NEW DELHI (AP) — The elder brother of the Dalai Lama and old chairman of the Tibetan authorities-in-exile in India, Gyalo Thondup, who led plenty of rounds of talks with China and labored with international governments for the Tibetan reason, has died. He used to be 97.
Thondup died at his dwelling in Kalimpong, a hill town in the Himalayan foothills of eastern West Bengal advise, on Saturday night, media reports said. No diversified particulars had been immediately released about his loss of life.
Tibetan media shops credited Thondup for networking with international governments and praised his role in facilitating U.S. enhance for the Tibetan battle.
The Dalai Lama led a prayer session for Thondup at a monastery in Bylakuppe town in India’s southern advise of Karnataka on Sunday the put the non secular leader is currently staying for the iciness months.
He prayed for Thondup’s “swift rebirth,” in accordance with Buddhist traditions, and said “his efforts in direction of the Tibetan battle had been immense and we are grateful for his contribution.”
Thondup, one in all six siblings of the Tibetan non secular leader and essentially the most challenging brother not groomed for a non secular existence, made India his dwelling in 1952 and helped save early contacts with the Indian and U.S. governments to stare enhance for Tibet. In 1957, Thondup helped recruit Tibetan fighters who had been sent to U.S. practising camps in subsequent years, a document by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia said.
In maintaining with RFA, Thondup used to be essentially to blame for liaising with the Indian authorities, alongside with with High Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, when the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959. He also played a key role in establishing Tibetan leaders’ family contributors with U.S. officials.
Thondup began discussions between Tibetans and Chinese language leaders in 1979, in a departure from his earlier draw, which sought an armed battle in opposition to Chinese language aid a watch on of Tibet. The meeting laid a basis for a series of formal negotiations between the Dalai Lama’s first charge envoys and the Chinese language management that persevered until they had been halted in 2010.
In an interview with RFA broadcast in 2003, Thondup said neither India nor the U.S. would be ready to unravel the Tibetan say, and that growth may most challenging near via face-to-face talks with Beijing.
Thondup served as chairman of the Tibetan authorities-in-exile based fully in India’s northern hillside town of Dharamshala from 1991 to 1993.
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