Push China on Panchen Lama’s whereabouts: Tibetan leaders

Want India, other govts, UN to help probe Rinpoche disappearance

The Tibetan government-inexile on Thursday called on India and other democratic nations to press Beijing to divulge the whereabouts of Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and allow an independent fact-finding commission to examine his disappearance in China nearly 29 years ago.

The demand was made at a grand event held in Himachal’s Dharamshala commemorating the 35th birth anniversary of Choekyi Nyima who disappeared just three days after the Dalai Lama declared the then sixyear to be the reincarnated Panchen Lama. A joint statement by leading Tibetan leaders called on foreign governments and the UN to direct their ambassadors in China to meet with the 11th Panchen Lama and ascertain his whereabouts and wellbeing.

The Panchen Lama is the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

“Our most pressing concern is whether the Panchen Rinpoche is still alive or not,” said Penpa Tsering, the Sikyong or political head of Tibet’s government-in-exile, in presence of hundreds of Tibetans and international delegations. “If he is presumed to be alive, has he been brought up with his parents from the age of six up till now for the last 29 years? Or had he been kept in a remote environment to become someone who can’t speak even in Tibetan? How much the people around him might have abused and tortured him?”

Tsering accused the Chinese govt of “brazenly violating” fundamental rights and freedom of the Panchen Lama. Tsering said the Chinese authorities should immediately allow an independent fact-finding commission to get access to the Panchen Lama and that he should be given his basic human rights.

The Chinese government has not yet responded clearly to questions about the whereabouts of Panchen Lama. “We urge the foreign governments, the United Nations and the international community to pass a motion urging them to direct their ambassadors in China to meet the 11th Panchen Lama and ascertain his whereabouts and wellbeing,” they said.