DALAI LAMA�S ENVOY NOTES �NEW SINCERITY� IN CHINALodi Gyari Expects More Visits to China
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4--A special envoy for Tibet�s spiritual leader, the DalaiLama, said he noted a new �sincerity and honesty� among Chinese officials indiscussing Tibet during his visit last month to the Himalayan territory,Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.
�Our contact with the Chinese leadership up until now was not pleasant. Wewere snubbed,� Lodi Gyari said in an interview broadcast Friday, his firstsince returning here Tuesday from an 18-day visit to China and Tibet. �Butnow we will work with the belief and trust that the new Chinese leadershipof this new era will work with sincerity and honesty,� he told RFA�s Tibetanservice.
The Dalai Lama has instructed his envoys to �work vigorously, in anunprecedented manner, to sustain and further develop this official contact,�he added. �Both His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the exile government havedecided to work toward a settlement that would be mutually beneficial forboth Chinese and Tibetans. Therefore we will make a variety of efforts,including trips to China,� Gyari said.
Gyari traveled to China on Sept. 9 and returned to Dharamsala, in northernIndia, on Sept. 27. The four envoys visited Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghaiin China, and Lhasa, Nyingtri, and Shigatse in Tibet during their visit--thefirst official Tibetan mission to China and Tibet since 1993.
Other members of the delegation were Bhuchung Tsering, director of theInternational Campaign for Tibet; Sonam Norbu Dakpo, secretary in theTibetan exile government's Department of Information and InternationalRelations; and special envoy Kelsang Gyaltsen.
�This time we could go to China and also to some parts of Tibet. We arehoping, and we do recognize, that the Chinese leadership is honest andsincere in their efforts. Nothing is 100 percent sure, but we will see howthings develop over the coming weeks and months,� he said.
Chinese officials voiced no new opinions on Tibet during the visit, Gyarisaid, although the two sides did exchange ideas.
"Dialogue on such an important issue must be based on hope. If we had losthope, the Tibetan struggle might have died a decade ago," he said. "Underthe leadership of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, our most powerful drivingforce is hope. Therefore we should never lose our hope. At the same time, asthe Tibetan saying goes, Tibet should not be obsessed with hope."
The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile have repeatedly urgedBeijing to lift curbs on Tibetans under its authority and improve its recordon civil liberties and human rights.
China annexed Tibet in 1951. After a failed uprising in 1959 the Dalai Lama and some 70,000 Tibetans fled Tibet forIndia and Nepal.
Gyari�s visit followed other developments that have raised hopes of d�tentebetween Beijing and the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace laureate. Chineseauthorities have released six political prisoners this year, and GyaloThondup, the Dalai Lama�s elder brother, returned to Tibet in July for thefirst time in decades. Foreign reporters and Western parliamentarydelegations have meanwhile been granted unusual access to the Himalayanterritory.
In its 2001 report on human rights around the world, the U.S. StateDepartment asserted that "according to credible reports, Chinese governmentauthorities continued to commit serious human rights abuses in Tibet,including instances of torture, arbitrary arrest, detention without publictrial, and lengthy detention of Tibetan nationalists for peacefullyexpressing their political or religious views.�
RFA broadcasts news and information to Asian listeners who lack regularaccess to full and balanced reporting in their domestic media. Through itsbroadcasts and call-in programs, RFA aims to fill a critical gap in thelives of people across Asia. Created by Congress in 1994 and incorporated in1996, RFA currently broadcasts in Burmese, Cantonese, Khmer, Korean, Lao,Mandarin, the Wu dialect, Vietnamese, Tibetan (Uke, Amdo, and Kham), andUyghur. It adheres to the highest standards of journalism and aims toexemplify accuracy, balance, and fairness in its editorial content.
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