BERHAMPUR: Tibet would be liberated “from Chinas clutches within the next five to 10 years and China is destined to meet the same fate as the USSR the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel peace prize winner the Dalai Lama said here on Thursday.

“The Tibet problem can be solved through non-violence dialogue and. negotiation and both China and India will benefit from the Liberation of Tibet” he said adding India would have to play the role of “our political and cultural Guru” after independence.

The Dalai Lama who spent three days at the Tibetan refugee settlement at Chandragiri in Ganjam district was taking to newsmen here on his way to Delhi en-route to Bhubaneswar.

The Dalai Lama said he had already formulated a constitution for Tibet under which an elected body would rule the country till it achieved independence and added democratic process is much nearer to Buddhism”

Declaring that “Chinese occupation of Tibet” was not acceptable to the Tibetan people he regretted that the Indian government did not provide “political support” to the Tibetans in securing liberation for themselves though it had supported the cause of the Palestinian people and the blacks in South Africa.

The Dalai Lama said that with Tibet acting as a “buffer state” India had no problem with China until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1949-50.

Asked he would provide leadership to Tibet once it achieved independence he said that he would be happy to live there as a simple citizen “I will be a simple citizen without entering any contest for power.” Mahafa Gandhi after having played the key-role in the struggle for India’s freedom lived a simple life the religious leader: recalled.

Replying to a question the Dalai Lima said he had no intention either of indulging in any political activity in India or meddling in Chinese international affairs as he was “very hopeful” of going back to his own country and living there.

Stating that he had been living in India for many years and treated himself as an Indian the Dalai Lama expressed concern over the growing cult of violence and terrorism in the country. “But I am: confident that values of non-violence and terrorism from India” he added.

Asked if he proposed to raise the Tibet issue at the United Nations the Dalai Lama said that head no such proposal now but the human rights commission of the U.N. recently discussed the Tibet problem at Geneva.

The United Nations had passed three resolutions on the issue in 1959-1961 and 1965 with the last one supported by the late Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri he said.

Alleging Chinese repression on the Tibetan people the Dalai Lama said that about 2 million people in Tibet had been killed since 194950. About 433,000 people were killed in Chinese army action.

Article extracted from this publication >> February 14, 1992