Pro-indpendence Tibetan youth submit memorandum
to Indian Foreign Secretary
Kalsang Rinchen
Phayul
July 12, 2010
Dharamsala, July 12 — A group of Tibetans with a different viewpoint on the future of Tibet from that of the Dalai Lama and exile Tibetan government have submitted a memorandum to the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Saturday.
While thanking the Indian government for providing refuge to the displaced Tibetans, the Tibetans urged the Indian government to review its policy towards Tibet. They wrote they owed to Indian government the revival of Tibetan life in India and the “resurrection of international awareness and confidence within the struggle.”
Rao, former Indian Ambassador to China, visited the headquarters of the exile Tibetan government Saturday and met with the Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama and exile Tibetan Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche. Sources say that Rao spent about an hour with the Tibetan leader in a closed-door meeting that discussed “issues of common interest.”
Led by Tenzin Tsundue, a prominent Tibetan youth and activist seeking complete independence for Tibet, the memorandum had signatures of two dozen Tibetan artistes, intellectuals, writers, translators and activists living here. On
Saturday, the Tibetans waited outside the Chonor House, where Rao was staying during her two day visit here, to handover the memorandum.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the exile Tibetan government here maintain that they are seeking a genuine autonomy for Tibet within the framework of the People’s Republic of China. However, activists like Tsundue and the Tibetan youth
signatories to the memorandum believe that independence is the only goal for Tibet. Tenzin Tsundue said, “Only an independent Tibet can guarantee the survival of the Tibetan people, our culture and the nation. The 2008 uprising in Tibet is a clear public mandate that the Tibetans in Tibet are willing to even die, but not live under Chinese colonial rule.”
The petitioners believe that the Tibetan struggle is not just to find a temporary arrangement for the exile Tibetans to return home, but to seek a long-term interest for the survival of the Tibetan people and the nation. “And therefore whatever may be the policies being held by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the exile government; we believe very strongly that the goal of the struggle cannot be anything less than Independence,” read the memorandum.
“The difference in the political stands between His Holiness and us doesn’t divide us on our principled belief in Nonviolence. The Tibetan freedom struggle is based on the Buddhist principles of nonviolence, and when we hit the
streets with our direct action campaigns we are inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha,” the memorandum read.
The Tibetans also wrote that India can never validate its legal and historical claim over its Himalayan states as long as China continues its occupation of Tibet.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) made intrusions at many places along the Indian border last year. China last year objected to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, claimed by China as its territory but India allowed the visit. China also issued stapled visas on separate sheets to Indian nationals from Jammu and Kashmir, virtually questioning the state’s accession to India.