Published by World Tibet Network News - Monday, December 04, 1995

NEW DELHI, Dec 3 (Reuter) - About 400 Tibetan monks and nuns in northern India went on a hunger strike on Sunday protesting against Beijing's choice for the second holiest figure in the Tibetan community, the Press Trust of India said.

The communist Chinese government on November 29 announced that six-year-old "soul boy" Gyaincain Norbu from Tibet had been identified as the reincarnation of the late Panchen Lama.

The Dalai Lama announced in May his recognition of six-year-old Gedhun Choeki Nyima as the boy who had received the spirit of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in January 1989.

Although Nyima emerged from a Beijing-sanctioned search by senior lamas and was expected to be approved by China, the Dalai Lama's unilateral move enraged China, which rejected his choice.

The Press Trust of India said protesters in Mcleodganj, near Dharamsala, where Tibet's god-king the Dalai Lama has been living in exile, carried placards saying "Tibet for Tibetans" and "U.N. save Tibet."

The Tibetan government-in-exile's minister of information and health, Tasshi Wangdi, was quoted as saying that the Chinese government could not impose a "false reincarnation of the Panchen Lama on Tibetans."

About 100 Tibetans protested in the Indian capital on Saturday against Beijing's choice.

The Buddhist spritual leader has been living in exile in India's Himalayan town of Dharamsala since 1959 along with thousands of his followers after an abortive uprising against the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1950.