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Dalai Lama visits border monastery

TAWANG, India (UPI) -- Thousands of people Sunday greeted the Dalai Lama as he ignored China's warning not to visit the border town of Tawang, India, officials said.

An estimated 11,000 well-wishers witnessed the 74-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader bless a new museum and library at the 400-year-old Tawang monastery.

The Dalai Lama told reporters he was not surprised by China's opposition to his trip to Tawang in northwestern Arunachal Pradesh.

"It is quite usual for China to step up campaigning against me wherever

I go," the Dalai Lama said during a news conference at the monastery, believed to be the world's biggest Buddhist monastery outside of Lhasa, Tibet, the Press Trust of India reported.

The Dalai Lama recalled staying at the monastery in 1959 when, as a teenager, he fled across the Himalayas after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.

China claims Tawang and briefly occupied it during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 11/08/2009

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