Dalai Lama Wins Nobel Prize for Peace Efforts : ‘Deeply Touched,’ Tibetan Spiritual Leader Says on Receiving News in Newport Beach

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, was awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize today for decades of nonviolent efforts to free his country from Chinese rule.

The world’s leading Buddhist received the news early in the morning at the Big Canyon home of Clifford and Elaine Heinz in Newport Beach, where he is staying while attending a peace conference in Newport Beach.

“I am deeply touched to be chosen as this year’s recipient,” he said. “I hope this prize will provide courage to the 6 million people of Tibet.”

While he said he hopes his selection will strengthen those pursuing the cause of peace, he also accused China of trying to systematically crush the Tibetan people.

“Since the imposition of martial law in Lhasa last March, Tibet has been sealed off, and while global attention has focused on the tragic events in China, a systematic effort to crush the spirit and national identity of the Tibetan people is being pursued by the government of the People’s Republic,” he said. “Tibetans today are facing the real possibility of elimination as a people and a nation.”

In its citation, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee mentioned the Dalai Lama’s rejection of violence and his preachings of respect for all living things. It praised his “constructive and forward-looking proposals for the solution of international conflicts.”

Analysts said the intent of the award was to deliver a message of support to the pro-democracy movement in China. They also indicated the prize might help eventually break the deadlock between China, which has occupied the Himalayan nation known as the Roof of the World since 1950, and the Dalai Lama, a popular leader of an exile government in Dharmsala, India.

Today, the spiritual leader accused the Chinese Communist government of “practicing a form of genocide by relocating millions of Chinese settlers into Tibet.” He said that there are now more Chinese than Tibetans in Tibet. He asked that “this massive population transfer be stopped.”

Speaking at the Newport Marriott Hotel, the Dalai Lama said the students who demonstrated in Beijing earlier this year “have given me great hope for the future of China and Tibet. I feel that their movement follows the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi’s . . . nonviolence which has deeply inspired me ever since I was a small boy.”