from: TIN News Update / 28 January, 1996 full/ ISSN 1355-3313

Earlier today a Hong Kong based newspaper, the Sunday Morning Post, reported that a bomb had been detonated in Lhasa in an attack on a prominent Tibetan supporter of the Chinese position on the Panchen Lama issue. The incident is unconfirmed, but is the first indication of a dangerous escalation in political violence from attacks on property - which themselves are alleged to have killed two people - to attacks on people.

The newspaper said the bomb exploded at 10pm on 18th January at the house of Sengchen Lobsang Gyaltsen, a lama and political dignitary who led the pro- Chinese faction in the recent dispute over the Panchen Lama. Sengchen, who in July was made titular head of the Panchen Lama's monastery at Tashilhunpo, was away in Beijing at the time of the explosion, but one unnamed person was seriously injured, according to the Post article.

The reported attempt to kill Sengchen Rimpoche comes after up to five attempts at sabotage last year, all of which were directed not at people but at Chinese installations in Lhasa in the run-up to the celebrations on 1st September last year of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region. There is no evidence so far as to who carried out the alleged attacks, and none of the incidents have been confirmed, nor have they been reported by the official media.

Three of the attempts were made in June and July on an obscure Chinese monument in the western suburbs of Lhasa dedicated to road builders. The first attempt was on 25th June, according to the US-based organisation International Campaign for Tibet, and failed to detonate. The two other bombs exploded on or around 2nd and 18th July, but caused only slight damage to the obelisk. "The only damage we could see was two tiles on the ground, and what might have been a scorch mark on one side of the monument", said a German tourist who was detained for a day on 3rd July for trying to take photographs of the monument, which includes an inscribed message from the former Chinese leader Hu Yaobang. Some Tibetan sources say a person was killed in the third attempt.

A well known Tibetan activist, Lobsang Choedrag, who has already served three prison sentences for political activities, was arrested on 5th or 7th July, reportedly on suspicion of involvement in the earlier explosion.

Two separate sabotage attempts in August involved more strategic objectives, one at the West Lhasa Suburban Power Station and another at a fuel dump, also on the western outskirts of Lhasa. The bomb in the fuel dump detonated, according to well-placed sources, and local sources say that it killed a Chinese driver who worked there.

The incidents follow warnings by the authorities in the official press over the previous six months of sabotage attempts by "forces working for national separatism ... with the support of some Western countries" during the 30th anniversary celebrations. The last reported sabotage attempts in Tibet were when three bombs were set off during the 2Oth Anniversary celebrations in 1985, although none detonated effectively.

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