DHARAMSHALA, August 29: Just days ahead of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s second visit to China in half a year, Tibetan supporters carried out a protest in front of her office in capital Berlin on Tuesday demanding that she publicly condemn China’s crackdown in Tibet.
“In her talks with the Chinese authorities, Chancellor Merkel must prioritize the growing crisis in Tibet,” said Tibet Initiative Deutschland, Executive Director Nadine Baumann. “We are calling on her to publicly condemn China’s crackdown in Tibet and to demand unlimited access for diplomats and foreign journalists.”
The Tibet activists staged a “Crime Scene: Tibet” in front of Merkel’s office by drawing chalk lines around 51 bodies representing the number Tibetans who have set themselves on fire since 2009 in Tibet demanding freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama.
The month of August alone has witnessed seven incidents of self-immolations and multiple mass protests leading to the brutal deaths of peaceful protesters.
TID also recommended the pursuit of “multi-lateral actions” in appropriate international forums to increase pressure on China to address the crisis in Tibet.
The trip is the sixth to China since Merkel took office in 2005. She is hoping to strengthen booming trade ties and obtain assurances from Beijing that it will support the fragile euro zone by buying the bonds of its stricken southern members.
German officials say the talks will cover a wide range of issues, from energy, climate and cultural links, to sensitive subjects like Syria.
The relationship between the world’s top two exporters suffered a setback after Merkel received the Dalai Lama in Berlin in 2007, but since then bilateral trade has surged in recent years. In 2011 it totalled about $180 billion, nearly double what it was just five years before and plans are afoot to increase it further by another $100 billion by 2015.
Merkel recently received a joint letter from German journalists working in China complaining of harassment from Chinese authorities. Merkel’s aides have been quoted as saying that she will take up the issue “in private.”
“The simple truth is that the human rights issue has been pushed into the background, overshadowed by the booming economic ties and the euro debt crisis,” Eberhard Sandschneider, a China expert who heads the German Council on Foreign Relations was quoted as saying by Reuters.
