The New York Times

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Dalai Lama Says Plight of Tibetans Desperate

By Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, Tuesday described the plight of his people in the restive Himalayan region of China as desperate.

Local authorities appeared to want to eliminate the religion and cultural heritage of the inhabitants of the deeply Buddhist Himalayan mountain plateau, which has been racked by repeated anti-Chinese demonstrations in recent years, he said.

``If we look at the situation locally in Tibet, there is hopelessness and a feeling that things are getting worse,'' he said on the fifth day of a week-long visit to Japan.

``It's very desperate,'' he said.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader, blamed the narrow-mindedness of local officials.

``These people (officials) truly feel that the Tibetan religion is destructive and they are trying to eliminate it,'' he said.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet for India after an abortive and bloody uprising against Chinese rule in 1959 and several violent demonstrations have erupted in the region since 1987, almost all of them led by lamas from Tibet's once powerful monasteries.

But he was careful to avoid criticizing the central government, saying leaders in Beijing should send impartial fact-finding missions to Tibet to find out the real situation.

The reports they received currently from local authorities were distorted, he said.

He cited the visit in 1980 of the late Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, who traveled to Lhasa to apologize for ''letting the Tibetan people down.''

China insists Tibet enjoys religious freedom but has launched a series of crackdowns in the restive region, sending work teams into monasteries, limiting the number of lamas and arresting and jailing hundreds of monks and nuns opposed to Chinese rule.

The Dalai Lama, visiting Japan at the invitation of a Buddhist university, reiterated his long-held position that he seeks only autonomy for Tibet, and not independence, and stressed that he was not opposed to China.

``My appeal is for a mutually agreeable solution. I do not consider myself anti-China. I am helping the two goals the Chinese government is seeking -- stability and unity,'' he said.

He said it would be wrong for the international community to isolate China, adding that rather it should call on Beijing to adhere to basic principles such as human rights and religious freedom within a framework of dialogue.

He did not refer to a session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights later in the day in Geneva at which the U.S. is hoping the 53-member forum would endorse its resolution denouncing China for allegedly stepping up political and religious repression in the past year.

He also tried to play down any controversy over his trip to Japan, stressing that when he traveled abroad from his home in exile in India he did not want to be a source of embarrassment.

A planned meeting with Tokyo's maverick governor, Shintaro Ishihara, was cancelled -- apparently following pressure from the Japanese government and after protests from China, which lashed out at Japan for even allowing the visit.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of advocating independence for Tibet and regularly protests at international visits by the living Buddha, feeling these could lend credibility to his cause.

``The Japanese government may have been a little over-cautious,'' the Dalai Lama said, when asked about the cancellation of the meeting with Ishihara.