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Dalai Lama Airs Prospect of Quitting
The Dalai Lama denied Chinese claims he had incited riots and said he would resign as Tibetans' spiritual leader if their violent protests in his homeland spun out of control.
(By Gurinder Osan -- Associated Press)
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"There is anger. But we know the limits the Dalai Lama has drawn for us. We will not cross that," said Sonam Dorjee, an activist who was enlisting people for a proposed "Return to Tibet" march next week. Monks and students walked up to his street-side desk all afternoon to fill out enrollment forms. "One of the columns in the form says, 'I know the march back to Tibet will be risky and I may lose my life,' " Dorjee said. "People are signing on this form without any hesitation."
Rinpoche, the prime minister, declined to offer a message to those protesting in his homeland or to urge them to keep their demonstrations peaceful, saying those in exile could not direct those in Tibet. "I have no moral ground to give a message to the Tibetans, because we are unable to help them in any way," he said. "His Holiness Dalai Lama has wished that they remain nonviolent. But it is only a wish. They have to find their own way; we cannot direct them."
Activists in Dharmsala, home to about 20,000 Tibetan exiles, walked about all day posting the latest news bulletins and photographs on the town's walls. Exiles who had established contact with friends and relatives inside Tibet called the government with information.
A group of monks from the Kirti Monastery in Dharmsala released 32 gruesome pictures that they said showed the tortured corpses of colleagues in their sister monastery in Ngaba county in the autonomous Tibetan province of Amdo, part of the northern Chinese province of Sichuan. They said they had received the photographs in an e-mail that reported the killing of 20 monks.
"With such horrific evidence, how can the Chinese continue to claim that it is the Tibetans who are violent?" asked Kyasar Leudup, a 28-year-old monk who fled to India two years ago from the Kirti Monastery in Tibet.
When Leudup called his mother in Ngaba on Tuesday morning, she said she and Leudup's father were fine but asked him not to call again, fearing Chinese surveillance. In the afternoon, he called his 14-year-old nephew, a monk at the monastery there. Leudup leaned forward and put his black Nokia cellphone on speaker mode, letting a reporter listen in.
"What is the situation there?" Leudup asked.
"There are a lot of policemen everywhere," the voice answered.
"Can you walk or go outside? Or are you inside all the time?"
"If we show our identity papers and other proof that we are local residents, then we are allowed to go out, walk about and buy food."
"How many people dead?"
"Nothing very clear. I have seen 20 bodies of the monks here. They are kept outside in the courtyard, and people are coming to throw flowers at them and offer prayers."
"Are you safe?"
"I am all right for now. Don't know about the future."
"What about the protests?"
"No. Now there is no protest going on in the village anymore. Everything is quiet."
And the line went dead.
