The confidential memo of the US Embassy in New Delhi that quotes an unnamed source claimed “Chinese government rewards Nepali forces by providing financial incentives to officers who hand over Tibetans attempting to exit China”.[break]
The memo sent to the US Department of State on February 22 this year under the title “Delhi Diary” and classified as “confidential” has an update on Tibetan refugee flow that described a meeting of the source with “Political Officer” on February 4.
The Wikileaks, which is releasing 250,000 memos of US Embassies, has deleted the names of people involved in the conversation amidst concerns from various quarters that the person mentioned might face life threats due to the release.
The memo also adds that the number of Tibetans entering India had decreased because “Beijing has asked Kathmandu to step up patrols of Nepali border forces and make it more difficult for Tibetans to enter Nepal.”
Titled “Update on Tibetan refugee flow”, the confidential memo says that each year, an average of 2,500 to 3,500 refugees from Tibet arrive in Dharamsala in northern India, where exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama has his government-in-exile.
Almost half of them return to Tibet after receiving an audience with the Dalai Lama.
The sources said that from 1980 to November 2009, 87,096 refugees were processed by the Dharamsala reception centre for Tibetan refugees and 46,620 returned to Tibet after a short pilgrimage in India.
Most of those who stay on in India are children who take admission in schools run by Tibetan Children´s Villages since the Chinese government doesn´t allow them to receive education the Tibetan way in China-controlled Tibet.
It adds that the number of Tibetans entering India markedly decreased after March 2008 uprising with only about 650 refugees arriving at the reception centre from April 2008 to March 2009 as Nepali authorities stepped up crackdown against the agitating Tibetans and also maintained strict vigil in the northern border.
Maoist-Naxalite relationship only commercial, not ideological
The Government of India believed that “Kathmandu, including the (Tribhuvan International) airport, has become an operations hub for Pakistan´s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-supported terrorists”, according to a 2006 secret cable produced by the US Embassy in New Delhi.
The cable adds that the relationship between Nepal´s Maoists and India´s Naxalite groups is “commercial (as Naxals purchase some weapons), not ideological”.
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