Monday, April 27, 1998 Published at 10:26 GMT 11:26 UK
World: S/W Asia
India halts Tibetan hunger strike

A Tibetan rights activist is treated for burns after setting fire to
himself in protest at police action

Tibetan activists have accused the Indian Government of seeking to appease
China by breaking up a hunger strike by Tibetan exiles in Delhi.

Police moved in to halt the protest on Monday. Officers forcibly
hospitalised the last three hunger strikers, who were on the 49th day of
their fast. One of their supporters set himself on fire in protest; he too
was taken to hospital.

The demonstrators were calling for United Nations action to help end
Chinese rule in Tibet.

The other three hunger strikers were removed from their tent and taken to
hospital by the authorities on Sunday.

The intervention came after government doctors diagnosed all the hunger
strikers as showing signs of chronic starvation.

The strikers had threatened to fast to their deaths. Since March 10 they
had existed on a diet of water flavoured with lemon juice.

Tibetans outraged

Suicide is illegal in India. But Tibetan activists said the police's action
had more to do with the arrival in the Indian capital of the chief of
China's People's Liberation Army, General Fu Quanyou on a state visit, on
Sunday.

The President of the Tibetan Youth Congress, Tseten Norbu, accused the
Indian authorities of interfering with the hunger strike to appease China.

India has tried in recent years to improve relations with China, with whom
it fought a border war in 1962. While it has offered a home in exile to
Tibet's spiritual chief, the Dalai Lama, it has discouraged him from
engaging in political activities while on Indian soil.

Plea to UN

The hunger strikers wanted the UN to send a special human-rights
investigator to Tibet. They also asked it to supervise a referendum for
determining whether Tibetans wanted independence, autonomy within China or
some other status, and to resume a debate on Tibet in the UN General
Assembly.

They addressed their demands to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who
replied that only member states could take up such questions.
 
 

Tibetan desperation could lead to violence
 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The growing desperation of the Tibetan people could lead
to violence, the Dalai Lama warned Thursday, urging China to enter into a
dialogue over the autonomy of his Himalayan homeland.

The Dalai Lama is the religious and spiritual leader for many of Tibet's
six million people. However, as a Buddhist said he could not support
actions such as recent hunger strikes and the self-immolation of a Tibetan
activist, who died Wednesday in New Delhi.

It was first act of its kind among the more than 100,000 Tibetans
campaigning from exile in India to regain freedom for the mountainous
country China invaded in 1950 and annexed nine years later.

Despite his opposition to such extremism, the Dalai Lama said he "admired
the determination" of the activist, Thupten Ngodup.

But he also feared that "if such determination and emotion is turned
around, there is a danger of true violence."

The Dalai Lama has long discouraged his followers from using violence to
resist Chinese rule and sees a "middle approach" of dialogue with Beijing
as the most beneficial way to reach an agreement.

He repeated his call Thursday for autonomy in Tibet rather than full
political independence, and expressed disappointment that such declarations
had brought no response from Beijing.

Saying that conditions in Tibet were "becoming worse and worse," the
religious leader added "in order to stop expressions of desperation, I have
to offer something (to frustrated Tibetans)."

At the same time, the 60-year-old leader said he supports the U.S. policy
of engagement with China, and was hopeful President Clinton's visit in June
could promote human rights there.

He even endorsed a decision by the United States and Europe to vote down a
motion condemning China at an annual session of the U.N. Human Rights
Commission last week.

"I believe the People's Republic of China is in the process of changing,
changing for the better," he said. "China, as a big nation, should not be
isolated."

After meeting Thursday with American human rights lawyers who have been
campaigning for civil and cultural liberties in Tibet, the Dalai Lama said
strong public condemnations of China's human rights record would make it
"more difficult" for the Chinese leadership to make concessions.

And though many younger Tibetan militants have expressed increasing
impatience with his moderate policies, the Dalai Lama gave no indication he
is about to change his long-held beliefs.

"Judging by the overall changing situation in China, I think eventually
some kind of understanding will come," he said. "So in the long run, I'm
optimistic ... I'm very, very hopeful, optimistic. I think within a few
years time, things will change."

The Dalai Lama will spend two weeks in the United States, visiting New
York, Boston and Atlanta, among other cities.