Dalai Lama Arrives In U.S.
(AFP) - Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama arrived in the United States Thursday on his first foreign trip since China’s crackdown on protests in the Himalayan territory that drew a global outcry.
“The Dalai Lama has arrived here,” one of his aides in the western coastal city of Seattle, in Washington state, said as the 72-year-old saffron-clad leader flew in after a brief stopover in Japan.
The Dalai Lama, who has a large international following, will participate in a five-day lecture series on spirituality in Seattle and then travel to Michigan and New York for similar events, aides said.
He had said that his nearly two-week trip to the United States was “not political.”
Tibet last month saw the biggest protests in years against China’s controversial rule on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising that sent the Dalai Lama fleeing into exile in India.
Beijing has accused the Nobel peace laureate of instigating the deadly violence and of seeking to split the predominantly Buddhist territory from China.
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly said he was only pursuing “meaningful” Tibetan autonomy and cultural freedoms within China — and that he supports the right of Beijing to host the Olympics in August.
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