Indian defense minister says teen-aged Karmapa can stay

January 17, 2000
Web posted at: 5:46 p.m. HKT (0946 GMT)

In this story: Minister: Pact not violated Beijing approves boy's enthronement RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

NEW DELHI, India -- Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes says the teen-aged Karmapa Lama who apparently defected from Chinese-ruled Tibet can stay in India.

"If people walk in and want to stay on for a while, they can be allowed to stay," Fernandes told reporters Sunday. "If one has come to our country and wants to stay, there is no violation of anything."

However, Fernandes said the Karmapa -- who arrived in India on January 5 after an eight-day, 1,400-kilometer (875-mile) trek across the snow-covered Himalayas with five of his followers -- has not asked for asylum.

Last week, five Tibetans in exile gave a petition to the Indian government demanding the Karmapa be given asylum. The group's leader, Dolma Gyari, said the Karmapa's safety might be at risk if he returned to China.

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India has given refugee status to more than 100,000 Tibetans since Tibet's failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama, the supreme Tibetan political and religious leader, heads an exile government in Dharmsala, India.

China advised India last Tuesday to tread carefully, and to keep bilateral relations in mind, when handling the Karmapa issue. However, China stopped short of saying India should deny the young lama refuge.

Minister: Pact not violated

Fernandes said however, the Karmapa's stay in India did not violate diplomatic agreements between New Delhi and Beijing.

"I don't see any violation of anything in that, and don't see why we should be upset about anything related with that," Fernandes said.

The Panchsheel agreement signed in 1954 by India and China lays down the principles of friendship between the world's two most populous nations. The pact has five basic principles -- including pledges of peaceful co-existence and non- interference in each other's internal affairs.

"I don't think there is any need to look at this as an issue which can impinge on our relations," the Press Trust of India quoted Fernandes as saying.

Beijing approves boy's enthronement

Also Sunday, Beijing approved the enthronement of a 2-year- old boy as the reincarnated successor of an important Tibetan lama, in a move some considered an effort to strengthen control over Tibet.

In a ceremony in front of a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, the child -- born in Tibet in 1997 as Soinam Puncog -- had his head haved, received a Buddhist name and became the successor of the sixth Reting Lama, who died in 1997, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

A provincial government official presented the monks with an official certificate declaring that the government approved the child's ordination, Xinhua reported.

Tibetan Buddhist lamas select reincarnations of important lamas through a mystical process known as divination. The divination process for the 7th Reting Lama conformed with all central and regional government laws, the government-run Tibet Daily reported last month.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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