New Delhi, June 24 – Tibetan activists Sunday called for new tactics in the campaign for independence from China, saying attempts by spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to engage Beijing were “not successful.”
Activists said they would copy South Africa’s anti-apartheid campaign by targeting companies that do business with China, and would use next year’s Beijing Olympics to highlight the issue.
“You do one hunger strike in front of Yahoo headquarters in the United States and see what happens,” said veteran activist Jamyang Norbu, referring to the US-based Internet portal.
Tibetans in exile said attempts by the Dalai Lama to negotiate greater autonomy for the Himalayan region occupied by China in 1951 had yielded little and it was time to consider new strategies.
“It is not successful. The dialogue today is almost finished,” said Tenzin Tsundue, general secretary of the Friends of Tibet exile group at a conference.
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after a failed uprising against China in 1959, has campaigned for the six million Tibetans under Chinese rule from the seat of his government-in-exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala.
But he has dropped calls for independence and called for a “middle way,” which the activists oppose.
“No one doubts his sincerity. But sincerity is not enough to get a solution,” said Tsundue, 32, who in 2002 unfurled a Tibetan flag from an Indian hotel hosting a meeting between former Chinese premier Zhu Ronghji and Indian business leaders.
Norbu, 58, a member of a short-lived Tibetan guerrilla movement that carried out raids from neighbouring Nepal in the 1970s, said companies operating in China should be targeted to force them to divest. As well as Yahoo he mentioned Canada’s Continental Minerals, which is carrying out exploration in Tibet.
“China’s power is eroding democracy all over the world,” he said. Activists also said they will also use next year’s Beijing Olympics to bring attention to their cause.
This month five Americans unfurled a Tibetan flag at Everest base camp, on the route of the Olympic torch relay, prompting Chinese authorities to expel them and complain to Washington.
Conference organisers also displayed for the first time a Tibetan “passport” from 1947 bearing entry stamps from numerous countries to challenge Chinese claims that the region was long a part of China.
