World Tibet Network News Monday, April 06, 1998

NEW DELHI, April 6 (Reuters) - More than 200 Tibetan activists began a 36-hour hunger strike in front of the United Nations office in the Indian capital on Monday to express solidarity with six compatriots on a death fast.

Six activists of the Tibetan Youth Congress began a death fast in New Delhi on March 10 in support of independence for their Himalayan homeland from China, which flatly rejects statehood for the autonomous territory it has ruled since 1950.

They have vowed to stick to the fast unless the United Nations reopens a debate on the future of their homeland.

Shouting anti-China and pro-independence slogans the protesters carried banners and placards with slogans: "China: respect United Nations declaration on human rights" and "We the Tibetans call people of the world to save our identity, religion, culture and nation."

Dolma Gyari, a member of the Tibetan parliament in exile, told Reuters:

"These activists from the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh will be replaced by another batch of protesters on Wednesday."

She said the fast would go on until the demands of the activists on a death fast are accepted by the United Nations.

"We are appealing to the U.N. to not let these people die," she said.

Earlier, two members of the Tibetan Co-ordination Committee submitted a memorandum to the director of the United Nations' Information Centre appealing for intervention by the international body.

The Tibetan Youth Congress wants the United Nations to appoint a special envoy to initiate a U.N.-supervised plebiscite to allow Tibetans to decide their own future.

Tibetan agitators also want the United Nations to appoint a special rapporteur to investigate alleged human rights violations in Tibet, where the last of a series of anti-Chinese revolts was crushed by Beijing's army in 1959.

On April 2, Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, met the six hunger strikers and praised their determination.

Last week, Hollywood actor Richard Gere, a disciple of the Dalai Lama and a critic of what he calls China's "cultural genocide" in Tibet, also visited the hunger strikers.