Dalai Lama backs up riots in Tibetan regions, senior political advisor says
Updated: 2008-03-24 07:51
BEIJING - The Dalai Lama was the wire-puller of the riots broke out in Tibetan regions in China, a senior political advisor said Sunday.
The Dalai Lama intended to separate Tibet from the motherland while the country was preparing for the Beijing Olympic Games, Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, vice chairman of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, now 98 years old, was born in Lhasa of Tibet in southwest China, and had worked for the old Tibetan local government before the peaceful liberation of Tibet in the early 1950s.
"Tibet has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times," he said. "None of the central governments in history had recognized Tibet's independence."
Even in the late Qing Dynasty and ruling period of the Kuomintang in the early 20th century when China was weakened by foreign invasion and civil wars, Tibet was not split from China, he added.
The region was liberated in a peaceful manner by abolishing serfdom in 1951 and the People's Liberation Army garrisoned the regional capital Lhasa in October that year.
"I am a witness of development and changes in Tibet for nearly a century, and I have experienced Tibet in two different regimes," Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme said.
"Anyone who once lived in two regimes will recognize the great progress Tibet has made under the socialist system after liberation and the people have become masters of their own affairs."
The riots organized and participated by secessionists in history had all failed, which proved that seeking Tibet independence had violated the willing of Tibetan people, he told Xinhua.
Armed rebels made riots in 1959 to seek independence of Tibet and after that the Dalai Lama exiled to India. In the late 1980s, unrests occurred again in Lhasa which shortly quieted down.
All Chinese including the Tibetan people would not allow any forces to split Tibet from the Chinese territory and would come together to fight for country's unity and for Tibet's welfare, he said.
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