Thousands flock to Dalai Lama in US as he turns 76

MATTHEW PENNINGTON

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — Thou­sands of expa­tri­ate Tibetans joined a 76th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion Wednes­day for Bud­dhist spir­i­tual leader the Dalai Lama, who told fol­low­ers he is happy and proud to be giv­ing up his polit­i­cal power.

The Dalai Lama is in Wash­ing­ton for an 11-day Bud­dhist rit­ual, known as a kalachakra, draw­ing fol­low­ers from Amer­ica, Asia and Europe.

In May he relin­quished his lead­er­ship of Tibet’s government-in-exile, giv­ing up the polit­i­cal power that he and his pre­de­ces­sors have wielded over Tibetans for hun­dreds of years.

The Dalai Lama said Wednes­day that he believed in the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers and was tak­ing the step voluntarily.

“Now I can tell you that reli­gious insti­tu­tions and polit­i­cal insti­tu­tions must be sep­a­rate. I will fully imple­ment that,” he told fol­low­ers at a half-full Ver­i­zon Cen­ter sta­dium, which is more com­monly host to the Wash­ing­ton Mys­tics bas­ket­ball team. Many of this crowd wore the saf­fron robes of a monk or the chupa, a tra­di­tional Tibetan gown.

Although the Dalai Lama remains the spir­i­tual leader of Tibetan Bud­dhism, his deci­sion to abdi­cate his polit­i­cal role is one of the biggest upheavals in the Tibetan com­mu­nity since the Chi­nese crack­down that led the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in India in 1959.

The Dalai Lama arrived Tues­day on what is his longest visit yet to Wash­ing­ton. He will meet with law­mak­ers, but the White House has yet to announce if Pres­i­dent Barack Obama will meet him, a fel­low recip­i­ent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama did not receive the exiled Tibetan spir­i­tual leader when he vis­ited Wash­ing­ton in Octo­ber 2009, but he did four months later, although in low-key fash­ion. Another meet­ing would anger China.

China accuses the Dalai Lama of seek­ing inde­pen­dence for Tibet. The Nobel lau­re­ate says he only wants auton­omy for Tibet within China.

The prime minister-elect of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Lob­sang San­gay, told The Asso­ci­ated Press on Tues­day that con­tin­u­ing Chi­nese repres­sion inside Tibet is a tragedy and urged con­tin­u­ing U.S. sup­port for Tibetan autonomy.

San­gay, who won an April vote by Tibetan exiles, said he hoped Obama would meet with the Dalai Lama.

Although the kalachakra is a reli­gious rit­ual, San­gay said it was also an expres­sion of a desire shared by Tibetans both inside and out­side China to be able to meet with their spir­i­tual leader.

“We are able to do so here, in the free world, but inside Tibet we are not,” said San­gay, a 43-year-old Har­vard legal scholar who grew up a refugee in India. “Tibetans inside Tibet have this same basic right.”

In Nepal on Wednes­day, hun­dreds of riot police blocked exiled Tibetans from cel­e­brat­ing the Dalai Lama’s birth­day at a school near the cap­i­tal Kat­mandu over con­cerns that gath­er­ings would turn anti-Chinese.

China says the Dalai Lama is wel­come to return to Tibet if he drops his sep­a­ratist activ­i­ties, accepts Tibet as an inalien­able part of China and rec­og­nizes Tai­wan as a province of China.

Posted by AP News on Jul 7 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.