Nine NEWS
June 25 2012
Federal politicians have been criticised for failing to make time to meet Tibet’s leader-in-exile during his first official visit to Australia.
Lobsang Sangay, the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, is seeking Australian support for his plan for a peaceful resolution to the growing crisis in Tibet, where Chinese authorities continue to forcibly remove nomads from Tibetan rangelands.
The Chinese government does not recognise Tibet as an independent state or the Central Tibetan Administration, which operates out of India.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown, speaking alongside Dr Sangay in Melbourne on Monday, said Tibetans had huge support from Australians in their plight for autonomy within the People’s Republic of China.
But neither Foreign Minister Bob Carr nor opposition spokeswoman Julie Bishop had accepted offers to meet him, Dr Brown said.
“I think they have their priorities wrong, and they’re not representing how Australians feel about Tibet,” Dr Brown told reporters.
“Australians have an enormous support for the Tibetan people in their search for freedom and their wish to be able to moderate their own affairs.”
He urged foreign affairs representatives on both sides of parliament to reshuffle their schedules ahead of Dr Sangay’s visit to Canberra on Tuesday.
Dr Sangay says he acknowledges Australia and China’s trade relationship makes the Tibetan humanitarian issue a sensitive subject but his people need a third party to intervene as the situation in the country worsens.
At least 30 Tibetans have set themselves on fire this year alone in protest against what they feel are increasingly oppressive security measures from Chinese authorities, he said.
“For any leader to make any decision, they would be better served if they listened to both sides and have both perspectives,” he said.
“Australia could intervene and assess the ground reality as to why Tibetans are self-immolating, why they are protesting, why they’re getting shot at.
“Then, based on that report, perhaps the Australian government could press on the Chinese government to solve the issue of Tibet peacefully through dialogue, which we subscribe to.”
Dr Sangay said there was a widespread failure to understand that in seeking autonomy within China, Tibet was not challenging China’s overall sovereignty.
He said Australia would likely face censure from China by entering talks with Tibet, but said the Dalai Lama, who remains Tibet’s spiritual leader despite handing political power to Dr Sangay last year, had met many international leaders whose countries’ trade with China and was doing “just fine”.
“If you stand up for your principles, people will respect you,” he said.
Dr Brown raised China’s ire in 1999 by entering Tibet covertly and describing it as a “Chinese military colony”.
He said change would inevitably come to Tibet if action was taken, which would not only benefit Tibetans, but also bring a “new wave of respect for Beijing” from around the world.
“Things do change, and the day will come when the Tibetan people have their rights to self-determination,” Dr Brown said.
