FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 1998
Contact: John Ackerly or Mary Beth Markey
(202) 785-1515
U.S. Finds No Easing of Repression in Tibet
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of State issued an expanded, detailed and tough report on human rights violations in Tibet today as part of its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The 1997 report accuses the Chinese Government of "serious human rights abuses in Tibet" and of imposing "intensified" controls on fundamental freedoms. There was no indication of any significant improvements in 1997.
"This year's report is the strongest and most detailed ever issued by the Department of State. However, the Clinton Administration will belittle and undermine its own report if it fails to take a strong stance in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Commission," said John Ackerly, President of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). The International Campaign for Tibet calls on the Clinton Administration to integrate the findings of this report in bi-lateral relations with China to more aggressively promote improved human rights and negotiations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
This year's report highlighted the following new human rights trends in Tibet:
* China is now campaigning to discredit the Dalai Lama not just as a political leader, but also as a religious leader.
* On the Panchen Lama controversy, the report said that "resistance to the [Government's] campaigns was intense, and the Government's efforts were deeply resented both by monks and by lay Buddhists."
* The use of the Tibetan language in schools has been further downgraded. The government has abandoned Tibetan as the primary language in grammar schools and closed down Tibetan language middle schools. Tibet University, originally established to train Tibetan teachers, is increasingly Chinese in make-up.
* The report confirmed that China still refuses to say where they are detaining Ngawang Choephel, a Middlebury graduate and former Fulbright scholar sentenced to 18 years in prison for videotaping traditional song and dance.
* "Foreigners, including international NGO personnel, experienced increased restriction on access to Tibet" in 1997, as the Chinese government enacted strict controls on access and information.
* This year's report also includes an increase in the estimation of Chinese living in Lhasa from one-third to one-half of the population and "a substantial increase in the non-Tibetan population" in other urban areas.
The International Campaign for Tibet takes strong exception to a number of statements contained in the report, including that Tibet's "monasteries continue to house and train young monks, making possible the transmission of Tibetan Buddhist traditions to future generations." Virtually all observers agree that the inter-generation transmission of Buddhism has been severely damaged due in part to the mass imprisonment, killing and exodus of Buddhist teachers. Moreover, the report still overly infers that religious activity is permitted as long as it is not connected to political or "splittist" activity.
In the section about the foreign delegations that visited Tibet last year, the Department notably did not mention Representative Frank Wolf's trip or the material contained in his report. Two reports were mention - Physicians for Human Rights and International Commission for Jurists. A major report by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization on colonialism in Tibet was not mentioned.
The State Department report covers human rights conditions of less than half of the Tibetans living under Chinese rule today because it only covers Tibetans living in the "Tibetan Autonomous Region." Most of traditional Tibet is now carved up into Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties under Chinese provinces, principally Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu. Trends and abuses in those areas now fall between the cracks under the Department's reporting procedures.
The separate Tibet section of the State Department report was mandated by Congress in 1994 as a reflection of its own determination that "Tibet is an occupied sovereign country under international law and that its true representatives are the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government in exile."
