Tibet far from attaining millennium goals: Report

New Delhi, Dec 10 (UNI) In an indictment of what China is up to in Tibet, a report released here today on the International Human Rights Day said Tibet was far from attaining the millennium development goals now or even by 2015.

Releasing the 'Tibet:A Human Development and Environment Report, 2007', prepared by the Department of Information and International relations, Central Tibetan Administration, Mr Tempa Tsering, representative of the Dalai Lama, said, ''The report is not meant to ashame China but to help it in realising that development works in Tibet have not helped its people and that the Chinese government can bring changes in its approach to development with emphasis on heavy infrastructure.'' The report said the official goals of the Chinese central leaders for five decades had been pillar industries, economic take-off, productivity and prosperity whereas the actual result was that of wealth surrounded by a neglected, eroding countryside, ''islands of privilege in a grassy sea of deprivation'', illiteracy and exclusion.

Tibetans also suffered from chronic marginalisation, unemployment and under-employment, besides being overwhelmed by flooding tourists and subsidised immigration.

Concluding that Tibet remained one of the poorest of subsistence societies with its human development indicators equivalent to some of the poorest contries on earth, the report called for adopting advanced and inclusive methods, repairing the degraded grasslands as a partnership between leaders and the people, listening to farmers and pastoral nomads and to effectively care for them.

The report was particularly addressed to the development agencies and environmental organisations, inviting them to bring their best practise standards to Tibet.

UNI