Exiled Tibetans recall the indignities they fled

By Jonathan Allen

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - The dormitories of the Tibetan refugee reception centre in northern India may be drab, but for the recently arrived exiles staying here they offer luxuries unthinkable in their homeland.

They are free to stick up any number of smiling pictures of the Dalai Lama, while a child can run around the main dormitory waving the Tibetan flag as noisily as he wants -- both prohibited activities in Tibet.

And soon enough each of them will get an audience with the Dalai Lama himself.

"If you talk about life in Tibet in one sense it's really improved and you can live a luxurious life," said Tenzin Norbu, who says he sneaked across the Nepal border a month ago disguised as a Nepali laborer.

"But if you go deeper than that every Tibetan has more serious problems not being addressed. Generally Tibetans don't have any rights, any speaking rights," he said.

Almost all of the 2,500 to 3,000 Tibetans who escape from the country each year pass through the centre in Dharamsala, the home of the Tibetan government in exile in northern India.

Many staying here now left Tibet only a few weeks before the recent violent protests flared up.

Few here expected the riots that broke out shortly after the March 10 anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, but say they understand why they happened.