Published by: World Tibet Network News Issue Id: 98/01/05

South China Morning Post

Monday January 5 1998

JOANNE LEE-YOUNG

A call to save and protect Tibetan historical archives was issued by National People's Congress legislators keen to see their image of the region as an inseparable part of the mainland preserved.

Nie Dajiang, Vice-Chairman of the NPC's Culture Committee, called for a special fund to be set up to finance the restoration of more than three million historic documents and papers, dating from the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) to the communist reforms of 1959. Mr Nie and NPC member Xu Jing told the NPC's Standing Committee the documents were valuable records of Tibetan history.

The archives "accurately testify to the fact that the central Chinese Government began to exercise its administrative jurisdiction over Tibet as early as seven centuries ago", they said.

"We should guarantee preservation of the archives for coming generations," said Mr Nie, adding that nearly a third of the documents were severely damaged.