Commentary: For whom is Tibet a "hell on earth"?

Source: Xinhua | 03-11-2009 08:20

LHASA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Tuesday is a special date for Tibetans. For the 2.8 million residents in the southwest China autonomous region, it marks 50 years since feudal serfdom was abolished; but for the 14th Dalai Lama and his "government-in-exile," it marks five decades of futile attempts at independence.

Fifty years after he fled China and having failed time and again to foment widespread unrest in Tibet and other Tibetan communities in western China, the Dalai Lama is apparently at his wit's end.

In a speech to mark the 50th anniversary of his exile, the Dalai Lama abruptly shook off his pacifist outlook and smiles to give some gibberish far below the intelligence of the "spiritual leader" himself, and poles apart from truth.

In this speech, delivered in the northern Indian hill town of Dharamshala, the Dalai Lama denigrated Tibet's 50 years of democratic reform, sustained economic growth and improved human rights as "untold suffering and destruction to the land and people of Tibet."