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Tibet officials issued with Dalai school ultimatum

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-24 07:16

Party members and public servants working in the Tibet autonomous region were given an ultimatum on July 14 to call back their children within two months from overseas schools and monasteries run by the "Dalai clique", the International Herald Leader (IHL), owned by the Xinhua News Agency, said Wednesday.

Under a regulation drawn up by the regional Party and government disciplinary inspection commissions, which was released last week, those who fail to do so will be expelled from the Party and removed from their posts, the IHL report said.

The regulation applies to all current and retired Party members and government employees in the region, the newspaper said.

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The Dalai clique's offer of free scholarships, board and lodgings is designed to attract Tibetan students to leave their homes and join its educational institutions outside China, the report said.

The Dalai Lama has been setting up schools overseas since 1960, the year after he fled to India, a study conducted by IHL and published in the paper Wednesday said.

It now operates hundreds of monasteries and temples, and about 80 schools for all age groups, which have more than 27,000 students and about 2,000 teachers, the study said.

A college in Dharamsala, India, for example, which has about 650 students, offers young Tibetans not only free tuition and accommodation - worth about 2,000 rupees ($50) a month - but also pays them a monthly stipend of 100 rupees, it said.

About 40 percent of the Tibetan students there go on to higher education, many in Western countries, the study said.

The incentives are all just part of the Dalai clique's aim to "brainwash" students under the "cloak of religion and education", the IHL study said.

Also, the money spent on such "brainwashing" shows that the Dalai clique continues to receive aid from Western anti-China forces, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros' Open Society Foundation and the US-based Tibet Foundation, the paper said without providing any further details.