Published by: World Tibet Network News Monday, December 22, 1997

GENEVA, December 22, 97 (Reuters) -- The respected International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said on Monday Chinese-ruled Tibet (see map) was "under alien subjugation" and called for a United Nations-run referendum to decide its future status.

The Geneva-based body, which works to defend the rule of law around the globe, declared in a major report that the autonomy Beijing argues is enjoyed by Tibetans was fictitious and that real power lay in Chinese hands.

"It is to maintain its alien and unpopular rule that China has sought to suppress Tibetan nationalist dissent and extinguish Tibetan culture," said ICJ Secretary-General Adama Dieng, a lawyer from Senegal in an introduction to the report.

"It is to colonize unwilling subjects that China has encouraged and facilitated the mass movement of ethnic Chinese populations into Tibet, where they dominate the region's politics and security, as well as its economy."

The 365-page report, entitled "Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law," said there had been an escalation of repression since the beginning of 1996 in the region, formerly a Buddhist theocracy that was absorbed into China in 1950.

The ICJ, which has 80 national sections and is guided by 45 leading world jurists, said political re-education had been stepped up in remaining monasteries and torture and other forms of violence was widely used.

The report asserted that Communist Party leaders had declared "total war" on the Dalai Lama (pictured), the Tibetan spiritual leader who fled into exile in 1959 after an abortive uprising against rule from Beijing.

The authorities were also threatening to extend their campaign to eradicate his influence to schools and villages, and had launched a drive against some aspects of traditional Tibetan culture condemned as "obstacles to development."

Appearance of the report coincides with the release of two major U.S-made feature films on Tibet, which Beijing has condemned as anti-Chinese.

China is sending a team of experts on the region to the United States to argue its case -- that Tibet was historically part of Chinese territory and that its 1950 takeover ended oppressive rule by the former Buddhist hierarchy.

The ICJ, which has tracked developments in Tibet closely since the late 1950s, said only a U.N.-supervised referendum could establish exactly what the Tibetans wanted.

Eligible to take part should be all Tibetans and other people resident in the region before 1950 and their descendants, as well as Tibetan refugees and their descendants.

It should be held in areas where Tibetans historically constituted a majority and among the exile community, mainly concentrated in India, the report said.

It could lead to the restoration of an independent Tibetan state, a form of "genuine internal self-government," continuation of Tibet's current status within China, or any other status the people might freely decide, the ICJ declared.