Published by: World Tibet Network News, Sunday, Jun 2, 1996

BEIJING, June 1 (Reuter) - A new birth control campaign to reduce the size of families has been launched in Tibet with the aim of lowering the region's natural population growth rate to 1.6 percent by the year 2000, the Tibet Daily said.

The paper's May 24 edition, seen in Beijing on Saturday, said the campaign needed to be instituted in spite of opposition from independentism. "Whatever is of benefit to the people is opposed by the splittists, and birth control policies are no exception. We must recognise and deal with this question from an elevated political position," it added.

Tibet's natural population growth rate fell from 1.84 percent in 1990 to 1.61 percent last year, the paper added.

China has ruled Tibet since the People's Liberation Army marched into the region in 1950.