Published by: World Tibet Network News Wednesday - October 8, 1997

Tibet Information Network

London, Oct 8 (TIN) - A hotel in Lhasa has been closed to foreign visitors and travel restrictions imposed on American tourists following a clandestine trip by a US Congressman to Tibet, according to unofficial reports from the region.

Armed troops in riot gear have been patrolling the streets of Lhasa, according to tourists returning from Tibet, where security measures were stepped up to deter unrest during the Party's five-yearly Congress in Beijing. Last week marked the tenth anniversary of major unrest in Lhasa which led to the re-emergence of the pro-independence movement in Tibet.

The Hotel Kyichu in the Barkor area of central Lhasa was ordered to close to foreigners from 22nd September, and Americans already in Lhasa as individual tourists were told to leave Tibet by the end of September, according to travel agents in Nepal. American tourists in the city are no longer entitled to visa extensions beyond this date, say the reports.

The restrictions are thought to be linked to a controversial visit by Frank Wolf, a US Congressman who spent four days in Tibet as a tourist from 9th August, accompanied by an aide and an American fluent in Tibetan. Wolf, who stayed in the Hotel Kyichu during his visit, held a press conference in Washington on 20th August describing his trip and criticising Chinese policies in Tibet.

China's official press agency issued at least eight articles condemning Wolf's trip, calling him a "slanderer" and describing his claims of human rights abuses as a "malicious attack", "sensational lies" and "claptrap".

"Republican representative Frank Wolf, who recently sneaked into Tibet in the disguise of a tourist, sensationally announced that during his four day tour of Tibet he saw that the region was being 'swallowed' by China through mass arrests and brutal repression and Tibetan language and culture were being destroyed," said Xinhua on 23rd August.

Tourists who were made to leave the Hotel Kyichu when the ban was imposed last week confirmed that the order was related to the Congressman, and said the hotel was expected to remain closed to foreigners for up to three months. "We were told that the hotel was closed down because of Congressman Wolf's visit," said one Westerner, who asked not to be named.

The Westerner said that the situation had been aggravated by the presence of two American film-makers who were travelling as tourists and who had moved into the hotel two weeks ago. Police carried out a late night raid on the hotel the night before the closure order, apparently because of suspicions aroused by the undercover film-makers.

At least six groups of westerners are known to have visited Tibet last month to film scenes for proposed documentaries or feature films about the situation there, part of a wave of commercial media interest in the subject expected to follow the release today of a Hollywood film about the Dalai Lama's tutor, Heinrich Harrer.

"There was a strong anti-foreigner, particularly anti-American, feeling in the capital," said the Westerner, who has visited the city several times in the last four years. "We could tell that the authorities were prepared to turn the screw at any time by expelling people from hotels, changing visa regulations, and so on. The streets were full of police officers and armed police," he added.

Another popular tourist hotel, the Snowlands Hotel, was also raided by police last week. "The Public Security Bureau came to the Snowland at 11.30 pm last Friday and went to every room and checked everyone's passport," said one tourist speaking from Kathmandu yesterday after returning from the region.

Two other tourists said that they had seen police in riot gear patrolling the streets of Lhasa at night from around 12th September, when the Party Congress began in Beijing. "They were patrolling in groups of six, wearing hard helmets with visors and carrying automatic weapons," said a European tour guide who led a group to Lhasa three weeks ago.

"They wore red arm bands, which we had not seen before and thought might be something to do with the Congress," she said. Armed patrols are unusual in Lhasa, where the authorities have tried to lower the profile of security operations since the early 1990s.

Another tourist reported that the patrols increased around 27th September, the anniversary of an incident in 1987 when police beat up 21 monks who had staged a small protest in the city centre, triggering off a series of more than 160 pro-independence demonstrations over the next nine years.

From at least 16th September the five star flag of the Chinese republic was hoisted from the top of the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama and the most prominent feature in the city, according to other tourists. "Hanging down the side of the Palace below the flag was a banner proclaiming the opening of the 15th Party Congress," said an English tourist who was in Lhasa on 18th September.

In September 1995 the Chinese authorities cleared a large parade ground in front of the palace and have been flying a state flag from a pole in the square, but this is believed to be the first time the flag has been flown from the Palace itself. In August last year officials who had moved into Drepung Monastery, 6 km west of Lhasa, erected a flag pole and hoisted the Chinese flag above the Ganden Podrang, a building which had housed the Tibetan Government in the 17th century before it moved to the Potala

Palace.

- Americans Facing Travel "Problems" -

American tourists are no longer allowed to travel in Tibet as individuals, according to instructions passed on to travel agencies in Kathmandu by their Tibetan counterparts in Lhasa two weeks ago.

Since June this year, when new measures were introduced to deter unrest during the Hong Kong hand-over, individual tourists have no longer been allowed entry at the land border between Nepal and Tibet. But foreigners can still travel in Tibet as individuals if they pay a travel agency in Kathmandu or Chengdu to obtain a special permit direct from the Tibet Tourism Bureau in Lhasa.

These permits are now being denied to American tourists, who for the time

being can visit Tibet only in scheduled tour groups, which are accompanied

by a local guide and follow a strict itinerary.

"American nationals are experiencing a lot of problems in travelling to Tibet at the moment," the director of a Kathmandu travel company told TIN today. Last month one group of 14 Americans in Kathmandu was refused entry to Tibet as a group because one member of the group had written the wrong passport number on their application form, said the tour operator. "A lot of Americans who want to visit Tibet are crying in Nepal these days," he said.

The restriction on the special permits for American visitors does not apply to those on business visas or with official invitations, but businessman and other foreign residents in Lhasa are reported to be facing extra scrutiny in recent weeks, with some required to hand over details of their personal biographies to the police.

Congressman Wolf declined to make any comment on the latest reports, but a spokeswoman for his office in Washington said that they did not have any information about adverse consequences arising from his trip. "Mr Wolf would not have done anything that would have jeopardised anybody else's well- being," she said on Friday.

There were unconfirmed rumours that the travel agency that arranged Wolf's visit had been closed by the authorities for a brief period after his trip, but this could not be confirmed from London and the reports were strongly denied by Wolf's spokeswoman.

Travel agencies in Tibet are routinely closed down if they accept bookings from journalists or diplomats and in May 1994 the Linzhi Travel Agency, a Lhasa-based agency, was suspended after it arranged a tour for a group which turned out to include a US diplomat. All travel agencies were warned in a circular issued the same month that they would also face closure if they were found to have allowed diplomats or journalists to join their groups.

One of the statements issued by Xinhua in response to Wolf's visit revealed new information about political prisoners in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The article, issued on 30th August, admitted for the first time that there are three prisons in the region and said they hold between 1,700 and 1,800 prisoners, of whom 9%, or about 155, have been convicted of state security offences.

Until recently China has said it has only one prison in Tibet. The term "prison" is used by the Chinese only to describe labour-reform institutions for convicted prisoners, and is not used to describe to other kinds of detention centres.

Security was increased across China to mark its National Day on 1st October, and a Hong Kong magazine claimed last Thursday that "comparatively large- scale armed rebellions" took place in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia "just before National Day". The paper, the Oriental Daily News, offered few details of the incidents, but said that nine officials had been killed in the attacks. The report could not be confirmed.