China rebuffs pope's Tibet peace plea

China reacted harshly to Pope Benedict XVI's appeal for peace in Tibet Wednesday, saying "so-called tolerance cannot be extended to criminals, who must be punished according to the law," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said. The Tibetan government-in-exile's Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche, however, expressed "true gratitude" for the pontiff's words, which "voiced our suffering to the world, and we are grateful to him for this," he told AsiaNews Thursday.

Responding to the accusations against the Dalai Lama issued by Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, Rinpoche said, "All the allegations are baseless and false; apart from that, we cannot and will not respond in their language." The Dalai Lama "consoles us in our sufferings, and he reminds us that inner peace is the foundation of outer peace. We are grateful for his constant appeal to non-violence, and we are saddened to see that his words go unheard."

A Tibetan source explained to AsiaNews, "the Chinese government completely censors the voice of the Dalai Lama in his country: for this reason, his repeated appeals for non-violence and peace in Lhasa have gone unheard. But in this way, there is the risk of a very dangerous deterioration: Beijing must understand that the Buddhist leader is the best agent possible to make the violence stop."