Spiritual Leader Threatens to Resign Over Conflict

The Dalai Lama yesterday offered to resign as spiritual and temporal leader of the six million-strong Tibetan people and withdraw from public life if violence across the Himalayas went "out of control" and vehemently denied accusations from China that he was behind last week's protests.

At a press conference at his base of Dharamsala in northern India the Nobel peace prize winner said: "If things become out of control then my only option is to completely resign."

The 73-year-old Buddhist monk added that "1,000 Tibetans sacrificed their life. Please help stop violence from Chinese side and from Tibetan side."

His aides said the Dalai Lama would effectively retire ... to pursue Buddhist studies and a life of contemplation. "His holiness would no longer have a role in the political affairs of Tibet," Tenzin Taklha, one of his personal secretaries, told the Guardian.

The Dalai Lama is revered by his followers as the embodiment of compassion, the 14th reincarnation of one who achieved spiritual enlightenment, the Buddha Avalokitesvara. China views him as a "criminal splittist".

The spiritual leader yesterday reaffirmed that he wanted autonomy for Tibet within China, but not outright independence, which he said was "out of the question". "We have to live together side by side. We must oppose Chinese policy but not the Chinese."

Some of his radical followers, members of the Tibetan Youth Congress backed by their allies within Tibet, have told the Dalai Lama only "the struggle for independence" will compel the Chinese to negotiate seriously with him.

Mr Taklha said that the Dalai Lama was considering a referendum in the future... where Tibetans in exile could vote to abandon his middle way and choose to advocate independence.

Experts said that the Dalai Lama was attempting to "re-impose his moral will" and draw protesters back from the brink of confrontation with authorities.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed revolt, denied Chinese claims that he was masterminding protests and challenged Beijing to come to Dharamsala and find evidence to substantiate their allegations.