World Tibet Network News Monday, June 29, 1998

BEIJING, June 28 (AFP) - A Tibetan rights group Sunday praised US President Bill Clinton's strong stance on the troubled region during his summit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. "We were very, very pleased. Tibet was pretty much at the top of Clinton's comments to the press and he completely pulled it out of human rights and treated it as a political issue," said John Ackerly, president of the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT). "Tibet has been lumped together with human rights for a long time and this change is is very significant," he told AFP. Clinton openly called on China Saturday to start dialogue with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, during an unprecedented press conference that was broadcast live on Chinese television. He also suggested that Jiang would like the Dalai Lama if the two ever got a chance to meet. "I urge President Jiang to assume a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in return for the recognition that Tibet is a part of China and in recognition of the u

nique cultural and religious heritage of that region," Clinton said. "I have spent time with the Dalai Lama and I believe him to be an honest man, and I believe if President Jiang had a conversation with the Dalai Lama then they would like each other very much," Clinton said.

China, which claims its sovereignty over Tibet dates back to the 13th century, "liberated" the region in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule and Beijing has so far refused to meet with him charging he is working for the independence of Tibet, a position which the Dalai Lama has denied. Confrontation between the Dalai Lama and the Beijing government rose to a peak in 1995 when the spiritual leader unilaterally named the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. In response, Beijing ordered all pictures of the Dalai Lama to be removed from monasteries and temples and launched a bitter campaign to discredit him. But Jiang took a softer line in his reply to Clinton, saying his offer for talks remained open and said "several channels of communication" were already open. "Maybe the channels are open, but there is not much flowing along them," Ackerly said, adding the Chinese embassy in New Delhi and the Dalai Lama's elde

r brother, Gyalothondup, had been used as communication channels in the past.