Published by: World Tibet Network News Wednesday, November 26, 1997

LONDON, Nov 25 (AFP) - A visit to London by a delegation headed by China's senior Tibetan official has been abandoned after it refused to accept British proposals to meet various groups critical of Beijing's policies in Tibet.

Foreign Office officials said Tuesday they were informed late Monay that the visit by Raidi, the top ethnic Tibetan in the Lhasa government for the Tibet Autonomous Region, due to begin December 2, had been called off.

"We were putting together a programme for them in which we would have arranged for them to meet a range of people and views. In the end they decided they did not want to do that," said a spokesman. Meetings were being planned with the Tibet Society, the Free Tibet campaign as well as parliamentary all-party groups on Tibet and China.

Campaigners for Tibetan independence welcomed the British stand which was seen as reflecting the new "ethical" emphasis of Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.

Alison Reynolds of the Free Tibet campaign said, "We are extremely encouraged that they (British government) made these conditions. It is clear that despite wanting to come to London to put their point of view across, the delegation was not prepared to accept that there is an alternative point of view."

The Free Tibet movement lobbies on behalf of the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet after a 1959 uprising was crushed by China and who now heads a government-in-exile.

It would have been the first official visit from Tibet since the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. Its leader Raidi is regarded as a hardliner who played a leading role in the Cultural Rrevolution when Tibetan Buddhism was suppressed and many monasteries destroyed.

The visit would have come only days after the controversial Hollywood film "Seven Years in Tibet" opened in London which describes Tibet as an independent country.

Delegation members have visas for Britain and could still come to London. A Chinese embassy official refused to comment Tuesday on its plans.

The foreign office spokesman said it was unlikely the delegation would now come to Britain since the object of the visit was to meet senior British officials.

The seven-member delegation would have included Lhagpa Phuntsog, a vice-governor and a former head of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, and Drubkhang Thubten Khedrub, a lama who heads the Religious Affairs Committee in Nagchum and who is a public critic of the Dalai Lama.