Charming and down to earth” – how a Kent MP described Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
John Horam, the Conservative MP for Orpington, was given the rare opportunity to meet with His Holiness and question him on human rights issues during his trip to the UK last week.
The Dalai Lama told Mr Horam, during a meeting with members of the Commons’ foreign affairs select committee, that Britain was not doing enough for Tibet.
“He was very good on China,” said Mr Horam.
“I said the country is getting more important and more powerful and successful.
“He said ‘yes, but it will eventually have to realise that in the international arena you also have to add moral authority or people won’t respect you’.”
The Dalai Lama’s visit came after pro-Tibet groups held several demonstrations during an international relay of the Olympic torch ahead of the Beijing Games in August.
Protests in Paris and London caused chaos and disrupted the procession, despite heavy security.
The demonstrations were held after protests against Chinese rule in Tibet, and the deadly riots spread from the capital Lhasa.
The Tibetan government-in-exile said more than 200 Tibetans were killed and 1,000 injured in China’s subsequent crackdown.
China said Tibetan “rioters” killed 21 people.
But during his 11-day visit, the 72-year-old Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, called for an end to protests in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.
Mr Horam said the Dalai Lama had called for an international inquiry into the protests because China’s media clampdown meant no one could prove what really happened.
“The Dalai Lama feels he is not going to give advice [on whether foreign leaders should boycott the Olympics] because he feels the Olympics are very important to the Chinese,” said the MP.
“He does not want to get the Chinese people against him – he wants to cultivate a relationship with them so they see his point of view.
“If he advocated a boycott of the Olympics he feels the Chinese government would portray him as a devil to the Chinese people and he does not want to give them more sticks to beat him.
“He said he would threaten to resign if his own people resorted to violence.”
The Dalai Lama, who seeks autonomy for Tibet over independence and lives with the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharam-sala in northern India, told MPs that his people were being subjected to “some kind of cultural genocide” under Chinese rule.
Mr Horam said: “He wants them to stop this brainwashing.”
The Kent MP said the Dalai Lama believed autonomy would bring benefits to both sides and give the Chinese “spiritual wealth”.
Dilution
There has been an increasing influx of Chinese settlers into Tibet in recent years and fears have been raised that it has been an attempt to dilute Tibetan culture.
Mr Horam said the Dalai Lama remained, as expected, diplomatic to the core – brushing aside suggestions from the MP that the Prime Minister Gordon Brown should have met him at 10 Downing Street rather than Lambeth Palace.
He added: “Afterwards we thought he would just leave but he came round and gave everyone a bow.
He said ‘you’re the man who was questioning me about Gordon Brown’.
“He said he was not bothered about the meeting and I said he should be. He giggled.”
