Karmapa Hasn't Requested Asylum
By DEEPAK SHARMA
Associated
Press Writer
The 17th Karmapa
AP/ [21K]
DHARMSALA, India (AP) — A teen-age Buddhist leader who fled Chinese-ruled Tibet has not asked India for asylum, a member of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile said Monday.
The 14-year-old Karmapa arrived in Dharmsala on Wednesday after an eight-day trek over the Himalayas.
``We have not applied to the government of India,'' said K.A. Lontashiwangd, religious affairs minister in the Dalai Lama's administration. ``But if the government decided to give asylum, that can be accepted.''
India's Foreign Office spokesman, Raminder Singh Jassal, told an informal press briefing that the government is looking into the circumstances and consequences of the Karmapa's arrival.
Indian minister shows pictures to journalists AP/Aman Sharma [20K] |
The Karmapa's defection is the most significant exodus since the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans departed their homeland after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Both China and India have reacted cautiously to the defection.
China's fragile ties with India suffered a setback after India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, citing China as a security threat. India and China fought a war in 1962.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Julia Taft arrived in India on Monday and flew to Dharmsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, where she will visit Tibetans as part of her job to investigate the conditions of refugees and migrants.
Jassal said Taft's trip had been scheduled before the news of the Karmapa's escape.
Early Sunday, the Karmapa left the Chonor Guest House, where he had stayed since his arrival here. The Dalai Lama's administrators refused to say where he went.
But local police and monks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had moved to Gyuto monastery in Sidvari, 10 miles southeast of Dharmsala, where the exile Tibetan community has its biggest university.
``We have shifted him to keep him away from the media and his followers,'' Longtashiwangd said. ``We want him to have a good rest.''
China approved the 17th Karmapa's enthronement in 1992 and used him as a symbol to project its toleration of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the only high lama whose accession had been agreed upon by both the Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama.
The Karmapa's Kagyu sect, known as the ``Black Hats,'' is one of four main strands of Tibetan Buddhism.