World Tibet Network News Saturday, May 09, 1998

NEW DELHI, May 9 (AFP) - Some 200 Tibetan exiles from Nepal demonstrated outside the UN office in New Delhi, Saturday calling for an end to Chinese rule in their homeland and an international probe into rights abuses there.

Witnesses said the protestors shouted anti-Chinese slogans and urged the United Nations to appoint a special envoy to determine the future of Tibet.

A statement by the Tibetan group, the Kyidong Welfare Association, based in Kathmandu, said the UN representative should "promote a peaceful settlement of the question of Tibet and initiate a UN-sponsored plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the Tibetan people."

It also called for a "special rapporteur to investigate the situation of human rights in Chinese-occupied Tibet."

Late last month, a Tibetan monk immolated himself in New Delhi in the first suicide protest in India after police broke up a marathon hunger strike by six Tibetans aimed at demanding Tibetan independence. Five others have replace them and were still fasting on Saturday.

Chinese troops occupied Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama and some 100,000 Tibetans fled to India after Beijing crushed an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet in 1959.