World Tibet Network News Wednesday, March 11, 1998

By Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press

BEIJING, March 11, 1998 (AP) An ongoing Communist Party campaign to instill patriotism and impose order is "totally necessary" to prevent chaos and theft at Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, a senior Tibetan official said Wednesday.

Raidi, chairman of Tibet's regional congress and a senior Communist Party official, said 35,000 monks and nuns at more than 700 religious sites had been "rectified" in such political programs.

Such measures were essential to impose order, arrange the financial affairs of the religious institutions and help prevent "rampant theft" of priceless relics, he said, contending that most Tibetans supported the campaign.

Critics accuse China of using the 2-year-old campaign to purge monasteries of monks and nuns loyal to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, and to suppress Buddhism by closing down monasteries and forcing their residents to return to secular life.

Chinese officials argue that they are justified in rooting out "splittists" whom the government suspects of favoring independence for their homeland.

"It is totally necessary to launch patriotic education among the citizens and in the monasteries," Raidi said. "This is designed to maintain the unity of the motherland and to help people to love the motherland."

He and Gyaincain Norbu, chairman of the Tibet autonomous region, defended Chinese rule in Tibet, noting that the government has invested more than $36 million on restoring temples and other religious sites, carried out hundreds of projects to promote economic development and dispatched more than 600 officials since 1994 to serve the Tibetan people.

Both defended China's treatment of the Tibetan people, contending that they enjoyed greater religious freedom and prosperity than ever before.