By Phurbu Thinley
Phayul Correspondent
Dharamsala, 25 January – Taking the recently initiated Public Discussion Forum, jointly undertaken by the National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT) and Phayul.com, to its next level; the forum will hold discussion on “Sino-Tibetan Dialogue Process” at 2:00PM local time tomorrow 27 January (Saturday) here at Yongling School ground.
The upcoming discussion is the Forum’s second Public Discussion to be held here in Dharamsala.
In its attempt to reach maximum people, live audio webcast of the programme will also be made available here on phayul.com.
Although the much expected sixth-round of Sino-Tibetan dialogue never turned up, speculations of its possibility have been raised at all levels of public discussions and at every official appointments.
The direct contact between the two sides was re-established in year 2002 after it turned into a complete deadlock way back in 1994. Since then, the Dalai Lama’s envoys met five times with the Chinese counterparts but with no concrete outcome yet. Defying the ongoing dialogue process, the Communist Party of China has, in fact, been seen maintaining an extremely repressive political climate in Tibet in the last several months. After being named to the post in May 2006, the current Communist Party Secretary of Tibet, Mr. Zhang Qingli was reported to have pledged a “fight-to- the-death struggle” against the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.
What is likely to become of the Sino-Tibetan dialogue process or, whether it will actually help reach a negotiation stage aimed at resolving the issue of Tibet, much remains to be seen.
Taking all these into consideration, Ven. Lobsang Jinpa, Editor of Sheja, an official monthly news magazine of Central Tibetan Administration and Lukar Jam, a Tibetan research scholar on China, will speak on various aspects of the Sino-Tibetan Dialogue process followed with open public question answer session.
The first public discussion of the Forum was held earlier on 23 December, 2006 with Kalon Tripa Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche (Tibetan Prime Minister in Exile) speaking on the topic “Democracy and its implements”.
The Forum seeks to facilitate general Tibetan public a platform to have a better understanding of various contemporary issues concerning Tibet and Tibetans by moderating intellectual discussions at varying levels.
