MB Civic

This breaks my heart – soon the Tibetan people will have nothing left of their culture and religion, now they must struggle for a place to live on their own Land…
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leftPress Trust of India
May 24, 2008

LONDON, May 24 — The Dalai Lama has said China is contemplating to swamp Tibet
with 1 million ethnic Chinese people after
the Olympics in an effort to dilute Tibetan
culture and identity.

“We have received information that after
the Olympics 1 million Chinese are going to
settle in the autonomous region of Tibet,”
the Dalai Lama said in an interview
published in the Guardian today. He
said: “there is every danger of Tibet
becoming a truly Han Chinese land and
Tibetans becoming an insignificant
minority. Then the very basis of the idea of
autonomy becomes meaningless.” He said
there has been an increasing influx of
Chinese settlers into Tibet in recent years
as transport has improved, but the exact
figures are a matter of dispute. A 2000
census indicated there were 2.4 million
Tibetans in the region and 159,000 Han
Chinese who are in majority in Lhasa.
However, China has denied carrying out
any deliberate settlement policy aimed at
the dilution of Tibetan culture and points
instead to the benefits brought to the
region by economic development and
investment.

The 72-year-old monk said, over-
settlement and over-exploitation of Tibet
was threatening the quality and flow of
rivers flowing out of the Tibetan highlands,
including the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the
Indus, the Mekong and the Ganges. “There
has been mining without proper care,
deforestation, irrigation without proper
planning,” he said.

His remarks comes after a meeting
yesterday with the British PM Mr Gordon
Brown at the Lambeth Palace. He said the
talks had been detailed and the PM had
been helpful in spite of his “difficulties”
adding that “He met me and he showed
genuine concern.”