Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday - September 11, 1997

BONN, Sept 10 (Reuter) - Members of a German parliamentary committee on Wednesday returned from a trip to China and Tibet, hailing signs of progress in dialogue between Beijing and Germany over human rights in Tibet.

Christian Schwarz-Schilling, chairman of the cross-party human rights committee, told a news briefing the trip had been "the first important step" in a dialogue specifically focused on human rights.

"It was clear the Chinese side attached great importance to this meeting and wanted to make it the beginning of constructive rounds of talks within a human rights dialogue between China and Germany," he said.

He said Chinese government officials had pledged to adhere to United Nation pacts on commercial, social and cultural rights by the end of this year and urged Bonn to push for China to adhere to further U.N. pacts on civic and political rights.

The seven-day trip was originally scheduled for last year but was called off after the German parliament enraged China by passing a resolution accusing it of seeking to erase Tibet's cultural identity.

The two countries managed to heal the rift during informal meetings last September. Germany is China's largest European trading partner, with bilateral trade totalling some 27 billion marks ($15 billion) last year.

The committee met officials from the Chinese Justice and Foreign Ministries as well as the deputy chairman of the Legal Committee of the National People's Congress, Zhang Chun-Seng.

The delegation said questions on prison conditions had been met with what appeared to be evasise answers and that unacceptable restrictions were still being imposed on the Lamaist religion practised by most Tibetans.

They noted that restrictions were now, however, largely confined to limits on the geographical spread and organisation of the religion rather than individual believers, as was the case following China's Cultural Revolution.

The continued depiction by Chinese officials of Tibet's god-king the Dalai Lama as a public enemy was however still unacceptable, they said.