His Holiness the Dalai Lama in NY urges Americans to visit TibetBY Mark Egan, Reuters

His Holiness the Dalai Lama listens at the “Wisdom and Compassion for Challenging Times” event in New York May 3, 2009.Photo: Reuters/Eric Thayer.

His
Holiness the Dalai Lama on Sunday urged Americans to visit his homeland
to disprove China’s assertion that people are happy there. Speaking in Manhattan, His Holiness said Beijing insists, “Tibetans are very happy.”  “The
Chinese government never admit, never acknowledged there is a problem,”
he said. “So now I think the world community has a responsibility to
show the world there is a problem. “If the majority of Tibetan
people are happy, then our information becomes wrong, then … we must
apologize to the Chinese government,” His Holiness the Dalai Lama said
to laughs from the audience of 1,500 people. Noting China cast
itself as a liberator of Tibet rather than as a colonialist, he said,
“A liberator should not bring more misery. “So please, you,
non-Tibetans, go there … and then you must show it to the world,” His
Holiness said, “I urge you, please go there.” On April 23,
China urged the United States not to let the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing
brands a separatist, visit the country. “We oppose the Dalai Lama going
to any country to engage in splittist activities under any pretext,”
said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Sunday event was a conversation with former Irish President Mary Robinson. Robinson,
also a former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, called the lack
of progress on human rights in Tibet, “heartbreaking from a human
rights point of view.”His week-long trip to the United States
included a variety of events in California, Boston and New York but
does not include a meeting with President Barack Obama. –The above report is reproduced from the Reuters’ website on 3 May 2009