Session V- Plenary, Brie�ing Session by Hon. Parliamentarians
Andrius Navickas
I am from Lithuania.Yesterday you were told about the similarities between the Baltic states and Tibet. And I don’t want to repeat. But I want to say that the support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama was very important in the very beginning of independence 30 years ago. The support of His Holiness for Lithuania was very very important for us. But on the other hand the support for Tibet and Lithuania was very strong. As you know there are two things. One thing is to gain independence and another thing is to force independence. And when you are independent, you must �ight for freedom and of course we had ex-communists who returned to of�ice. The ex-communists are always closer to China, not to Tibet. But another problem is that we have populists and in the previous election in 2016, our populists gained of�ice. Our populists won. It is interesting that we are speaking much about values but in real politics they only speak about politics. The in�luence of China became very strong in Lithuania. The sign of it, for example, is that from the beginning in Lithuania we had Inter-Parliamentary Group on Tibet in our parliament. But for the �irst time it was banned. I had a lot of quarrels and disputes with the Speaker of the Parliament. After that I was able to form a solidarity group for Tibet but it was not Inter-Parliamentary group. For the �irst time we were banned to create such a group.But I hope the situation is changing.
Yesterday we had a debate of presidential candidates on national radio. We will have election on Sunday. We have nine candidates. It was interesting that they were asked: Would they prefer to meet the Dalai Lama if they were
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