/* Written 2:20 pm Jul 18, 1995

by tin@gn.apc.org in gn:tibet.informat */

Tibet Information Network / 7 Beck Rd London E8 4RE UK

ph: (+44-181) 533 5458 / fax: (+44-181) 985 4751

Tibet's second city has been sealed off from the outside world and foreign tourists expelled en masse, in what appears to have been a rushed attempt by the authorities to stop foreigners witnessing a threatened protest in the city, according to tourists arriving in Nepal.

Troops are reported to have been patrolling the streets after riot police interrupted a major religious ceremony at Tashilhunpo monastery in Shigatse, 260 km from Lhasa, on Wednesday 12th July, according to tourists. The foreigners say they heard that over two hundred monks were threatening to stage a demonstration against the Chinese Government's forceful intervention in the selection of the new Panchen Lama, the second most important religious figure in Tibet.

Monks at Tashilhunpo, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, were demanding that the child they have selected as the new Panchen Lama be allowed to live in his monastery, and that the authorities free the abbot of Tashilhunpo, who has been detained since May, according to unconfirmed reports. 30 monks are reported to have been arrested, according to unconfirmed reports from exile sources today

The new Panchen Lama, the eleventh in his line, is a six year old child who was identified in May by Tibet's exile leader, the Dalai Lama. The Chinese authorities have withheld recognition of the child, and are widely believed to be holding the boy and his family in Beijing.

The abbot of Tashilhunpo, Chadrel Rinpoche, together with his business manager, Gyara Tsering Samdrub, and his assistant Jampa, a 50 year old monk also known as Chung-lag or Jing- lag, were detained by the authorities two months ago, reportedly on suspicion of sending information about the child to the Dalai Lama in exile.

In a major campaign across Tibet and China, monks and lamas have been made by the authorities to give public statements denouncing the Dalai Lama's participation in the succession process, but the incident in Shigatse last week indicates resistance from the Panchen Lama's closest followers. The reports have special significance since Tashilhunpo monks are usually considered to have been broadly supportive of Chinese rule.

- Tourists "Manhandled Out of Monastery" -

Dissent among the Tashilhunpo monks reportedly emerged on Wednesday 12th July, shortly after top Tibetan regional government officials travelled to Shigatse to hold a high- level meeting with senior lamas there.

The day was to have seen the celebration of a major Buddhist festival, Dzamling Chisang or "Universal Offering Day", when monks were due to unravel a giant scroll painting at the monastery.

At about 9.30am some 30 tourists who had been allowed to wait inside the monastery compound for the ceremony to begin were evicted from the area by officials. "We were in the forecourt of the monastery waiting for the big painting to be unrolled when suddenly we were turned around and pushed out into the street again," said Mrs Lolo Houbein, who was on a group tour from Kathmandu.

"The people in front of me were taken by the arm and manhandled out of the door," said Mrs Houbein, a retired teacher from Southern Australia.

Three trucks with an estimated 70-90 policemen carrying riot gear arrived at the monastery just as the tourists were being evicted, according to tourists. The foreigners were escorted to their hotels and were later prevented by soldiers at roadside checkpoints from re-entering the centre of the town, where streets were cordoned off. "Tourists were told to go back to the hotel for their own safety," said Mrs Houbein, who is in her 60s.

Tibetans, including thousands who had come from the countryside to celebrate the three day festival, were stopped from performing the "korwa", the ritual of walking around the outside of the monastery, a ceremony which is considered particularly auspicious on Jamling Chisang. The circumambulation path winds through hills overlooking Tashilhunpo and provides a clear view into the walled courtyards of the monastery.

In the early hours of Thursday 13th July tourists in Shigatse were informed that they had to leave the city immediately. "We left early in the morning," said Mrs Houbein. "All the hotels were contacted and we saw other buses going south as well as individual travellers on the road hitching lifts out of the town. It was quite an exodus."

Mrs Houbein, whose group was the first to complete the 500 km journey from Shigatse to Nepal after the expulsion, says that her group were told unofficially that martial law had been imposed.

"When we were told to leave there was a mixture of relief and disgust," said Mrs Houbein of her fellow tourists. "Everybody realised that this was a situation which was part of the country's history, and that we just had to go."

"I will not go back again," she added.

Tibetan exiles in India tonight said that conditions in Shigatse had been growing tense since May, and that citizens had recently been warned not to discuss the succession dispute.

The intensifying crisis over the Panchen Lama comes as the Chinese authorities tighten security in preparation for the 30th anniversary of the naming of the area as the "Tibet Autonomous Region" in 1965. Hotels in Lhasa and flights to Tibet are already block-booked by the state to accommodate the hundreds of officials being flown into Tibet from China for the September celebrations, and few tourists are expected to gain entry to the region next month.

28,000 tourists visited the Tibet Autonomous Region last year, and officials have been planning to quadruple that figure by the end of this decade. But in the last six months almost all of the Tibet Autonomous Region, apart from Lhasa, Shigatse and their connecting roads, has been closed off to visitors except those in groups or with special permits.

Abrupt expulsions are virtually unheard of for group tourists. The incident last week is the first known expulsion of group tourists since March 1989, when martial law was declared in Lhasa following three days of unrest. It was lifted after 13 months.

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