Tibetans Gather in Dharmsala for Special General Meeting

About 400 Tibetans from around the world met in Dharmsala in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday for a four-day meeting. The meeting was called to emphasize the plight of Tibetans under Chinese rule.

 

Tibet's Prime Minister-in-exile of the Central Tibetan Administration, Lobsang Sangay, says they don't expect much of the new Chinese regime but hope for the best.

 

[Lobsang Sangay, Tibet's Prime Minister-In-Exile]:

"On the one hand, even after 50 of years of experience, we are not that optimistic because the Chinese government has continued to maintain hard-line policies on Tibet, except for a brief period in the early 80's being good. But as human beings one should remain hopeful and with a new personnel hopefully there will be new perspective and polices on Tibet as well."

 

Few people know what Xi, the expected new leader of the Chinese Communist Party, thinks of Tibet or the Dalai Lama.

 

But his late father, Xi Zhongxun, had a close bond with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who presented the elder Xi with an expensive watch in the 1950s. Xi, a senior party official, was still wearing that watch decades later.

 

Some are hopeful that Xi junior, China's next leader, may also show a soft spot for the Dalai Lama when he succeeds President Hu Jintao next March.

 

Sangay says their focus this year is to find new ways of getting global support for their cause.

 

[Lobsang Sangay, Tibet's Prime Minister-In-Exile]: 

"We have called this year the 'Tibet lobby year', where we have asked Tibetans and their friends to lobby different parliaments and parliamentarians to debate the issue of Tibet and if possible adopt resolutions on Tibet."

 

Over the past three years, 51 Tibetans have committed self-immolation for the cause of freedom for their homeland.

 

China has ruled Tibet since 1950, when Communist troops marched in and announced its "peaceful liberation".

 

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising, has accused China of "cultural genocide".