Dalai Lama's rhetoric hardly peaceful

Crowned with the Nobel Peace prize, Dainzin Gyaco, the 14th Dalai Lama, has long proclaimed to be a "person of non-violence", propagating his "persistent adherence to the principle of non-violence" and saying this has been his "unwavering commitment" to the outside world. He has also implored people in the world to learn to embrace their foes and forget hatred.

Has the Dalai Lama told the truth? A review of some of his recent remarks indicates he is telling lies.

In an exclusive interview with Frankfurter Fundschau, a German newspaper, on March 7, the Dalai Lama claimed that the riot in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet autonomous region, last March was plotted by the country's Tibet-stationed military forces and that its purpose was to put the blame on Tibetan people. Such a lie was cooked up to instigate enmity between Chinese Han and Tibetan people.

On March 8, the Dalai Lama held a special prayer ceremony for the failed 1959 uprising in Dharamsala, a Tibetan-populated town in India. In a statement to commemorate the so-called "Date of Tibet Uprising" on March 10, the Dalai Lama once again argued that the 1959 rebellion was a peaceful activity. He also said last year's March 14 riot in Lhasa, which featured beatings, lootings and burning by some Tibetan mobs, was a peaceful protest. In that riot, civilians were beaten or burned to death and more were injured. The Dalai Lama's relentless efforts to defend the bloody violence fully indicate his ulterior political motives.

Tibet has in fact achieved remarkable progress in various aspects since the region adopted democratic reforms in 1959, including prospering Tibetan culture and religion.

However, turning a blind eye to the fact, the Dalai Lama claimed in the March 10 statement that the reforms had inflicted untold sabotage and distress upon the vast Himalayan region and its residents. "The religion, language, culture and ethnic characteristics in Tibet are currently on the verge of extinction and Tibetan people are being treated as criminals to be sentenced to death," he said. "Tibet has already been reduced to a hell on earth", he added.

Earlier in his speech to celebrate Tibet's lunar new year, the Dalai Lama asked Tibetans to remember their compatriots who devoted their lives to the regional religious cause and to "work hard for the settlement of the Tibet issue".

Are these open inflammatory remarks the non-violence that the Dalai Lama claims to advocate?

Some diehard forces of feudal serf owners in Tibet launched an armed rebellion 50 years ago to maintain their privileged position in a system of feudal serfdom. Unwilling to succumb to their failure, they have grown deep-rooted hatred in their minds toward any progress achieved in Tibet.

Having not set Tibet on a path of development, the Dalai Lama clique still stubbornly clings to its attempt to split the motherland and continuously stirs up ethnic hatred. Facts prove that the Dalai Lama's self-proclaimed slogans of "peace" and "non-violence" are only a guise to cheat the people of the world.

The author works with the Sichuan Institute of Tibetology Research.

(China Daily 03/25/2009 page8)