Published by: World Tibet Network News Thursday, November 13, 1997

KATHMANDU, Nov 13 (AFP) - China has tightened security along the Tibetan-Nepal border following frequent crossings by Tibetans going to join the Dalai Lama, sources said Thursday.

Since the beginning of the year, about 1,800 Tibetans in several groups crossed into Nepal on their way to Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan religious leader Dalai Lama has been living since he fled Lhasa in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese troops in Tibet, the source said.

During September and October alone, at least six groups of 30 to 45 Tibetans crossed the Trans-Himalayan route to join the Dalai Lama's group, but some of them were arrested and handed over to China by the immigration department.

"Once the Tibetans enter Nepal without entry permits, they are arrested and handed over to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to question them about the reasons for their crossing into Nepal," an Immigration Department source said.

"If the Tibetans fail to give satisfactory reasons for their leaving their homeland, they are handed over to the Chinese authorities," the source told AFP.

But Tibetans who "seek political asylum expressing their desire to go to Dharamsala are sent there," he said.

The Tibetans cross into Nepal in groups via Nepal's far northeastern frontier of Olanchang-gola and northwestern frontier of Yari Pass to reach Dharamsala.

A Tibetan source in Kathmandu said Nepalese border guards allow the Tibetans through in exchange for bribes.

But China has now increased border security, and Nepalese traders and truck-drivers are complain about harassment by officials at Chinese and Tibetan customs checkposts and other police posts between the border and the Tibetan capital Lhasa, business sources said.

"This has greatly discouraged the trade turnover to and from Tibet," the source said.