August 20, 1997

By Robert Burns, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The people of Tibet are suffering "boot-heel subjugation'' by their Chinese rulers and are yearning for help from the West, a Republican congressman who visited Tibet in the guise of a tourist said Wednesday.

Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia, who said he was only the second House member to visit the remote Himalayan region since Chinese occupation began in the 1950s, told a news conference he was appalled at the human rights situation there.

"There is no freedom in Tibet, period,'' he said.

In what he described as unauthorized discussions with individual Tibetans, Wolf said he was told of brutal repression, torture of political prisoners and a systematic and unrelenting Chinese effort to suppress the Tibetan culture.

"In Tibet humane progress is not even inching along and repressed people live under unspeakably brutal conditions in the dim shadow of international awareness,'' he said.

"The inescapable conclusion is that China is swallowing Tibet,'' he added.

The Chinese government staunchly defends its policies in Tibet, arguing that it promotes the Tibetan Buddhist religion and the indigenous culture and language. But many Tibetans resist Beijing's campaign to discredit the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and to promote loyalty to the Chinese Communist government.

Wolf said he entered Tibet Aug. 9 on a U.S. passport and tourist visa without making it known he was a member of Congress. He said only one person in the State Department knew in advance and that person, whom he did not identify, had agreed not to notify U.S. diplomats in China.

At the State Department Wednesday, spokesman James P. Rubin said the department would like to see China accommodate more official visits to Tibet.

" We would be interested in talking to Congressman Wolf, to see his reflections and his observations. But we didn't know about the visit in advance,'' Rubin said.

Wolf said he did not ask the Chinese government to authorize his visit because he believed it would have denied his request, as it has those of other members of Congress.

Wolf said his travel companions - an unidentified member of his staff and a "Western man fluent in Tibetan'' - entered Tibet with a tourist group and then broke away. They spent three days in Lhasa and one day in outlying areas, taking photographs and videos and talking with monks, nuns and other individuals.

"I met with monks, men and women on the street and others who risked their personal safety and well-being to steal a few moments alone with me to tell how bad conditions are in Tibet and to petition help and support from the West,'' Wolf said. None knew he was a congressman, he said, but assumed he was American.

He declined to say how many Tibetans he spoke with. In a written summary of his findings, Wolf quoted one man as saying most of the people in jails are political prisoners.

The man, who Wolf said is aware of prison conditions because a member of his family was in jail, said prisoners are routinely beaten with sticks and poked with electrically charged cattle prods. Political prisoners are kept in unlighted and unheated areas with no sanitary or medical facilities, Wolf quoted the man as saying.

Wolf urged the Clinton administration to press China on Tibet issues, including releasing political prisoners and providing more access to Tibet for foreign news media.

"I want the world to know what is going on in Tibet,'' he said. "When people know, they will demand that China change its policy of boot-heel subjugation.''