World Tibet Network News Monday, June 8th, 1998

MUNSTER, Germany, June 7 (AFP) - The spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, came out Sunday against a trade boycott of China in the campaign to obtain greater freedom for his people.

Speaking in Muenster, western Germany, the Nobel peace laureate said that to demonise China in such an obvious way would be a mistake, as would be a simple policy of appeasment.

The aim for Tibetans was not outright independence but an autonomous status peacefully negotiated so as to respect Chinese interests, he said.

The Dalai Lama, 62, was speaking out on a three-day visit to Osnabruck and Munster to mark the 350th anniversary of the Treaties of Westphalia, which in 1648 ended the Thirty Years War.

He was accompanied on the trip by the Burmese prime minister-in-exile Sein Win, who was representing the Burmese Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Dalai Lama is due in Austria on Tuesday.