Dalai Lama "exhausted", cancels foreign trips: aide

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, is exhausted and has cancelled two foreign trips to rest and undergo medical tests, his aide said on Wednesday.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner returned to Dharamsala, the north Indian town where he lives, on Sunday after a two-week visit to France mainly to give lectures on Buddhism, but during which he also criticized Chinese policies in Tibet.

He was scheduled to travel soon to Mexico and the Dominican Republic, but doctors advised him to rest and have a thorough check-up, the aide said.

The 73-year-old spiritual leader will leave shortly for India's financial centre, Mumbai, to undergo "routine medical tests" in a hospital, Chhime Chhoekyapa, the aide, told Reuters by telephone from Dharamsala.

"The doctors have assured us that there was no need for any concern, all he needs is good rest and check-ups," he said. "He is not feeling very well and it is mainly due to fatigue."

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been experiencing some discomfort in the past couple of days," a separate statement from the Dalai Lama's office said.

In France, the Dalai Lama criticized some aspects of Chinese rule over Tibet, which he fled in 1959 after an abortive uprising.

He told Le Monde in an interview that Chinese troops had fired on protesters in eastern Tibet on August 18, and that since protests against Chinese rule broke out in March, 400 people had been killed in the Lhasa area alone.

China's crackdown on protests in Tibet in March drew widespread criticism in the international community.

China accused the Dalai Lama and his allies of orchestrating the trouble, and of trying to derail the Beijing Olympic Games, but he denied the allegations, saying that he supported the Olympics and that the Chinese people deserved to host them.

The Dalai Lama spends several months of the year away from Dharamsala, delivering religious lectures and speaking about what he calls the suffering of Tibetan people under Chinese rule.

President Nicolas Sarkozy declined to meet him during his visit to France, but the president's wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner attended his inauguration of a Buddhist temple.

Secret talks between Chinese officials and the Dalai Lama's envoys have been unproductive, the envoys saying China lacked a serious commitment to easing tension in Tibet.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)