Chinese Regime Pays Nepali Forces to Capture Tibetans: WikiLeaks

The Chinese regime could be paying Nepali border forces to capture and hand over Tibetan refugees to Chinese authorities, according to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable.

Posted on the WikiLeaks website, the cable was sent by an unnamed officer at the American Embassy in New Delhi on February 22nd.

The officer quotes unnamed sources saying in a typical year, 2500 to 3500 Tibetans arrive in the Indian city of Dharamsala for an audience with the Dalai Lama, and about half of them promptly return to Tibet.

But in the year after the March 2008 uprising in Tibet, the number of Tibetan refugees arriving at the Dharamsala Reception Center decreased to 650.

The sources speculate the Chinese regime had asked Nepali authorities to step up their border forces and was rewarding them by (quote) "providing financial incentives to officers who hand over Tibetans attempting to exit China."

Dozens of Tibetan refugees attempt to cross the border every year. According to the cable, from 1980 to November 2009 the Dharamsala Reception Center processed more than 87-thousand refugees and about 46-thousand returned to Tibet after a short pilgrimage.