Tibet: China vows to punish officials for sympathising with Dalai Lama

Beijing, Nov 5: The ruling Communist Party of China today vowed to severely punish officials in Tibet who follow exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama or support separatism.

Authorities in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the province-level autonomous region here, announced this after receiving feedback from inspectors of Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the CPC's discipline watchdog, state-run Global Times reported today.

"Some officials have failed to take a firm political stand and some grass-root officials in the region were found to have serious corruption issues," Ye Dongsong, head of the CCDI inspection team said.

Ye stressed that "the Tibet Autonomous Region enjoys no exception in the anti-graft campaign" and asked the regional government to focus on neutralising separatists and maintaining social stability, crack down on corruption and strictly monitor projects in the region.

In response to the CCDI inspection team's report, Chen Quanguo, CPC Party chief of the TAR, said that the anti-separatism campaign should be strengthened and will severely punish those officials who are more concerned with their personal welfare, or those who still want to follow the Dalai Lama group or support separatism.

"Some officials in Tibet still sympathise with the Dalai Lama. They continue to support the Dalai Lama out of their religious beliefs," Xiong Kunxin, a professor with the Minzu University of China told the daily.

Those officials also support the Dalai Lama's separatism activities, he said. Xiong noted that those officials support the Dalai Lama's renewed push for a high-degree of autonomy in Tibet to drive away the Han people, the majority ethnic community in China.

"Such officials should not be tolerated," he said.

Western countries' support made the Tibet issue more international, he added. Since July, 13 inspection teams were dispatched by the central discipline inspection agency to 10 regions including Tibet, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Jiangsu, to weed out corruption and close loopholes in party and government work.

PTI