Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, March 11, 1996

By LUKE HILL

BRUSSELS, March 10 (UPI) -- More than 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the Chinese Embassy in Brussels Sunday in a call for Tibetan independence and an end to human rights violations by the Chinese, who have occupied the Himalayan country since 1950.

The demonstrators, marking the 37th anniversary of the unsuccessful Tibetan uprising on March 10, 1959, heard speakers say atrocities committed by Chinese authorities in Tibet were on the rise, in parallel with increased pressure by Beijing on Hong Kong and Taiwan.

"We are calling on China to stop violating human rights, to stop the oppression, the environmental degradation and economic exploitation of Tibet," said Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, leader of the Tibetan parliament in exile.

After trying unsuccessfully to deliver a letter to the Chinese Embassy, where officials watched the crowd through windows behind well-manned Belgian police barricades, the demonstrators marched through Brussels to the European Parliament.

There they were addressed by several European MPs as well as by Emma Bonino, the European commissioner for humanitarian affairs, who spoke in an unofficial capacity, thanking the participants for their show of solidarity.

Organizers of the demonstration, which drew participants from France, Italy, Germany and Hungary, called on Western governments and those "who care about human rights and human dignity" to put pressure on China to negotiate with the dalai lama, spiritual leader of Tibet.

In an interview, Samdhong said it was unfortunate the Europeans did not raise human rights issues during the recent EU-Asia summit in Bangkok designed to increase political and economic relations between the two continents.

"Apparently human rights have become negotiable but trade is not negotiable," he said.

He noted with dismay the acceleration in the past several years of increased Chinese industrialization and "sinosation" of Tibet, bringing in Chinese immigrants and reducing the proportion of native Tibetans.

"This will turn the Tibetans into a powerless minority and make them strangers in their own land," he said.

The demonstrators denounced the house arrest of the 6-year-old pachen lama, the second most important religious figure in Tibet who was hand-picked by the dalai lama, according to Tibetan custom.

Last November, seven months after the choice was made, Chinese authorities installed their own 6-year-old candidate for the pachen lama position and subsequently placed the dalai lama's choice, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, under house arrest along with his parents and 50 monks and laymen in his entourage.

"They have taken this 6-year-old boy and made him the youngest political prisoner in the world," Samdhong said.

The professor said Tibetan culture is being eliminated by the Chinese out of their communist belief in military supremacy of Asia.

"China still thinks it must be in charge of liberating the world," he said, and that control of Tibet gives China an edge for supremacy in Asia over its major competitor, India.

In a message read to the gathering from the dalai lama, the spiritual leader warned of a "hardening policy from China and increased militancy toward Hong Kong and Taiwan."

"China has once again showed total disregard for the sentiments of the Tibetan people," he said.

Noting that official Chinese media have likened conditions in Tibet to the Polish Solidarity movement in the early 1980's, the dalai lama said this has raised fears among authorities.

However, he repeated his oft-prescribed path of non-violence and said the current dark days are merely a sign that democratic sentiment is alive and growing in China.

"The Taiwan election will have a tremendous transforming effect on the mainland," he predicted.