By SETH FAISON - The New York Times, July 28, 1996

BEIJING A leading dissident monk died this month in a prison in Tibet, where the Chinese authorities are carrying out a campaign for tighter political control, international human rights groups reported late Friday.

As Chinese armed forces struggle to keep a lid on protests that have broken out in several Tibetan monasteries in recent months, news of the monk's death is likely to add to the political tension.

The monk, Kelsang Thutop, 49, died July 5 in Drapchi Prison in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, where he was serving an 18-year sentence for political subversion, said Amnesty International and the Tibet Information Network, both London-based human rights groups.

Officials in Tibet could not be reached for comment Saturday, and the death could not be independently confirmed.

Visitors to Tibet and human rights groups have reported a series of protests since last year, particularly in monasteries, several of which have been temporarily closed and reopened. At Ganden Monastery, a dispute erupted on May 6 when government cadres tried to confiscate photographs of the dalai lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who fled to India in 1959 as China's Communist forces asserted political control.

On May 21, the Chinese authorities announced they would use a nationwide crackdown on crime to pursue supporters of the dalai lama.

Amnesty International reported that Kelsang Thutop died of an unspecified illness on July 5, after serving seven years in prison. Although few details on the circumstances of his death were available, Amnesty reported that torture has been common at Drapchi Prison and that former prisoners said Kelsang Thutop had been ill-treated.

Kelsang Thutop was originally an accountant at the huge Drepung Monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, but fell afoul of the authorities after he led younger monks in a street protest in 1987 that grew into riots.

After martial law was declared in Lhasa in 1989, he was arrested at the border with Nepal while trying to flee. He was sentenced to prison at a public rally in November 1989 and accused of being a main culprit in an organization that spread "counter-revolutionary propaganda."

The Chinese government regularly maintains that Beijing's rule has improved living conditions in Tibet since the army arrived there in 1951.

Friday, in what may or may not have been coincidental timing, the New China News Agency issued a long defense of China's protection of traditional Tibetan culture, arguing that efforts to teach both the Chinese and Tibetan languages have improved literacy.

"When the dalai lama ruled Tibet, there were few schools in the region, and 95 percent of the people were illiterate," the article said. "But Tibet now has thousands of schools that give Tibetans access to their language, drastically reducing the illiteracy rate."

The article, although it includes long historical accounts of Chinese rule in Tibet, makes no mention of the systematic attempt in the 1960s and 1970s to destroy Tibetan culture, in which thousands of temples were destroyed and thousands of monks and nuns killed, before official policy was reversed in 1980. Religious worship is now officially free, although human rights groups charge that abuses of monks persist.

According to the Tibet Information Network, Kelsang Thutop was the second Tibetan monk to die in prison in two months and the 14th to die in custody since 1987. It said Sangye Tenphel, 19, died in Drapchi prison May 6, nine months after he was jailed for staging an anti-Chinese demonstration in Lhasa.