An excellent actor worth an Oscar next year !

Aussie man Mike Smith shot some of the only independent footage to emerge of the recent riots on the streets of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa http://media.theage.com.au/?rid=36434

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after a failed uprising in 1959, defended his “middle way” of campaigning peacefully for greater autonomy within China rather than independence. “On violence, it’s wrong. We should not develop anti-Chinese feelings. We must live together side by side,” he said. “Independence is out of the question.”

This is an important quotation but it doesn’t actually appear in The Times article Truthdig has linked to although it reports the Dalai Lama as exhorting both Chinese and Tibetans not to commit violence. Perhaps someone can tell us the source?

Another important statement quoted by Timesonline is:-

Western tourists emerging from Tibet yesterday described their shock and fear as they watched a “howling” mob of Tibetans stoning and beating Chinese passers-by in two days of rioting in Lhasa last week…. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3578941.ece

China’s foreign finistry spokesman Qin Gang might be a pretentious dickhead but the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao is a man with a significant reputation. He was not accusing the Dalai Lama so much as “the Dalai clique”, which presumably means certain factors within Tibet. See video http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/18/tibet.china3

No doubt Tibetan frustrations have boiled over and that is the cause of the disconnect between local Chinese authorities in Tibet and the heavy-handed rule from BeiJing which is still afraid of autonomy in a border region historically infamous for wars with India in the past.

In the end, their insistence is backfiring badly (and repeatedly) and things will not get better until they finally come to some mutual agreement with Tibetans to co-exist. Neither side can do without the other and so both can find a way to benefit the Tibetan populace.