Political Quotes

“I recently returned from a journey to Tibet where I visited during the period of August 9-13 this summer, accompanied by a member of my staff and another Western man who was fluent in Tibetan and steeped in the culture. At no time while I was there did I tell the Tibetan and Chinese Government that I was a Member of Congress. I wanted to just kind of bring the body up to date on some of the things that we had an opportunity to see. At the outset, one of the first things I would show the Members is a picture of a monastery in ruins. The Chinese Government has ruined several thousand monasteries and is trying to eradicate the Buddhist faith. The second picture is a picture of an individual who was showing us a picture of the Dalai Lama. It is against the law to have a picture of the Dalai Lama and to show a picture of the Dalai Lama. The next picture is a picture of the Potala and then the marketplace. Around the marketplace, the Chinese are bulldozing a lot of the buildings and turning what was a Tibetan culture into a Chinese culture. This next picture is of a guard tower. If there is one growth industry in Tibet, it is prisons.”