Chinese Repression Forced Boy Monk To Flee

DHARAMSALA, Jan 10, 2000 -- (Reuters) Religious repression and human rights violations by the Chinese forced Tibet's third-ranking lama to flee Lhasa, the Tibetan government in exile said late on Sunday.

"...the harsh conditions on religion, arrests of monks and nuns, serious violations of human rights and the indifferent attitude of Chinese vis a vis the Karmapa Rimpoche for the last few years... it is with that background he had to flee," Tashi Wangdi, minister for religion and culture in the Tibetan exile government told Reuters in an interview.

He said the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama was concerned by the erosion of Tibetan culture in Lhasa.

He said: "He is a very strong Tibetan nationalist and wanted to work for the cultural and religious development of the people there but was very much concerned with repression on religious activities and also very much worried about deliberate dilution of Tibetan culture by the authorities in Tibet".

It was the first official statement by the Tibetan government in exile on what forced the boy monk to flee to India.

"REVIVAL OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION"

The 17th Karmapa Lama is the highest Tibetan lama whose authority is recognised by both Beijing and by the Nobel Prize-winning Dalai Lama, who lives in exile at Dharamsala.

Karmapa Lama, his sister and two lamas trekked 1,400 km (875 miles) through the snowbound Himalayas to reach Dharamsala in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh on January 5.

Chinese official reports insisted the lama's departure did not mean he had betrayed Beijing. They said he had travelled to India to collect holy relics - musical instruments and black hats - used by a previous incarnation of the Karmapa Lama.

Wangdi said the escape of the lama, born Ugyen Trinley Dorje, was prompted by the "revival of cultural revolution" by Chinese authorities in Tibet.

In 1950, China's Communist army, fresh from victory in the Chinese civil war, entered Tibet and overthrew its Buddhist theocracy. Nine years later, a large-scale uprising exploded and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, fled to India with thousands of followers.

The Indian government, meanwhile, refused to comment on whether the Karmapa Lama had asked for political asylum. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh did not answer questions by reporters late on Sunday in New Delhi on whether the government has received an asylum request from the Tibetans.

The government said on Saturday it was looking into the circumstances and consequences of the lama's arrival.

Tibetans in Dharamsala, overjoyed at the Karmapa Lama's arrival, said they wanted the Indian government to officially accept the monk's arrival.

"I would like to plead with the Indian government to grant asylum to Karmapa Lama," said Tenzing, a 25-year-old Tibetan.

John McLeod, an American Buddhist in Dharamsala for the last seven months with his family said: "He (the lama) is a jewel and people have to protect this jewel".