Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Dalai Lama aides' secret China visit raises hopes
Reuters Beijing, September 29
Envoys of Tibet's spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, have been allowed to pay a secretive visit to China that analysts say, could lead to progress in resolving his decades-old exile.
State media has prominently displayed details of the life of a boy Beijing chose as the reincarnation of Tibet's other top lama in a sign of Beijing's increasing confidence in its control over restive Tibet.
Beijing imposed communist rule on Tibet after the invasion of its troops in 1950. Dalai Lama fled in 1959 in an abortive uprising.
Direct contact between the exiled Tibetans and Beijing was not established for 20 years and dialogue was suspended in 1993.
Two years ago, talks were quietly revived amid signs that China might have decided to allow a subtle but significant shift in policy that could be aimed at finding a way to unwind the Tibetan knot by allowing Dalai Lama back, under certain conditions.
Lodi Gyari, a US-based representative of Dalai Lama, and three colleagues have been in China since September 12 on a third, secret visit by envoys in just over two years to discuss the future of Tibet.
"This visit is a critical one ... (Gyari) bears the weight of history on his shoulders right now," said British-based Tibet specialist Kate Saunders. "The last two visits were very much about confidence-building and for this visit there are hopes that there may be something more substantial."
Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Laureate, says he does not seek independence for Tibet but only greater autonomy for the Tibetan people. China has long accused him of using his religious status to try to split Tibet from China.
Entrenched differences will be hard to overcome quickly.
Gyari and his colleagues have come "to facilitate what we hope will become full-blown negotiations between the authorities in Beijing and His Holiness the Dalai Lama," Thubten Samphel, spokesman for the Government of Tibet in Exile, said from its base in Dharamsala.
He did not say whom the envoys had visited and what they had discussed, but said he hoped Beijing's leaders, especially Communist Party chief Hu Jintao, would choose to engage soon.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.