Tibetan Uprising

International Herald Tribune

NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian police have arrested 265 Tibetan exiles marching to their homeland to protest Chinese rule and will send them back to the northern Indian town where they began their protest nearly three months ago, an official said Thursday.

Police arrested the protesters on Wednesday about 180 kilometers (115 miles) from India’s border with China leading to Tibet, local administrator Sainthil Pandiyan said.

Fifty other Tibetan exiles were still camping at Berinag, a town in India’s northern Uttrakhand state, and plan to make another attempt to cross over to Tibet next week, said Pema Dorjee, a march coordinator from the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement.

They hope to arrive in their homeland to coincide with the start of the Beijing Olympics in August.

On Wednesday, the marchers locked arms and sat down to form a human chain as police stopped their march to the India-China border, Dorjee said.

They chanted “China quit Tibet” as police took them away in buses and jeeps, he said.

Pandiyan said arrangements were being made to send the marchers to the Indian city of Dharmsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

The protesters began their journey on March 10 in Dharmsala.

Authorities feared the protest march would embarrass China, with which India is improving economic ties despite a lingering border dispute.

Indian police detained a group of the marchers for two weeks. They restarted their walk after their release from detention in April, and since then Indian officials had allowed them to continue, although local police usually accompanied them.

India has generally allowed the Tibetan exiles to protest peacefully, but as anti-China protests gather momentum before the Beijing Olympics, the government has said it will not tolerate actions that embarrass China.

More than 100,000 Tibetans live in India in the world’s largest Tibetan exile community.

China has ruled Tibet since it invaded in 1950 and claims the Himalayan region has been its territory for centuries. Many Tibetans, however, say their homeland was essentially independent for much of that time.