Monring Star - 29 September 1995

IN his attempt to act as an apologist for the Chi nese government, Jack Shapiro makes four sig nificant errors in his letter (M Star September 14).

First, he implies that China has a legitimate territorial claim to Tibet. Second, he suggests that Chinese human rights violations against Tibetans are relatively insignificant.

Thirdly, he says that Tibetan exiles are largely complaining US citizens. And lastly, he tells us that conditions in Tibet are better than they ever have been.

What are the facts?

First, before China invaded in 1949 Tibet was an independent country. From 1949-59, Tibetan representatives un-successfully attempted to negotiate with China. The consequent popular uprising in 1959 was brutally crushed by the Chinese military with 87,000 Tibetans killed.

The Chinese have been seen as an unpopular occupying force ever since. In May 1994, peaceful demonstrations in Lhasa were violent ly broken up and another period of martial law began.

Second, back in 1961, the UN passed a resolution condemning China for depriving the Tibetan people of fundamental human rights.Today, according to Amnesty International, hundreds of Tibetans are detained without trial and torture is routine. Recently a 24-year-old nun, Gyaltsen Kelsang, who was imprisoned two years ago for her part in a pro-independence demonstration, was so badly beaten in prison that she suffered partial paralysis and kidney failure. She died later from her injuries. She was the 10th political prisoner to die since 1987.

Thirdly, after the 1959 uprising, 80,000 Tibe tans fled to exile in India, Nepal and other parts of Asia. Since then, thousands more refugees have escaped. Only a tiny minority of them are living in the US or anywhere in the West. Indeed, as more refugees continue to arrive in India, there is a great need for better funded education, health and welfare programmes. Fourthly, since the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the region's environmental problems have become acute. In particular, deforestation has caused an ecological crisis unprecedented in Tibet.

The country's traditional culture and centres of learning have also suffered.

Over 6,000 monasteries have been destroyed and severe restrictions have been placed on the teaching of young Tibetans about their own his-ory and culture.

Today's Tibet is not the place of Jack Shapiro's hopes.