Tibet Information Network

London, June 26 (TIN) - Harassment of Nepalese traders by Chinese border police has led to a sharp drop off in cross-border trade and to high-level diplomatic attempts to improve border relations, according to reports from the area.

Last week the Nepalese Prime Minister received a delegation of generals from China's People's Liberation Army and announced that regular meetings would be set up between border officials of the two countries.

The seven-person delegation had come from the Chengdu Military Region, which supervises the army in central and eastern Tibet, and visited Nepal "to promote understanding and deepen friendship between the two countries and the two armed forces", according to Xinhua on 13th June.

The visit came shortly after Nepalese newspapers reported that cross-border trade of major commodities at Dram had dropped by 20% in the previous ten months as a result of Chinese police behaviour at the border. Dram is the Tibetan name for the town on the main Tibet-Nepal border crossing, called Khasa by Nepalis or Zhangmu by Chinese.

"Due to harassment caused by the Chinese police to small Nepalese traders, the import of Khasa goods to Nepal has gone down by over 20 percent in the first ten months of the current fiscal year," the Kathmandu Post reported on 27th May. It added that the low quality of goods and the "unco-operative behaviour of Chinese officials" had also contributed to the drop in imports at Khasa.

In March this year Nepalese truck drivers staged a two and a half day demonstration outside the Tibetan border post in protest at an attack by a border policeman on a Nepalese taxi driver, believed to be the first time drivers have taken collective action there. In August last year Tibetans on the Chinese side of the border post held a demonstration against police brutality after a Tibetan youth was beaten to death by Public Security officials.

The demonstration by Nepalese truck drivers, which has not previously been reported, blocked all motor traffic and trade across the Tibet- Nepalese border at Dram for more than 60 hours and was only resolved when an emergency meeting was convened between high-level officials from both countries.

The dispute erupted at the Friendship Bridge, which is the only border post for vehicles between Nepal and Tibet, at noon on 3rd March when a Chinese member of the People's Armed Police demanded a lift in a minibus from the Bridge to Khasa, about 8 kilometres north of the Bridge.

The driver, Tashi Gyaltsen Sherpa, was pulled out of his minibus and beaten up by the policemen for refusing to make a front seat passenger give up his seat for the policeman, who had been offered a rear seat for the 30 minute journey.

Tashi Gyaltsen, a Sherpa with Nepalese citizenship, had a permit to operate a taxi service on the eight kilometre route which lies within Chinese territory between the Bridge and the Chinese customs post at the Tibetan town at Dram. Both the Chinese border post at the Friendship Bridge and the Customs Post at Dram are operated by members of China's People's Armed Police, but there are no Tibetan or Chinese taxis in Dram or in the border zone and all the private taxis operating between the two posts are owned by Nepalese.

The truck drivers' demonstration began two and half hours later as a gesture of support for Tashi Gyaltsen, who had reversed his minibus onto the Friendship Bridge immediately after the beating and as a protest blocked the road by parking the van sideways across the middle of the Bridge, beside the line which separates Nepal from Tibet.

Truck drivers lined their vehicles up beside the minibus, making it impossible for the authorities to remove it and leading to a seven kilometre tail-back which stretched south down the Nepal-Tibet highway beyond the Nepalese Customs post at Larcha, according to one Nepalese source who spoke to drivers soon after the incident.

The minibus driver then travelled to the district capital at Chautara, 50 km. south of the border, where he filed an official complaint with the Nepalese authorities, which was supplemented by an additional petition from the truck drivers.

The petitions complained of frequent beatings by members of the People's Armed Police, protested against a bribe of 100 yuan which truck drivers are asked to pay when crossing the border, and demanded a grievance procedure for dealing with complaints.

The petitioners also criticised cash payments demanded by Chinese officials for parking at the customs compound in Dram, and complained that Chinese officials demand free rides and gifts of food, alcohol, fresh vegetables, and pornographic videos, according to unofficial sources.

"The protest is quite unprecedented," commented a former Nepalese immigration official who worked at the Friendship Bridge. "The grievances of Nepalese drivers against the bribery and violence of the Chinese authorities are well known, but I have never heard of them taking action in such a way."

The drivers moved their vehicles only after Chinese representatives attended an emergency meeting with Nepalese officials and promised that any further problems would be investigated, and that necessary action would be taken against border officials infringing regulations.

The undertaking was given by the Head of the Zhangmu (Dram) local Government, and the Heads of Immigration and Customs in Zhangmu. Chinese civil and military officials from Shigatse, the prefectural capital in Tibet which has administrative responsibility for Dram, are also believed to have travelled to the area during the dispute.

The Nepalese side was represented in the meeting by the Chief District Officer of Sindhupalchok District, the District Court Judge, the local customs officer and the local Deputy Superintendent of Police.

The officials gave an assurance that the situation would be closely monitored and misconduct by officials of either country would be penalised, according to one source, who said that the policemen involved in the beating of Tashi Gyaltsen had been transferred.

