The Federation of American Scientists on May 14, 1998
The spiritual head of the Tibetan community the Dalai Lama has on the other hand urged India not to be pressurised by developed nations to halt its nuclear programme. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize said in Madison, USA that with the tests, India has proved that it is no longer an underdeveloped nation and it should have the same access to nuclear weapons as developed countries. Although the Dalai Lama stressed that he continues to work for peace and nuclear disarmament, he said that developed nations should not tell third world countries what do with their weapons.
British journalist Christopher Hitchens’s article “His Material Highness” in Salon in July 1998
The Dalai Lama has come out in support of the thermonuclear tests recently conducted by the Indian state, and has done so in the very language of the chauvinist parties who now control that state’s affairs. The ‘developed’ countries, he says, must realize that India is a major contender and should not concern themselves with its internal affairs. This is a perfectly realpolitic statement, so crass and banal and opportunist that it would not deserve any comment if it came from another source.
[...] and longtime CIA client? Why does the Dalai Lama continue to pretend to be a devoted Buddhist while he and Saddam Hussein were the only two world leaders to congratulate India on its successful nuclear [...]