Time is running out, Dalai Lama tells Clinton (AFP)

by Stephen Collinson

WASHINGTON, June 20 (AFP) - Time is running out for Tibet, the Dalai

Lama told President Bill Clinton on Tuesday, as he delivered a plea for

autonomy and claimed that China's presence there was destroying the

region's unique Buddhist culture.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, held an informal meeting with

Clinton after meeting lawmakers in Washington, a source of solid support

as he tries to convince the government in Beijing to talk to him on the

future of a region it occupied in 1950.

"Of course, I'm very happy to be here once more meeting with the

president. I consider (him) as one of my old friends," he told

reporters.

"I mentioned the present situation inside Tibet is very, very critical.

If we look (at the) Tibet problem locally, then time is running out,"

he said, adding that China's action there was damaging the environment

and Tibet's "unique cultural heritage."

President Bill Clinton "declared his strong support for the Dalai

Lama's steadfast efforts to initiate a dialogue with the Chinese

government," the White House said in a statement issued after the

meeting.

Clinton expressed hope that the Chinese government would respond

favorably, and reiterated US commitment to the preservation of Tibet's

"unique religious, cultural and linguistic heritage," it said.

The two leaders also agreed on the importance of "strong and

constructive US-China relations," according to the statement.

The Dalai Lama, who is spending several weeks in the United States,

reiterated that he wanted autonomy from China -- not a separate country.

"I'm not seeking independence. I'm seeking genuine autonomy,

irrespective (of) past history. I'm always looking forward."

The United States accused China in its 1999 human rights report of

maintaining tight controls on religion and other fundamental freedoms,

as well as carrying out arbitrary arrests and torture, in Tibet.

China was also guilty of carrying out a re-education campaign designed

to expel supporters of the Dalai Lama from monasteries, the report

said.

Beijing regards Tibet as its internal business and tells visiting

members of the US government that the time is not yet right to discuss

its future, officials say here.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's visit to Beijing this week is

expected to include an attempt by the US to bring up the Tibet issue.

After meeting members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier

Tuesday, the Dalai Lama said there had been "no change" in the Chinese

government's unwillingness to meet him.

"As soon as an indication comes from the Chinese, I am ready," he said,

and spelled out his insistence that only non-violent struggle against

China was acceptable.

The Dalai Lama's visit to the United States comes a week after the

State Department's special coordinator on Tibet, Julia Taft, complained

that Chinese officials had refused to address the Dalai Lama's repeated

calls for dialogue.

Taft described the situation in Tibet, which China invaded in 1950, as

inconsistent with "international standards of respect for fundamental

human rights."

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an aborted coup in 1959 and currently

heads an exiled government in the northern India hill town of

Dharamsala.

Earlier this month, China launched a vitriolic attack on the Dalai

Lama, accusing him and his followers of rape, murder and child

cannibalism.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted the Tibet Daily as saying that

the Dalai Lama, when he was still in Tibet, had presided over a system

that was "the most gloomy, cruel, and uncultured in the history of

mankind."