Nueva Delhi-the older brother of Dalai Lama and former president of the Tibetan government in exile in India, Gyalo Thondup, who led several rounds of conversations with China and worked with foreign governments for the Tibetan cause, has died. He was 97 years old.
Thondup died at his home in Kalimpong, a city of the hill in the spring of the state of the East of Western Bengal, on Saturday night, according to the media reports. No other detail was immediately given about his death.
The Tibetan media accredited Thondup for establishing contacts with foreign governments and praised their role in facilitating the support of the United States to the Tibetan struggle.
The Dalai Lama directed a session of prayer for Thondup in a monastery in the city of Bylakuppe in the southern state of Karnataka of India on Sunday, where the spiritual leader currently remains during the winter months.
He prayed for the “rapid rebirth” of Thondup, according to the Buddhist traditions, and said that “his efforts towards the Tibetan struggle were immense and we are grateful for his contribution.”
Thondup, one of the six brothers of the Tibetan spiritual leader and the only brother not prepared for a religious life, made India his home in 1952 and helped develop early contacts with Indian and American governments to seek support for Tibet. In 1957, Thondup helped recruit Tibetan fighters that were sent to the United States training fields in the following years, said a Free Asia radio report financed by the United States.
According to RFA, Thondup was mainly responsible for contacting the Indian government, even with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, when Dalai Lama escaped India in 1959. He also played a key role in establishing the relations of the leaders Tibetans with US officials.
Thondup began discussions between Tibetans and Chinese leaders in 1979, in a deviation from their previous approach, which sought an armed struggle against Chinese Tibet control. The meeting placed a base for a series of formal negotiations between the official envoys of Dalai Lama and the Chinese leadership that continued until they stopped in 2010.
In an interview with the RFA transmission in 2003, Thondup said that neither India nor the United States could solve the Tibetan problem, and that progress could only come through face -to -face conversations with Beijing.
Thondup served as president of the Tibetan government in exile based in the city of DharamShala on the northern slope of India from 1991 to 1993.
