10  theSun | WEDNESDAY MARCH 11 2009

news without borders

Dalai Lama: Thousands killed in Tibet

DHARAMSHALA (India): Ti-
betan spiritual leader theDalai
Lama (pix) yesterday accused
China of having killed hun-
dreds of thousands of his
people and transforming his
Himalayan homeland into
a “hell on earth.”
In a speech on the
50th anniversary of a
failed uprising against
China, he reiterated his
demand for “legitimate
and meaningful au-
tonomy” for Tibet and
told his followers that
“the justice of Tibet’s cause will
prevail.”
“These 50 years have
brought untold suffering and
destruction to the land and
people of Tibet,” said the Dalai
Lama, speaking outside the
main Tibetan temple in the
northern Indian hill town of
Dharamshala.
“Having occupied Tibet, the
Chinese communist govern-
ment carried out a series of
repressive and violent cam-
paigns. These thrust Tibetans
into such depths of suffering
and hardship that they liter-
ally experienced hell on earth.
The immediate result of these
campaigns was the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Ti-
betans. Even today Tibetans in
Tibet live in constant fear,” he
went on.
“Their religion, culture,
language, identity are near
extinction. The Tibetan people
are regarded like criminals,
deserving to be put to death.”
Chinese troops entered the
devoutly Buddhist region in
1950 to “liberate” it from feudal
rule, according to Beijing, but
Chinese control there remains
widely unpopular.
A failed uprising in March
1959 prompted the Dalai Lama
to flee to India.
He told his supporters to
“hope for the best and prepare
for the worst,” including many
more years of fruitless cam-
paigning.
The 73-year-old monk also
voiced frustration that repeated
rounds of talks between the In-
dia-based Tibetan government-
in-exiled and Chinese officials
have yielded no progress.
“And quite apart from the
current process of Sino-Tibetan
dialogue having achieved
no concrete result, there has
been brutal crackdown on the
Tibetan protests that shook the
whole of Tibet since March last
year,” he said.
According to Tibetan exiles,
a Chinese crackdown on the
protests last year left 200 dead.
China says police killed one
“insurgent” and blames Ti-
betan “rioters” for 21 deaths.
– AFP

