Three elected members of the Dharmsala-based Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile are in Indian-administered Kashmir to hunt the help of pro-Indian leaders of their marketing campaign in opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet.

On their five-day go to to Kashmir, the trio met Tuesday with a spread of native political figures, together with two former chief ministers.

Exiled Tibetan lawmaker Dawa Tsering instructed VOA that India has an important function to play within the Tibetans’ wrestle.

“Tibet holds important significance for India on a number of fronts,” Tsering mentioned. “Prior to Tibet’s occupation, there was no historical precedent of Chinese forces being stationed along the Himalayas,” the scene of lethal border clashes between the 2 international locations in recent times.

Tibet had served as a politically impartial buffer zone between China and India previous to its 1951 annexation by China, Tsering mentioned, including that the lack of that buffer has forged a pall over diplomatic relations between Beijing and New Delhi.

Tsering mentioned Beijing has deployed missiles and constructed navy infrastructure close to India in what he described as an try to encroach upon Indian territory.

“Tibet witnessed the same moves before China occupied Tibet,” Tsering mentioned. “Now, China is aiming to seize Indian territories and they’re quickly constructing infrastructure in Tibet alongside the Indian border.

“It is excessive time for India’s individuals and the federal government of India to boycott the Chinese items in order to weaken China’s financial system.”

Fellow exiled lawmaker Yeshi Dolma mentioned Tibetans have been “traumatized by systematic violations of their most fundamental human rights” and the tried eradication of Tibetan cultural and nationwide id since China’s annexation.

“Over the last seven decades, the situation in Tibet has been deteriorating to the extent that it is now facing imminent threat of cultural genocide and total annihilation of Tibetan identity,” Dolma mentioned throughout a press convention in Srinagar.

In an announcement to journalists, Khenpo Sonam Tenpal, speaker of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile — now referred to as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) — mentioned Tibet has been ranked among the many world’s least-free territories by Freedom House for the third consecutive 12 months in its 2023 Freedom in the World report.

“Last year, U.N. human rights experts expressed serious concern over the large-scale colonial boarding schools in Tibet rampantly being implemented on a massive scale and referred to it as a way to assimilate Tibetans into majority Han culture, contrary to international human rights standards,” Dolma mentioned.

“Likewise, the forced mass DNA sample collection of Tibetans, including kindergarten children, is an intrusive securitization measure under the authoritarian surveillance regime to instill fear and wrest control of all aspects of public and private life of the Tibetan people.”

Tibetan parliamentarians in exile met two former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah and Vice President Omar Abdullah at their residence in Srinagar. (Wasim Nabi for VOA)

Tenpal admonished Kashmiri leaders to induce New Delhi to acknowledge Tibet as an occupied nation, to name on Beijing “to re-engage in dialogue with representatives of His Holiness Dalai Lama with out situation,’” and to demand China’s launch of all political prisoners, together with Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the eleventh Panchen Lama whose whereabouts have been unknown since 1995.

China doesn’t acknowledge the Tibetan government-in-exile and hasn’t held any dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama since 2010. India considers Tibet as a part of China, although it’s internet hosting Tibetan exiles.

Ghulam Hassan Mir, senior vp of the Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party, acknowledged that Central Tibetan Administration officers met with get together leaders at his residence.

“The delegation informed us about the historical context of the Tibetan dispute and furnished us with a memorandum, pamphlets and historical documents,” Mir instructed VOA.

“We reassured them that the Apni Party and its leadership are committed to upholding democracy, democratic values, and safeguarding the fundamental and human rights guaranteed to all individuals by the U.N. Charter in every nation.”

Members of Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile assembly Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party President, Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari and its Senior Vice President, Ghulam Hassan Mir. (Wasim Nabi for VOA)

China says Tibet has traditionally been a part of its territory because the mid-Thirteenth century, and its Communist Party has ruled the Himalayan area since 1951. But many Tibetans say that they had been successfully impartial for many of their historical past, and that the Chinese authorities needs to use their resource-rich area whereas crushing their cultural id.

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetans’ exiled non secular chief, and his followers have been dwelling in Dharmsala since they fled Tibet after a failed 1959 rebellion in opposition to Chinese rule.

Some data is from The Associated Press.