Published by World Tibet Network News - Friday, December 1, 1995

For Immediate Release Contact: Tempa Tsering

Tel: (1892) 22457 - (1892) 24846

Fax: (1892) 24957

DHARAMSALA, 30 November - Despite the imposition of curfew, in the wake of China's announcement of a rival Panchen Lama yesterday, Tibetans in the three major cities of Lhasa, Shigatse and Chamdo staged sporadic demonstrations to protest this latest Chinese affront to the religious sentiments of the Tibetan people, according to reports filtering from Tibet.

The same reports say that wallposters on the street walls of Lhasa and Shigatse are appearing with increasing frequency, denouncing the Chinese imposition of a rival Panchen Lama on the Tibetan people.

The Chinese authorities have responded to Tibetan anger by the imposition of curfew in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and Shigaste, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lamas of Tibet, heightening military alertness, and employing the venom and harsh rhetoric, reminiscent of the chaotic days of the Cultural revolution.

Chadrel Rinpoche, who the Chinese have accused of colluding with the Dalai Lama to enable him to announce Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the next Panchen Lama, and who has been under detention since, has been branded a "reactionary" by the officials.

The reports coming from Tibet also say that in order to minimize the dangers of a full-fledged outburst of Tibetan anger, the Chinese authorities are planning a major purge of important Tibetan religious and political figures within the Chinese establishment, who the communist authorities suspect of harbouring Tibetan nationalist sentiments.

Yesterday China officially identified Gyaltsen Norbu, a six-year-old boy born in Nagchu, north of Lhasa, as China's Panchen Lama. In an ironic twist, both the parents of the boy are functionaries of the Nagchu district and members of the Chinese communist party, an organization into which one qualification for admission is a strong spirit of atheism.

Reports from Tibet say that the boy will be taken to Shigatse on 1 December. Official Chinese media portray the response of the Tibetan public to the event as "ecstatic," and report that Tibetans threw barley flour into the air, a traditional Tibetan manner of expressing joy and happiness.

The imposition of curfew in Tibet's two major cities belie the truth of Chinese reporting on the event.

The person who drew the lot yesterday morning in the final selection of China's Panchen Lama is Bumi Jampa Lodroe, head of the Tibet branch of the Chinese Buddhist Association. He and the 75 other cadres and religious figures who attended the Beijing meeting which forced China's shortlist of the name of three boys were sequestered by the authorities since their arrival from Beijing till yesterday.