Pelosi Meets Dalai Lama In India: China Angry…

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, an outspoken supporter of Tibet’s freedom, travelled to the north Indian picturesque hill abode of the exiled Dalai Lama to express her concern at the violence that has gripped Tibet in the wake of widespread and bloody protests there.

Ms Pelosi has strongly criticised China’s crackdown on Tibet. According to a news report: “Speaking of the violence in Tibet, she said the situation of Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world and that if the world doesn’t speak for Tibet today, it loses all moral ground to speak of human rights. Last week, she had issued a strong statement on China’s handling of the protests calling the ‘violent response’ by the Chinese police against peaceful protesters ‘disgraceful’.

“However, China has strongly reacted to her visit, saying that the Tibet issue is China’s internal matter and no country or person should interfere in it. The Chinese Ambassador to India Zhang Yang said that what happened inside china was no one else’s business.

The Times of London reports: “Officials of the Tibet Autonomous Region have imposed a news blackout, authorising only the state Xinhua news agency, China Central Television and Phoenix television to operate in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Local media must follow central government orders. Across Lhasa, people were being required to denounce the Dalai Lama. From government officials to children, all had to stand in public and attack their exiled god-king. More here…

The Independent says: “In stating his readiness to go to Beijing, the Dalai Lama has made a canny diplomatic move. Beijing’s leaders can ignore it or denounce it as a stunt. Yet a bold leader would embrace it as a chance to draw a line under the stalemate that has paralysed Tibet for the best part of half a century.”

According to the NYT: “China’s violent crackdown on protesters in Tibet is having powerful political reverberations in Washington, where the White House is weighing how far to go in condemning the Chinese government, even as it defends President Bush’s decision to attend the Summer Olympics in Beijing.”

Meanwhile I chanced upon this blog…Have a look…

(Dalai Lama and Nancy Pelosi in Dharamsala,India,… photo courtesy Ashwini Bhatia/Associated Press)