Nine Tibetans arrested for protesting Chinese Foreign Minister

By Lobsang Wangyal
Tibet Sun

NEW DELHI, India, September 08, 2008

Nine Tibetans were arrested by police after they tried to barge into the motorcade of the Chinese Foreign Minister outside the venue of a high-level meeting with the Indian Foreign Ministers in Delhi.

Police detain a Tibetan exile during a protest outside the venue of a meeting between Chinese External Affairs Minister Yang Jiechi and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi 8 September 2008.Reuters/Adnan Abidi/India

Tibetans shouted “Go back Yang Jiechi”, “Stop killing in Tibet”, and “We want freedom in Tibet”, as the motorcade of the Chinese Foreign Minister speeded up to go to the Taj Mansingh Hotel for the meeting.

“I am sure Yang had seen us protesting,” says Konchok Yangphel, an executive member of the Tibetan Youth Congress, from a police station.

“We are now at Tuklak Road police station and likely to be taken to Tihar jail after filing the FIR (first information report) at the police station,” Yangphel told Tibet Sun by phone.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee and discussed boundary issues and the intensification of economic ties, media reports say.

An agreement on promoting partnership between the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi and the Qinghua University was reportedly signed between the two sides.

The high-level meetings took place amid a new strain in bilateral relations between the two countries following the Chinese negative response to India’s nuclear trade with the rest of the world at the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group meeting concluded this weekend in Vienna.

Earlier in the day, about 200 Tibetans marched from Raj Ghat, the location of Gandhi’s tomb, to Jantar Mantar in the heart of Delhi, denouncing the visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister. The protestors demanded independence for their homeland, and an end to China’s human rights violations in Tibet.

The organisation said in a press release, “The Tibetan Youth Congress, while strongly condemning the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to India, firmly believes that the Government of India, while dealing with the Chinese delegates, will not take any measure that may go against the historical truth and the aspirations of the six million Tibetans living in and out of Tibet.”

“For a lasting solution to the disputes, and to ensure lasting peace and development in Asia, restoration of a free Tibet as a historical buffer state is but inevitable and imminent.”

Reports say that the Tibetan Youth Congress in Uttarakhand also staged a peaceful demonstration.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who is on a three-day visit to India, arrived in Kolkata on Sunday. Yang inaugurated the Chinese Consulate General, reciprocating Mukherjee’s inauguration of the Indian Consulate-General in Guangzhou city in south China’s Guangdong province in May.

Yang is scheduled to conclude his India visit on Tuesday, and then travel to Sri Lanka.