By Phuntsok Yangchen
DHARAMSHALA, April 30: Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of Tibet Museum, the Tibetan Prime Minister Dr Lobsang Sangay today inaugurated the renovated building of the museum managed by the Department of Information and International Relations.
Also present at the brief ceremony were Tashi Phuntsok and Sonam Norbu Dagpo, the two secretaries of the Department.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony, Tibetan Prime Minister Dr Lobsang Sangay said, “We have lots of tourist coming from all around the world to Dharamshala and we wanted them to see Tibet’s past and its history of being an independent country, and under occupation now, political repression, environmental destruction, cultural assimilation that is going on. So that whoever comes here in this small museum they get a sense of what was Tibet, what is Tibet now and what Tibet should be.”
Pictures of the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama inaugurating the Tibet Museum in 2000 and visit of many well-known people to the Museum was also on display.
The Tibet Museum, founded in 1998 is an undertaking of Department of Information and International Relations. It aims to document, preserve, research, exhibit and educate the public on all matters related to the Tibetan history and culture.
The Tibet Museum showcases the Chinese occupation of Tibet, provides personal accounts of lives lost in Tibet since the occupation and on the continuous and ongoing abuses carried out by the Chinese government against the Tibetan people.
The Tibetan PM also launched the redesigned website of the Central Tibetan Administration, www.tibet.net.
Sangay said that it is widely read around the world with an estimate of 110,000 visitors every year and about 6600 a month.
“Through the Tibet.net, we tell the truth. Recently Chinese government issued the 13th white paper. In fact it was Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping who once used the phrase ‘proving truth from the facts’, and through this website, through this museum, we prove what is true, what are the facts. The facts in the white paper of the Chinese government, many of them are not true,” Sangay said.
“These photographs and news that we have on the Tibet.net are the real truth. So we have truth on our side. Chinese government has the money, they have lots of resources as far as their news media and propaganda is concerned, we are very few staff but we tell the truth far more effectively. Hence people around the world support and believe our narrative that Tibet is under occupation and Tibet is repressed,” Sangay further said.