Nepal Tibetan exiles vow to continue daily protests
KATHMANDU (AFP) — Tibetan exiles in Nepal who protest daily at the Chinese embassy said Monday their demonstrations will continue, despite the government signalling it is fast running out of patience.
Dozens and sometimes hundreds of exiled Tibetans have protested every day, including Sunday when 550 women were detained, since a crackdown in March by authorities in Tibet after unrest there.
"We are continuing our protests to ask the international community to speak out against Chinese brutality," Doma Tsomo, a female activist among those detained, told AFP of the cat-and-mouse game which has gone on for the past two months.
"We have to keep protesting because we fear there are lots of closed-door happenings going on in Tibet," Tsomo said.
Nepal is home to at least 20,000 exiled Tibetans, but the impoverished Himalayan country officially recognises Beijing's "One China" policy that Tibet is an inseparable part of China, and is fast losing patience with the exiles.
"Refugees cannot be involved in political activities," Umesh Mainali, Nepal's home ministry secretary, told AFP.
"So far, we have shown a lot of patience with the Tibetans. Depending on the situation, we may be compelled to take strong action against them if they continue."
In what is now a well choreographed routine, Tibetans try to protest outside UN and Chinese embassy buildings in Kathmandu, but are soon detained, often beaten and then released a few hours later, with many returning day after day.
"Bilateral relations with China are very important to us and we are determined not to permit our territory to be used for any activity that undermines China's interests," said Ekmani Nepal, the home ministry spokesman told AFP.
On Monday, China's ambassador to Nepal suggested he was also getting tired of the daily demonstrations and urged the impoverished Himalayan country to be stricter with the protesters.
"The government should adopt severe punishment against the Tibetan protesters. They should not just arrest them in the daytime and release them in the evening," China's Ambassador Zheng Xianglin told reporters.
"The government of Nepal has clear distinctions about what Tibetans here can and cannot do. To my knowledge, Tibetans can be involved in cultural and religious activities, but not politics," he said.
Nepal is a major transit point for those fleeing Tibet. Under a "gentleman's agreement" with the government, a UN-funded reception centre in Kathmandu issues Tibetan refugees with identity papers, and sends most of them on to Dharamshala in northern India, the home of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
Around 2,500 people pass through the centre annually, but this has changed since the unrest in Tibet and subsequent crackdown.
"Not a single Tibetan has come to Nepal since March 10 as China has totally sealed the border," said an official from the reception centre who asked not to be named.
"Tibet is under a news blackout and nobody knows what is going on inside."
Even if Tibetan community leaders in Nepal wanted to stop the protests, they cannot, according to Tashi Phuntsok, spokesman for the reception centre.
"There is nobody leading these protests, it's the Tibetans themselves who are coming out voluntarily. The protests will continue," said Phuntsok.
