World Tibet Network News Wednesday, June 24, 1998

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Tuesday June 23 (Reuters) - With Chinese rule of Tibet an issue on President Clinton's China summit agenda, a group of lawyers released a study Tuesday affirming the Himalayan region's right to independence. Going beyond the positions of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled leader, and the U.S. government, the Berkeley, California-based International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet rebutted China's claim to what Beijing calls its Tibet autonomous region. Beijing says Tibet has been Chinese territory since the mid-13th century and was never an independent country. It says the region was "liberated" peacefully through an agreement reached by the central government and local authorities in 1951. But the lawyers' 112-page study concluded that China's 1950 march into Tibet was an "illegal conquest of a sovereign nation.

"The lawyers, together with a group known as the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, added that China's "continued occupation" of Tibet violated international laws, including the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. The United States recognizes Tibet as part of China. The Dalai Lama, the Buddhist monk who heads a government in exile in Dharamasala, India, maintains that he is seeking greater autonomy, not independence. In a statement before his scheduled Wednesday departure for China, Clinton vowed to press President Jiang Zemin to "take concrete steps to preserve Tibet's cultural, linguistic and religious heritage" and to resume talks with the Dalai Lama.

At the time of China's 1950 march into Tibet, the lawyers argued in their study, Tibet had a fully functioning government, administered through a civil service. The study said the government controlled Tibet's borders, issued internationally recognized passports and entered into treaties with other states, including Britain, Nepal and Mongolia. "Despite China's illegal occupation, the state of Tibet continues to exist,represented by its legitimate government in exile in Dharamsala, India, "a statement recapping the study said. The study argued that Tibet's right to continued statehood was guaranteed under the U.N. charter, which rejects claims to territory based on the illegal use of force as contrary to international law. China has argued that the Dalai Lama is secretly seeking restoration of the feudal serfdom of old Tibet. Yu Shuning, a Chinese embassy spokesman in Washington, said in a letter tothe Washington Post June 16 that the central government was ready to talk with the Dalai Lama only if he gave u

p any notion of independence, and halted "all activities to split Tibet from the motherland."