World Tibet Network News Friday, March 13, 1998

NEW DELHI, March 12 (AFP) - Some 200 Tibetans marched in the heart of the Indian capital Thursday to mark a 1959 anti-Chinese uprising by Tibetan women.

The protestors, all women, also urged the United Nations to "resume" debate on their motherland, and accord "observer" status to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

A statement said the protestors were "commemorating the 39th anniversary of the Tibetan national women's uprising against the illegal and forceful occupation of our motherland.

"Tibet was invaded by China in 1949. It was brutally, mericlessly and completely occupied in 1959. Over 1.2 million of our brothers and sisters were killed as a direct result of this forceful occupation."

It said of the known 1,216 prisoners of conscience, 295 were women. The statement claimed that in 1997, as many as 883 Tibetan women were forcibly sterilised by Chinese authorities.

"Many Tibetan women are fined for pregnancy," it added.

The Dalai Lama Tuesday, in an address to mark the anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in Lhasa, accused China of "cultural genocide" to crush Tibetan separatism.

"It has become apparent that Beijing is carrying out what amounts to a deliberate policy of cultural genocide in Tibet," he said.

The Dalai Lama and 100,000 Tibetans fled to India in 1959.