WUC requests support from Dalai Lama

• Source: Global Times
• [07:12 July 16 2009]
• Comments

 The European Union said that the violence in Xinjiang “is a Chinese issue, not a European issue.” Serge Abou, the EU's ambassador to China, noted that Europe has its own problems with minorities, and “we would not like other governments to tell us what is to be done.”

Pan said that Kadeer hoped to take advantage of the influence of the Dalai Lama, the so-called Tibetan spiritual leader, to disguise the WUC as a fighter for peace and human rights, and to win international recognition and support.

Kadeer met the Dalai Lama for the first time in 2005, soon after she fled to the US after being released on bail for medical treatment.

And on July 19, 2007, Dailai and Kadeer met for 45 minutes in Hamburg, Germany.

A WUC spokesman said that campaigning in the same city with the Dalai Lama would increase the international recognition of the “Uygur problem” on that occasion.

When they met again in another campaign at the MCI Center in Washington, DC, on March 19, 2008, several days after the March 14 incident in Tibet, Kadeer expressed her support for the Dalai Lama and his group.

Pan said there is no doubt that “the two groups of separatists have always had links and will continue to secretly work together.”

Such a view was echoed by Chinese government officials. Qin Gang, foreign ministry spokesman, said at a regular press briefing Tuesday that Kadeer and the Dalai Lama have one thing in common, “They are both engaged in activities of splitting China and undermining national unity.”

Pan doubted that the Dalai Lama would show support to the WUC, at least openly, given that the riots in Urumqi caused indignation among the Chinese public.

“The terroristic nature of the WUC was fully displayed in the July 5 deadly riots, which targeted helpless civilians,” Pan said. “Even other separatist groups do not want to be compared with the WUC.”

Zhang Han and An Baijie contributed to this storyasked