The Dalai Lama's 'hell on earth'

“The Dalai Lama is a man of peace and forbearance," said The New York Times in an editorial. So when the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists says Chinese rule is turning Tibet into a "hell on earth," it is a a measure of the people's "suffering and growing desperation." Let's hope China heeds the warning before it's too late.

It's strange that the Dalai Lama fails to mention that before 1959, during his rule, Tibet was no "paradise," said Cheng Zhiliang in China's Xinhua news agency's China View. because about 95 percent of Tibetans "were serfs and slaves." His accusations against Beijing are "rhetorically flaring," but false. What we have here is a "marginalized old monk" crying and lying, like a child desperate for attention.

Please, said Robert King in the Indianapolis Star, the Dalai Lama is "a living model of the idea of forgiveness and loving one's enemies. In the 50 years since China forced him into exile, he has demanded only religious and cultural freedom -- not independence -- for Tibetans. If, at 73, he's finally blowing off some steam, it's probably because he's worried about how the Free Tibet movement will fare after he's gone.

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