Tibet to be split from China and that he is behind recent turmoil, saying instead that he is committed to pursuing Tibet's right to autonomy.
"The whole world knows that the Dalai Lama is not seeking independence, nor separation," he said at a news conference.
HADLEY: NO BOYCOTT
It would be a "cop-out" for countries to skip the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics as a way of protesting China's crackdown in Tibet, President Bush's national security adviser said Sunday. The kind of "quiet diplomacy" that the U.S. is practicing is a better way to send a message to China's leaders rather than "frontal confrontation," Stephen Hadley said.
President Bush has given no indication that he will skip the event. But the White House has not said whether Bush will attend the opening ceremony on Aug. 8. "We haven't worked out the details of his schedule at this point in time, but from his vantage point, if you listen to what he said, he has no reason not to go," Hadley said in broadcast interviews Sunday.
Calling a boycott "a bit of a red herring," Hadley added: "If other countries are concerned about Tibet, they ought to do what we are doing through quiet diplomacy, send the message clearly to the Chinese that this is an opportunity with the whole world watching, to show that they take into account and are determined to treat their citizens with dignity and respect.
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Recent protests in Tibet against five decades of Chinese rule have been the largest and most sustained in almost two decades and have fueled protests that have disrupted the global torch relay for this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing.
"Our struggle is with a few in the leadership of the People's Republic of China and not with the Chinese people," the Dalai Lama said in a statement released after the news conference. "If the present situation in Tibet continues, I am very much concerned that the Chinese government will unleash more force and increase the suppression of Tibetan people."
He said that if the Chinese stop such suppression and withdraw armed police and troops, he would advise Tibetans to stop their protests.
A Chinese official said Sunday that the government detained nine Buddhist monks and accused them of planting a homemade bomb that detonated March 23 in a government office building in eastern Tibet, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
There were no known deaths or damage.
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