10 Mar 09 Dalai Lama renews autonomy call

Dalai Lama renews autonomy call

The Dalai Lama has repeated his demand for "legitimate and meaningful autonomy" for Tibet.
His call came in a message on the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese troops.
Five decades of Chinese rule had caused "untold suffering", Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader said, accusing Beijing of creating a climate of fear.
He said hundreds of thousands of Tibetans had been killed, and thousands of places of worship destroyed.
The Dalai Lama’s message came fifty years to the day after a bloody uprising against Chinese troops in Lhasa that led, a week later, to his flight into exile in India.
China says its troops freed Tibetans from effective slavery in a feudal society. It is planning to mark 28 March - the day in 1959 on which the Communist Party dissolved the existing local government in Tibet - as Serfs’ Emancipation Day.
The Dalai Lama said the two sides needed to work for "mutual benefit".
"We Tibetans are looking for legitimate and meaningful autonomy, an arrangement that would enable Tibetans to live within the framework of the People’s Republic of China," the exiled leader said.
"I have no doubt that the justice of Tibet’s cause will prevail."
BBC News

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