World Tibet Network News Monday, April 27, 1998

NEW DELHI, April 27 (AFP) - Tibetans on Monday vowed to launch another fast-to-death after the police forced them to abandon a marathon hunger strike to protest Chinese rule of their homeland.

Tseten Norbu, president of the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), said a second batch of six protesters will begin the hunger strike in the Indian capital.

"We have already decided not to abandon our hunger strike and a new batch will begin the protest soon," said the head of TYC, which has thousands of Tibetan members.

Police swooped on the site of the protest by Tibetans at around 6:00 am (0030 GMT) Monday and took the three remaining protesters to a hospital.

Three other Tibetans had already been forced Sunday to abandon the hunger strike they began on March 10.

A 50-year-old supporter of the hunger strikers set himself on fire at the protest venue during the police crackdown,

Norbu said the man, Thupten Ngodub, was in critical condition.

Other TYC leaders claimed police on Monday barricaded hostels and colonies where some 30,000 Tibetans live in the Indian capital in a bid to prevent anti-Chinese protests from snowballing.

"Nobody can come out from the hostels or their homes ... We are under a police siege," claimed Pema Dhondup, editor of a Tibetan newsmagazine.

The police action coincided with the beginning of the first-ever visit to India by a chief of the Chinese army, General Fu Quanyou, who arrived in New Delhi on Sunday and started his official visit on Monday.

India is home to the Dalai Lama, who has lived in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala since fleeing his homeland in 1959 following a failed

anti-China uprising.

Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1951. More than 100,000 Tibetan refugees also live in India.