NEW DELHI, March 10, Reuter: Indian police beat back Tibetan men, women and children trying to march on the Chinese Embassy on Thursday in a demonstration to mark the 29th anniversary of a mass uprising against Chinese rule.
Police swung bamboo canes at Tibetan exiles that jumped barricades and hurled stones. At least 12 protesters and 10 policemen were injured, police said.
Five hundred demonstrators, some waving Buddhist flags, shouted anti-Chinese slogans outside Parliament but they were prevented from marching to the Chinese Embassy two km (a mile) away.
The exiles staged a similar demonstration in New Delhi on Mon day to support pro-independence protests in Tibet.
Two Westerners in the Tibetan capital said up to 16 monks were reported to have been killed by security forces in Lhasa last Saturday. China says one policeman was killed and more than 300 were injured.
The Dalai Lama, the Tibetans’ spiritual leader] who fled to India in 1959, issued a statement from his Himalayan home at Dharam-sala marking the anniversary. He deplored violence and called for a peaceful struggle against Peking.
He said: “Today we also honor the courage of our brethren in Tibet who have taken to the streets to draw attention to their suffering under Chinese Colonial rule.
“I, appeal to all freedom loving people to support our non-violent struggle for the survival of our national identity”, our culture andoru spiritual tradition, and to persuade the Chinese government to abandon its oppressive policies”.
The Dalai Lama said the 1959 uprising in Tibet had not been an isolated event since Tibetans had died in “the freedom struggle” since then.
He added: “The struggle of our people is, unlike many, a non-involvement one. This may have made it more difficult to convince that world of the depth of our misery…
“It is indeed a sad reflection of the state of the world that violence seems to be required for the international community to pay attention.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 18, 1988
