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Dalai`s message given to seers
The Dalai Lama has delivered an official message to a gathering of the world`s religious leaders in Absentia after being excluded by organisers because of Chinese government pressure.
The Dalai Lama has delivered an official message to a gathering of the world`s religious leaders in Absentia after being excluded by organisers because of Chinese government pressure.
Members of China`s delegation of religious leaders, including a Buddhist and a protestant, left the hall before the message was delivered to religious leaders gathered for the four-day
``Millennium World Peace Summit yesterday,`` Chinese sources and the official Xinhua news agency reported.
However, Bawa Jain, the gathering`s general secretary, said later that if there had been a protest it went unnoticed.
Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche, head of the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, delivered the Dalai Lama`s message. ``The different faiths need to develop mutual respect for and understanding of each other`s belief and values,`` he said.
``There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful,`` he said. By the time Rinpoche make it to the podium to speak late in the day, many of the more than 1,000 religious leaders and participants had left the hall. Those still present applauded loudly. In an earlier session, a member of China`s delegation, bishop Fu Tieshen, condemned the ``tragedy of desecrating or distorting or abusing religion.`` But he added, ``Some people want to trample on the sovereignty of other countries under the pretext of protecting religious human rights. Some people want to fish for fame by deceiving the world under the cloak of religion and going in for separatist activities.``
Bureau Report
``There can be no peace as long as there is grinding poverty, social injustice, inequality, oppression, environmental degradation and as long as the weak and small continue to be trodden by the mighty and powerful,`` he said. By the time Rinpoche make it to the podium to speak late in the day, many of the more than 1,000 religious leaders and participants had left the hall. Those still present applauded loudly. In an earlier session, a member of China`s delegation, bishop Fu Tieshen, condemned the ``tragedy of desecrating or distorting or abusing religion.`` But he added, ``Some people want to trample on the sovereignty of other countries under the pretext of protecting religious human rights. Some people want to fish for fame by deceiving the world under the cloak of religion and going in for separatist activities.``
Bureau Report