Submissions to: wtn-l@vm1.mcgill.ca
or fax to: +44-71-722-0362 (U.K.)
Subscriptions to: listserv@vm1.mcgill.ca
- to join, message should be: SUB WTN-L
[your name]
- to cancel, message should be: SIGNOFF
WTN-L
------------------------------------------------------------
Issue ID: 95/02/18 19:00 GMT
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
1. Nepal to Block Tibetan's March to Lhasa
------------------------------------------------------------
The Nepal Digest Friday 17 Feb 95: Falgun 5 2051 BkSm Volume 36 Issue 12, February 11
AFP report
The Nepalese government is ready to check a planned
protest march to Lhasa by Tibetan refugees living in
India, Home Ministry spokesman Sri Kant Regmi said
Saturday.
His statement followed Nepalese press reports that the
Tibetans planned to organize the march through Nepal as
part of a protest programme on March 1O, the anniversary
of the 1959 insurrection against Chinese rule.
Kathmandu regards Tibet as a part of China and would not
allow Nepalese soil to be used against any other country,
Regmi said.
"The Nepalese government is alert to check any activity
that goes against this policy," he said.
Prime Minister Mana Mohan Adhikari earlier denied that
western countries were applying "political pressure" on
his government on the Tibetan issue.
"Even (if) such pressure comes, we will not succumb to
it," Adhikari told AFP. "Our policy does not allow any
move like the liberation of Tibet. We will not allow such
things on the Nepalese soil against China because we
think Tibet is an autonomous region of China."
The ruling Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist and
Leninist has sought to improve ties with Beijing which
are seen to have soured when the previous Nepali Congress
government allowed anti-China demonstrations by Tibetan
refugees. More than 20,000 Tibetan refugees live in Nepal and have
emerged as a resourceful community controlling the
country's carpet industry, which earns more than 200
million dollars through exports.
The Tibetans have also branched into low-budget hotels,
lodges and restaurants, all of them proudly displaying
photographs of their revered leader, the Dalai Lama, who
fled Tibet in March 1959.
The Nepalese government has said the Tibetans were free
to do business in Nepal but has warned them against
staging anti-China activities.
