MADRID — Spain's national court opened an investigation into the supposed genocide perpetrated by the Chinese government in Tibet. Thubten Wangchen, the director of the Tibet House Foundation in Barcelona, was questioned as a witness in the case. Wangchen simply confirmed accusations made by the complainant, the Support Tibet Committee (CAT), which accuses seven Chinese leaders of the death or disappearance of more than a million Tibetans since the beginning of the Chinese army occupation in 1951.
Judge Ismael Moreno will preside over trial of the case in the national court, which for purposes of the investigation has dispatched commissions to the United Kingdom and Canada to question other victims and witnesses.
After taking the stand, the Tibetan exile, a nationalized Spaniard presenting his own individual accusation, told reporters that this was "an historic day" because "for the first time" a Tibetan gets to tell a judge what happened in Tibet. In his testimony to the magistrate, he said that the object of the trial is not so much that the accused members of the Chinese government be handed over to Spain, but that "what happened in Tibet be discussed at an international level," so that "the Chinese government admits its errors and begins to respect human rights". |