Tibetan Uprising

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Hundreds of Tibetan exiles vowed Thursday to press on with a trek home ahead of the Beijing Olympics despite Indian police detaining some of their leaders this week.

The marchers, who left the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamshala on March 10, were now less than 200 kilometres from the Tibetan border, said Pema Dorjee, one of the 300 exiles making up the group.

But the group had been camping in northern Uttarakhand state for about a week “because the (Indian) police have detained six our leaders,” Dorjee told AFP by phone.

“The police have also taken away three utility trucks which we were using to carry food,” he said.

“The (Indian) police have been asking us to go back but we will not move from here before our leaders are released,” he said.

The start of the trek in March coincided with the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s escape from the Tibetan capital Lhasa after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

It was suspended for a month when the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, called on the group to stop in the wake of a huge Chinese military and police crackdown on pro-independence protests in the Himalayan region.

According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, more than 200 protestors were killed in the Chinese crackdown.

Dorjee said the marchers had resumed their journey on April 19 to highlight the “Chinese atrocities in Tibet and to protest against the Olympic torch being carried through our homeland.”