March 30, 2008

China's Tibet Accusations Continue

Posted by Suemedha Sood at 2:13PM

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China’s repeated attacks on the Dalai Lama really isn’t doing much for its image. Last week, the notorious human rights offender accused the Tibetan Nobel Peace laureate of being a terrorist. Today, China said the Dalai Lama and his supporters are planning suicide attacks.

I swear, you’d think this stuff was straight out of The Onion.

From the AP:

The Tibetan government-in-exile swiftly denied the charge [regarding suicide attacks], and the Bush administration rushed to the Tibetan Buddhist leader's defense, calling him "a man of peace."

"There is absolutely no indication that he wants to do anything other than have a dialogue with China on how to discuss the serious issues there," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

The Chinese government saysthe Tibetan Buddhist leader’s master plan is to collude with Muslim terrorists to destabilize the country before the Olympics. The only thing that’s clear, though, is that China is doing a good job all on its own of destabilizing the country’s image before the Olympics.

China's claims about Tibetan violence continued this week. The Chinese Ministry of Public Security says it found an array of weapons in Lhasa, Tibet, including 176 guns, 13,013 bullets, 7,725 pounds of explosives, 19,000 sticks of dynamite and 350 knives.

But China’s ban on all foreign media makes it impossible to gauge whether there could be any truth to its claims that Dalai Lama supporters are planning violent attacks.