Sri Lanka bombing kills
14, injures minister
COLOMBO: A suspected Tamil Tiger
suicide bomber killed 14 people and
wounded 35, including Sri Lanka’s
telecommunications minister, during
a Muslim festival in the island’s south
yesterday, officials said.
The blast happened in front of
a mosque in Godapitiya in Matara
district, 160km south of the capital, Co-
lombo, during a festival to celebrate the
birthday of the Prophet Mohammad.
“Six ministers were there and
terrorists used this opportunity to
target us. Only one minister, Mahinda
Wijesekara, got injured,” Oil Resources
Minister A.H.M. Fowzie told Reuters
from the scene.
Wijesekara is minister for post and
telecommunications.
“Around 35 injured had been ad-
mitted to hospital and among them
four are seriously injured,” Matara
hospital’s director, Aruna Jayasekara,
told Reuters. Wijesekara was in the
intensive care unit and later flown to
Colombo.
The government called the attack
“another desperate act” by the Libera-
tion Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“The attack reaffirms the fact that
the LTTE is not only a ruthless terrorist
outfit but also one which has no regard
or respect for religion. This is an attack
that deliberately targeted the Muslim
community,” it said in a statement.
The LTTE could not be reached for
comment yesterday.
“There were pieces of legs and
hands inside the mosque’s grounds.
Around 15 bodies were there at the
spot. There was blood all over the
place,” said M.A.M. Mashahir, a school
principal chaperoning 30 students to
the celebration.
The Sri Lankan military has cor-
nered the LTTE in about 45sq km of
the northeastern coast and is confident
of defeating them as a conventional
force soon.
But the Tigers have always had the
capacity to strike far from the war zone
using unconventional tactics, and ana-
lysts say they expect that to continue in
the near future.
The Tigers are on US, EU, Canadian
and Indian terrorist lists for their wide-
spread use of suicide bombs during a
separatist conflict that has raged off
and on since 1983.
The only thing slowing the current
military offensive against the Tigers
is the presence of tens of thousands
of civilians trapped by the rebels in a
12-km coastal no-fire zone.
The Red Cross estimates there are
150,000 people in the no-fire zone. The
government says there are no more
than 70,000. – Reuters
A crew
member on
a Chinese
trawler using
a grapple
hook in an
apparent
attempt
to snag
the towed
acoustic
array of the
Impeccable.
Stop ‘illegal’ naval activities, China tells US
BEIJING: China yesterday demanded the
United States cease whaat it called illegal
activities in the South China Sea, as it rejected
Pentagon assertions that Chinese vessels
harassed a US Navy ship there.
Foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu
said US complaints that five Chinese ships
had harassed a US Navy ship in the South
China Sea were “totally inaccurate”.
“The US Navy ship Impeccable broke inter-
national law and Chinese laws and regula-
tions,” Ma told reporters in a news briefing.
“China has made solemn representations
to the United States requesting that the US
immediately stop these activities and take
effective measures to avoid similar activities
in the future.”
The United States said it had formally pro-
tested to Chinese authorities over Sunday’s
incident in the South China Sea, about 120km
south of China’s Hainan Island in interna-
tional waters.
The dispute added a new dimension to
fragile military relations between the world
powers, which had enjoyed a brief period of
slight optimism after the two held defence
talks in Beijing last month.
The Pentagon said the incident saw
Chinese boats move directly in front of the
EPA PIX
Impeccable, forcing it to take emergency ac-
tion to avoid a collision, and then dropped
pieces of wood into its path.
“This was a reckless, dangerous ma-
noeuvre that was unprofessional” and vio-
lated international law, Defence Department
spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters.
Ma rejected that account, saying it was
“absolutely unacceptable to China”, although
he did not provide an alternative version.
The Impeccable is a surveillance vessel de-
signed to support anti-submarine warfare.
Ma said it violated the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea but declined to answer when
repeatedly asked to specify exactly which part
of the convention was broken.
The Chinese vessels included a navy intel-
ligence ship, a government fisheries patrol
vessel, a state oceanographic patrol boat and
two small trawlers, the Pentagon said.
Whitman said one of the Chinese ships
came within 7.5m of the Impeccable and that
the Chinese crew tried to snag the cables that
tow the ship’s underwater sonars.
Beijing has long expressed its dissatisfac-
tion with US surveillance operations by
having Chinese ships and planes approach
US naval ships in what it considers an “eco-
nomic exclusion zone”. – AFP

US hospital evacuated, 44 to five years in prison for attempting to export

treated for toxic fumes
LOS ANGELES: A hospital complex and a
school were evacuated on Monday in Denver,
Colorado, and 44 people were treated for toxic
chemical fumes inhalation, the National Jewish
Health Campus said in a statement. “An inad-
vertent mixing of two common swimming-pool
chemicals released toxic fumes that caused
the evacuation of several buildings ... About
500 staff and students were evacuated,” the
campus said. It said the two chemicals mistak-
enly mixed were hydrochloric acid and sodium
hypochlorite. – AFP
Five years in jail for trying
to send military gear to Iran
MIAMI: An Iranian woman has been sentenced
military equipment to Iran, US officials said on
Monday. Authorities said Shahrazad Mir Gho-
likhan, 31, was prosecuted for trying to send
3,000 military night vision goggles and other
items to her homeland. – AFP
One tourist dead, 6 missing
in Phuket boat accident
BANGKOK: Rescuers in Thailand said they
had recovered the body of a woman yesterday
after a tourist diving boat capsized off the island
of Phuket at the weekend. Six other people,
most of them foreigners, remain missing. The
boat overturned in the sea around the Similan
Islands on Sunday night, a police officer said,
adding there were 23 survivors. Japanese,
Swiss, German and Austrian nationals were
reported to be among the missing, along with
one Thai cook from the boat. – Reuters