PETA Altered Dalai Lama's Appeal on Behalf of Chickens

NEW DELHI, India, June 29, 2004 (ENS) - The Dalai Lama's office in New Delhi says that an animal advocacy group altered an appeal by the Tibetan leader that the fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken not open any restaurants in Tibet.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) released a document on Thursday from the Dalai Lama asking that the Kentucky based restaurant chain "abandon its plan to open restaurants in Tibet, because your corporation’s support for cruelty and mass slaughter violate Tibetan value."

The document as released by PETA is a letter dated June 22 and addressed directly to "Mr. Novak" a reference to David Novak, the chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But Tashi Wangdi, the Dalai Lama's representative in New Delhi, said the letter was in fact a generalized appeal about Kentucky Fried Chicken issued in May, not a June 22 letter addressed to Novak.

However, the text of PETA's letter was the same as the Dalai Lama's appeal, he said.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (Photo courtesy TCC)

Wangdi said "we regret" that the Dalai Lama's appeal was altered without his approval.

PETA had no comment on the alteration. The organization has been campaigning for years to change the slaughterhouse practices of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Still, the appeal stands in substance, including the Dalai Lama's comment that he became a vegetarian as a result of seeing the slaughter of a chicken in 1965 when he was staying at a Government Guest House in south India.

"I have been particularly concerned with the sufferings of chickens for many years," he wrote. "These days, when I see a row of plucked chickens hanging in a meat shop it hurts."

Kentucky Fried Chicken has given up preliminary plans to open fast-food outlets in Tibet. At the company's headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky Friday, vice president Jonathan Blum said the company had considered opening restaurants in Tibet earlier this year, but decided it would be too expensive.

He said the company had received no letter from the Dalai Lama.

In China, the company opened its 1,000th restaurant this year, and KFC has been rated the number one brand in the country.

But in Tibet, while most people eat meat, as the Dalai Lama said in his appeal, "buying animals from the butcher, thereby saving their lives, and setting them free was a common practice. Many Tibetans, even in exile, continue this practice where practically possible."