"It is said that since this incident, the behaviour of the Chinese police has improved, and there is less harassment," an official from the Trans-Himalayan Traders' Association of Nepal told TIN in April.

Other local officials have since expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the assurances. "The problems of Nepalese traders have been raised officially to the concerned officials and they have given assurances, [but] in practice no assurances have been implemented," the Kathmandu Post quoted Khemraj Bhattarai, Nepal's Chief Customs Officer in the Friendship Bridge area, as saying on 27th May.

Tibetan "Killed" by Dram Police -

Public Security officials in the Tibetan town of Dram, immediately north of the border with Nepal, have faced similar allegations as the People's Armed Police operating at the border.

Last August a 28-year old Tibetan named Tsering died in custody in the Dram Public Security office, allegedly as a result of beatings carried out by local Tibetan policemen.

The youth had been detained after refusing police orders to leave a restaurant where he had been drinking. Two policemen are said to have tied his hands, beat him with a rifle, and dragged him from the restaurant to the Public Security office, an eyewitness told TIN. Tsering died in the police station the same evening or on the following day, 24th August. The death was said by officials to be the result of a suicide attempt.

A group of Tibetans marched to the police station on 25th August and demanded an inquiry into the incident, according to a separate and unconfirmed report, which claimed that the protestors were asked to disperse by the dead boy's father, a senior local official called Lobsang, and that local officials later gave up to 3,000 yuan (approximately $360) to the family for the funeral.

Tibetan traders in Dram staged a similar protest against police violence after two Tibetans were stabbed by police officers in August 1994. There are a number of reports of assaults by police in Dram on refugees who have been caught trying to cross the border into Nepal or repatriated by Nepalese police. "They beat me in my face with their fists and gave me electric shocks in my face and chest," said Nyima, a 19 year old Tibetan from Damshung who was caught trying to cross the border in March 1994.

In one incident in January this year a Nepalese man was beaten by Chinese police at the border for taking tea to some Tibetans refugees who were being held by the People's Armed Police on the Chinese side of the Friendship Bridge, an eyewitness told TIN. "Five or six of them beat him, and he fell to the ground three times," she told TIN, on condition of anonymity.

Trade Drops at Border -

There was a drop of 17% in the total value of goods imported by Nepal through Dram in the ten months up to May this year, compared to the same period last year. The value of the ten major products imported by Nepal via Dram - including terry-cotton fabric, shoes, blankets, jackets, torches and radios - came to 185.4 million Nepalese rupees (c. $3.3 million) in the same period, a 20% fall over the previous year, according to the Kathmandu Post. Large quantities of Tibetan wool are also imported from Tibet via Dram as the raw material for carpets, Nepal's major export, but in the early 1970s, cheaper Australian and New Zealand wool replaced Tibet as the main supplier for Nepal's carpet factories.

Nepal exports flour, vegetable ghee (clarified butter used in butter lamps), biscuits, noodles and other food products via Dram into Tibet, and exports of flour and ghee are said to have increased so far this year by 62% and 27% respectively.

Nepal has a crippling trade deficit with China and exported only $4.7 million worth of goods to China in the 12 months to mid-July 1995, leaving it with a shortfall of US$52.9 million, an increase of 21 per cent over the previous 12-month period. Just over 37% of Nepal's trade with China involved the Tibet Autonomous Region, representing goods worth $21.6 million, during the same period. In 1994 bilateral trade between the two countries had been worth $42 million, of which Nepalese imports from China had accounted for $2 million, a deficit of $38 million.

The 114-kilometre road linking Kathmandu with Kodari on the Nepal-Tibet border was built in 1966 with Chinese assistance. Nepalese drivers who cross the border need special permits to go to Dram, but are not allowed to travel beyond the town, despite a 1994 agreement between China and Nepal which was supposed to lead to the opening of a direct road transport service between Kathmandu and Lhasa in June that year.

In May 1995 Nepali and Tibetan transport officials met again and agreed to begin a public bus and truck service the following month. "The opening of direct road transport service will boost trade, promote tourism and generate employment," said Devi Prasad Bastola, spokesman for the Nepali Works and Transport Ministry, at the time, according to a Reuters report.

Nepali officials argue that their traders would be able to export construction goods and food to Tibet at cheaper rates than transporting those items to Tibet from within China, and in April 1995 the Nepalese finance minister official asked the Chinese authorities to allow the opening new trade routes between his country and Tibet at Sankhuwasabha District in eastern Nepal and Mustang in the west of the kingdom.

So far the proposals have not been accepted and there is no bus or truck service beyond the border. All vehicles from Nepal still have to enter Tibet by the Friendship Bridge and be unloaded at Dram for transport to Lhasa, 800 km to the north-east, by Chinese trucks.

During a state visit to Nepal in 1996 Chinese President Jiang Zemin urged Nepal to produce more marketable goods for export to Tibet as a means of trimming the trade imbalance.