Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, May 22 1996 Part II of II

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

Associated Press Writer

ROME (AP) -- The Dalai Lama said Monday that the latest Chinese crackdown in Tibet, which includes a ban on his photograph -- is bound to fail and urged China to negotiate with him.

China and "the local authorities are carrying out another sort of experiment," said Tibet's spiritual leader, who fled his homeland in 1959 after a failed uprising against the Chinese Communists.

They are trying "to control the Tibetan spirit. I'm quite certain they won't succeed. This hard-liner approach is not helpful," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Earlier in the day he prayed and talked with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

On Sunday, a London-based Tibet-monitoring group, the Tibet Information Network, reported that as many as 80 Tibetans, including Buddhist monks and nuns, were injured by Chinese security forces in a clash last week. It was the second violent confrontation reported over the ban on displaying photos of the Dalai Lama.

In the days before that clash, monks at a monastery east of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, threw stones at an official ordering the removal of photographs, and police shot three monks, according to the monitoring group.

The group said Monday that the photograph ban had been stepped up. It said high school students were told by authorities that even the possession of Dalai Lama photographs is banned.

Independence sentiment among Tibetan Buddhist clergy and fervently religious Tibetans has survived the 46 harsh years of Chinese rule. In 1989, Beijing imposed martial law to stop rioting against Chinese rule. Few Western reporters have been allowed into Tibet since.

The Dalai Lama, interviewed at a Benedictine monastery atop the Aventine, one of Rome's seven hills, said he was convinced the Chinese will realize such crackdowns don't pay.

"Sooner or later, they will have to find a more constructive path," he said. "Basically I'm optimistic. I'm ready to negotiate anywhere, any time, without precondition."

The last time some diplomatic contact was made, he said, was in August 1993, via the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi, India.

Last year, Chinese authorities sharpened their campaign to discredit the Dalai Lama after they and the spiritual leader picked rival 6-year-olds as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, one of Tibet's most important religious figures.

The Dalai Lama's choice was placed under house arrest -- just where is unclear.