Berlin, October 18 – The Dalai Lama was in Berlin today to address the Tibet issue amid an official Chinese protest against the Buddhist leader’s visit to Europe.
The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism was scheduled for a news conference and speech in the German capital before departing later today for Prague, where he will take part in a controversial German-sponsored seminar on Tibetan independence from China.
China’s embassy in the Czech Republic issued a statement yesterday protesting the visit by the exiled leader and requesting a halt to the planned Tibet independence conference.
The statement obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa warned that official support for the ”Dalai clique” could damage relations with Beijing.
The embassy said the Dalai Lama is not ”an ordinary religious personality” but a politician in exile ”destined to divide the country and harm national unity”.
Afterward the Dalai Lama’s spokesman in Prague, Jan Marian, stated: ”We will not respond to this.” Marian said the Dalai Lama, who fled to India after China’s army crushed the Tibetan freedom movement in 1959, would attend three Prague events Sunday: the Tibet conference’s ceremonial opening, a follow-up news conference, and a forum on world religions.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, a longtime Dalai Lama supporter, invited the controversial spiritual leader to Prague for the meeting of religious leaders Sunday evening. It is sponsored by Havel’s non-profit group Forum 2000.
In addition, the two men and Czech parliament leaders planned to attend tomorrow’s opening ceremony for the closed-door, three-day conference of the International Conference of Tibet Support Groups.
Some 300 activists planned to attend the fourth annual event sponsored by the India-based Tibetan government in exile, Forum 2000 and Germany’s Friedrich-Naumann Stiftung group.
