Phunwang asks Hu to allow return of HH

Former Tibetan Communist official asks Hu to allow return of the Dalai Lama

A Tibetan Communist who led Chinese advance troops into his homeland decades ago has written to President Hu Jintao of China and condemned hard-liners for continuing their opposition to the exiled Dalai Lama and for blocking his return.
Phuntso Wangye's three letters to Hu have never before been made public and signal a debate in China's senior political echelons on the possible return of the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising in the Himalayan region.

"They make a living, are promoted and become rich by opposing splittism," Phuntso, who spent 18 years in solitary confinement after being purged in the 1950s, wrote in 2004. Reuters obtained copies of the letters from two sources close to Phuntso.

The Dalai Lama has said he wants greater autonomy, not independence, for his predominantly Buddhist homeland. But Chinese and Tibetan leftists, or conservatives, are convinced otherwise and regularly denounce him for trying to split Tibet from the Chinese "motherland."

In a letter written in 2006, Phuntso singled out a retired lieutenant general, Yin Fatang, Tibet's former Communist Party boss, for sticking to "wrong" leftist policies — a rare revelation of the unfading influence of hard-liners.

An aide to Yin turned down an interview request.

"Secretary Yin knows about Phuntso's three letters and has written reports for central departments concerned, but it's inconvenient to make them public," the aide said.

During a meeting with a Reuters correspondent in his Beijing home recently, Phuntso said he sent the letters to Hu through the National People's Congress, of which he was a member.

"I said it all in my letters," the 84- year-old said, declining to comment further to observe party discipline, which bars members from speaking to foreign reporters without approval.

"If the Dalai Lama and the central government reconcile, these people will be in a state of trepidation, feel nervous and could lose their jobs," Phuntso's 2004 letter says.
Phuntso was one of five people who led Chinese advance troops into Tibet's capital, Lhasa, in 1951.

He was the interpreter in negotiations and witnessed the signing of a 17- point agreement on the "peaceful liberation" of his homeland.

When the Dalai Lama met Mao Zedong in Beijing in 1954, Phuntso was the interpreter.