Karmapa 'confused' by curbs on visit to Rumtek

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, APRIL 28. The Karmapa, the teenaged Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader in exile in India, has said he finds the Indian Government's refusal to let him travel to Sikkim ``confusing''.

At his first public meeting with the world media since arriving in India early last year, he thanked the Indian Government for giving him asylum but said he was confused by restrictions which prevent him from visiting the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, headquarters of his Karma Kagyu sect.

The press conference, held at Gyuto monastery near Dharamsala, was widely reported in the British media today with emphasis on his sharp criticism of China, his detailed account of his dramatic escape from that country and his furious denial that he was a Chinese ``puppet.'' He also vowed not to return to Tibet ``until the Dalai Lama does.''

The 15-year-old Ogyen Trinley Dorje, whom one newspaper described as the ``most powerful teenager in the world,'' emphatically denied that he had been sent to India to

reclaim the symbolic Black Hat at Rumtek and take it back to Tibet.

``Pointedly, he referred to Sikkim as an Indian state... and said:``Why would I want to retrieve that from India and bring it back to China? The only thing that would be served by doing so would be to place that hat on (President) Jiang Zemin's head.'' The Times said adding that he thanked the

Indian Government for its ``generosity'' but ``chafed at its refusal to let him travel to the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim.'' The Independent said the

Karmapa showed a ``sudden flash of anger'' when asked by a Tibetan questioner to comment on the Chinese interpretation of why he left the country. ``It is true that I left a letter behind but as I wrote it, I know what I wrote and what I did not write. I said I left because although I have for a long time requested permission to travel internationally, I was not given

permission. I did not mention in the letter that I desired to bring back the Black Hat,'' he said speaking through an interpreter.

He acknowledged that he was treated ``as someone very special'' by the Chinese authorities but said he came to ``suspect that there might have been a plan to use me to separate the people of Tibet from the Dalai Lama.'' One newspaper said that since his arrival in India, the ``media here (in India)

has repeatedly sniped at him, accusing him of being a stooge of the Chinese...The Karmapa will have silenced most of those critics yesterday.'' The Guardian said the Karmapa was a ``virtual prisoner in Gyuto monastery near Dharamsala'' but now he wanted to travel outside India.

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