Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, June 17, 1996

Source: ddpADN news agency, Berlin, in German 1201 gmt 14 Jun 96

A member of the Tibetan government-in-exile, Kalon Tashi Wangdi, has strongly criticized the Chinese government's policy towards his country. The Chinese authorities were obviously determined "to wipe out all signs of cultural and ethnic identity" , he said in Bonn today [14th June] ahead of the Tibet conference organized by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which has close ties with the [liberal] FDP. He compared Beijing's policy in Tibet to the "horror of the Cultural Revolution" . He said the aim of the policy of forced Chinese settlement was to make Tibetans a minority in their own country.

The Foundation's chairman, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, said the aim of the Tibet conference, which starts in Bonn this evening [14th June], is to develop a joint strategy for preserving Tibetan culture, language and religion as well as reinstating the Tibetan people's right to self- determination. The four-day conference will be attended by 275 delegates from 60 countries, including representatives of the Chinese democracy movement.

In response to the conference, the Chinese government has stopped the Foundation from any further activity in China and closed its office in Beijing.