Nepal is to deploy armed police along its northern border with Tibet, the country’s home minister has said, days after nearly 80 Tibetans were arrested in the capital Kathmandu.
The move is part of a plan to make Nepal’s border with neighboring China more secure, Bhim Rawal said in an interview published yesterday, but he denied the government was acting under pressure from Beijing.
“We plan to gradually deploy APF [Armed Police Force] in different points along the border. We have already deployed security forces along the Nepal-India border,” he told the Republica daily.
“It is very clear that to secure the border is in our national interests ... We have to put our utmost efforts to make our border secure and efficient,” the home minister said.
Nepal is home to around 20,000 exiled Tibetans who began arriving in large numbers in 1959 when the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising.
Some 2,500 Tibetans used to make the dangerous trip from Chinese-controlled Tibet to Nepal every year on their way to India to join the Dalai Lama, but activists say the number has fallen sharply since China mobilized its military in Tibet in March last year.
The government in Nepal has come under increasing pressure to suppress anti-China activity on its soil and activists say it has responded by adopting a harder line against the exiles.
On Thursday, police in Kathmandu arrested around 80 Tibetans as they tried to stage a protest outside a Chinese embassy building to mark the 60th anniversary of communist rule.
In related news, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday named a new coordinator for Tibet tasked with promoting dialogue between China and representatives of the Dalai Lama.
Clinton announced that Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero will also serve as special coordinator for Tibetan issues for President Barack Obama’s administration, the State Department said.
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