World Tibet Network News Thursday, April 30, 1998 (I)

BEIJING, April 30 (AFP) - A Tibetan boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama is safe and living with family members, China's foreign ministry said Thursday.

Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was named in May 1995 by the exiled Dalai Lama and immediately disappeared into China's public security network "is living with members of his family and everything is good," said spokesman Tang Guoqiang.

Tang did not say where the eight-year-old was, but Ma Chongying, the Chinese assistant director of the Nationalities Affairs Commission in Tibet said last year he had been moved out of Tibet.

"He is being guarded in another Chinese province and his return to Tibet will depend on the Dalai Lama's attitude," Ma said.

The Dalai Lama's public naming of the boy in 1995 infuriated Beijing, which immediately dropped his name from its list of candidates and went on to name a second boy as the "true" reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.

"The Dalai Lama illegally designated a reincarnation of the late Panchen Lama. This is in violation of historical tradition and religious rituals and therefore his designation is illegal and invalid," Tang said.

The Dalai Lama is the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism and the Panchen Lama is the second highest.

One of the most important roles of the Panchen Lama is to identify the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.