Hamburg, Germany, 22 July 2007 (DPA) - Appealing for peace in the world, the Dalai Lama said in the German city of Hamburg Sunday that resistance to Chinese rule in his Tibetan homeland had to remain peaceful.
'If we were to use violence, this would endanger peaceful co- existence in the future,' said the exiled Tibetan political and spiritual leader, 72. His homeland was taken under Chinese control in 1959.
'We have to co-exist with our Chinese friends,' he told a crowd of 10,000 at a Hamburg tennis stadium, the main venue for an international congress of devotees of Tibetan Buddhism.
On his arrival in Hamburg on Thursday, the Dalai Lama told the German city-state's leaders his greatest concern was to build up trust with the Chinese. He repeated this in an interview set to be aired late Sunday by ARD public television in Germany.
'How can we discuss things without trust? The Chinese side is full of mistrust,' he told the interviewer. He said that if sufficient liberty were achieved for Tibet he would surrender his 'legitimate authority to the local Tibetan government.'
At the tennis stadium, he appealed for more peace and justice in the world.
'The 20th century was marked by violence, but the 21st century could be a century of peace,' said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
He told the audience of 10,000 he would like to see a worldwide organization where people could devote their lives to the cause of peace.
'We cannot change the world merely by resolutions of the United Nations. We have to start with the individual,' he said.
'People from societies that teach peacefulness, tolerance and sympathy are more peaceful by nature,' he said, adding that it was shocking that Sunnis and Shiites could fight one another in Iraq or Catholics and Protestants could do so in Northern Ireland.
'They have the same God, yet they still kill one another,' he said. 'Violence can never be the right way. We have to find a human solution to problems.'
A German state premier, Roland Koch of Hesse, who was visiting Tibet on Sunday, said he believed it was possible Beijing would reach an accommodation with the Dalai Lama while he was still alive.
In remarks reported by the German news weekly Focus, the Hesse official said there were elements in the Chinese government who feared Tibet could become a powder-keg after the Dalai Lama died.
Koch said he would ask Chinese leaders in Beijing at the start of the week to permit a visit by the Dalai Lama to China.
