Dalai Lama recovering after op

2008-10-10 14:15

New Delhi - The Dalai Lama was recovering in a New Delhi hospital on Friday after successful surgery to remove gallstones, aides said, adding that the Tibetan spiritual leader should be discharged within days.

"Everything went without a hitch," the Dalai Lama's spokesperson Tenzin Taklha told AFP, describing the procedure as swift and simple and saying that the Buddhist leader would resume his busy schedule by the end of the month.

The 73-year-old spiritual leader had "multiple" stones removed in a keyhole procedure, or laparoscopy, using a thin, lighted tube with a miniature video camera to enable doctors to see the location of the organs and any stones.

The Dalai Lama was hospitalised on Thursday for medical tests after a bout of abdominal pain. A similar episode in August had forced him to cancel his engagements and rush to a hospital in Mumbai.

Although he was released from hospital on September 1 after four days of tests, his office last month also cancelled a planned tour to Germany and Switzerland in October due to health reasons.

The spiritual leader was expected to be discharged from hospital within one to two days, Taklha said.

"His normal schedule will resume at the end of the month - travelling and meeting people and all those types of things," he added.

In the weeks preceding his illness, the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had pursued a hectic international itinerary as he campaigned for improved human rights in Tibet while China hosted the Olympic Games.

The charismatic Buddhist fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule and has since lived in the northern Indian hilltop town of Dharamshala, where the Tibetan exile government is based.

Violent anti-China protests broke out across Tibet in March, sparking a heavy Chinese crackdown that drew global condemnation.

The Dalai Lama champions a "middle path" policy which espouses "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet, rather than the full independence that many younger, more radical activists are demanding.

Still, China vilified him as the "mastermind" of what it called a drive to sabotage the Olympics and destabilize the country.

- AFP