Published by: World Tibet Network News, Monday, June 16, 1997

LHASA, June 15 (AFP) - The Chinese authorities appear to have eased slightly the pressure on Tibet's Bhuddist monasteries after last year's bid to crush the influence of the region's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The _patriotic education" campaign swept 1,780 Tibetan monasteries in June last year leading to the arrest of dozens of monks. But it has been judged too violent in Beijing, well-placed sources said.

And the official in charge of the project has reportedly been pulled out of Tibet.

In temples visited here, whether in Lhasa or elsewhere in the region, religious activities have resumed with fervour and photographs of the Dalai Lama are reappearing, apparently without fear of repression.

_We know that certain temples are showing portraits of the Dalai Lama but we are also aware it takes time to change people's mentality," said Tu Den, the official in charge of religious affairs in the Tibetan autonomous region.

_It is up to us to persuade the population to stop worshipping his image, because many Tibetans still think of him only as a religious leader and do not see his political side," he added.

However, Beijing has kept up a campaign against the Dalai Lama, who is revered as a god-king by his followers and said to be the 14th reincarnation of the first Dalai Lama, reacting angrily to visits and speeches he makes abroad.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, of hiding behind religion while seeking to divide China by pursuing _separatist" activities.

The Dalai Lama, who fled to exile in northern India in 1959 after the crushing of an anti-China revolt in Tibet, has maintained he is not seeking independence but self-determination for the former Himalayan kingdom.

However, his pleas for talks with Beijing on the future of the region have so far been snubbed.

His photograph is theoretically forbidden in public places in Tibet, although many monasteries break this rule.

In May last year in a temple in Ganden, in eastern Tibet, several monks were arrested when they refused to take down portraits of the Dalai Lama. The following month the _patriotic education" campaign was begun.

All photographs of the spiritual leader were then confiscated and the homes of Tibetans working for the local government were searched, sources in Lhasa said.

Without directly condemning these moves as excesses, Tu Den said _monks and nuns have the right to display the portrait of the Dalai Lama in their own homes."

Many monks in temples in Lhasa, Shigatse, in western Tibet, and Gyantse, in the southwest, wear the photograph on a chain around their necks, although apparently not in a gesture of defiance.

The _patriotic education" campaign, which started in the temples considered the hotbeds of revolt, was extended to some 46,000 monks and nuns living in 1,780 monastries across Tibet.

_It will be completed in two years time," said Tu Den. In the larger monastries the monks must attend afternoon political meetings several times a week. But no police presence can be seen either inside or nearby the monastries.

But this apparent relaxation of the campaign does not mean Beijing has given up monitoring the supporters of the Dalai Lama. Many of the monks arrested last year are still behind bars.

_The Dalai Lama is trying to take control of the monastries by infiltrating them with separatists and fomenting revolt. This must stop," said Tu Den forcefully.

_We know there are monks and Tibetans who still think Tibet is independent.

It is up to us to explain it is part of China," he added.

_But it will take a long time," he admitted.