Sir, - The Chinese authorities kidnapped Gendun Chockyi Nyima, aged six, after he had been recognised as Panchen Lama by the exiled Dalai Lama in 1995. He is widely considered to be the world's youngest political prisoner. Recent rumours of his death and secret cremation by the Chinese at Lanzhou No. 1 Prison in Gansu Province have not been dispelled, as the Chinese have refused all access to the boy. His parents and the abbot of his monastery were also "disappeared". The abbot and 50 other Tibetans were subsequently imprisoned for up to nine years for their part in his discovery.
The Chinese subsequently installed Gyancain (Gyaltsen) Norbu, having chosen him by lottery in a cynical attempt to gain control of the Tibetan Buddhist leadership. To say that "many Tibetans regard the boy (Norbu) as a fake" merits the understatement of the year award. His "speech" as reported in The Irish Times of February 3rd says it all.
I hope that our new Foreign Affairs Minister, Brian Cowen, will lead Irish support for the US resolution on Chinese human rights abuses at the forthcoming UN Geneva Human Rights Convention on March 20th. - Yours, etc.,
Anthony O'Brien, Tibet Support group Ireland, Ailesbury Road, Dublin 4.