("VIVO IL TIBET" Committee)

Tibet was invaded and occupied by the Chinese People's Republic between 1949 and 1959.

The Dalai Lama, a top political and religious authority, has tried for over eight years to find a peaceful solution with the Chinese authorities, which coincidesc with the ideals of nonviolence. On March 10, 1959 the desire to rebel against the Chinese culminated in the heroic rising of Lhasa.

The troups of the Popular Liberation Army stifled the revolt in torrents of blood, killing more than 86,000 people in central Tibet alone.

The Dalai Lama and more than 100,000 refugees fled to India and the bordering Himalayan regions. At Dharamsala in North India, the Dalai Lama succeeded in setting up a Free Tibetan Government founded on democratic principles.

The exiled Tibetan Government is the only authority recognized by over 100,000 refugees and by the Tibetans who have remained in occupied Tibet. There are 1,200,000 dead, 6,000 monasteries destroyed, tens of thousands of texts, the guardians of the culture, religion and traditions of this people, burnt in the so-called "Cultural Revolution", colonies of 7,500,000 Chinese settlers in Tibet, hundreds of acres of trees rased to the ground for the export of timber, thousands of gold statues representing the divinities, melted down in order to use the precious metal to feed the troops of the Popular Liberation Army, and last but not least, at the beautiful altitude of 5,000 metres, dominating the rest of Asia, nuclear bases and deposits for nuclear waste have been built.

Tibetan women are subjected to abortions and sterlization, in schools the only language taught is Chinese, and the massive transfer of large groups of the Chinese population helps to achieve the objective of the colonization of Tibet, to ensure that Tibetans are a slight minority to be exploited in that sort of "tourist zoo" which the "roof of the World" should become according to the intentions of the Chinese authorities. So this is a great ecological battle where it is not only a question of saving nature, but the individuals, traditions, culture and religion of a people who, in spite of the apparent democratization policy initiated by Deng, risk extinction.

The "VIVO IL TIBET" ("Long Live Tibet") Committee, promoted by Radicals and to which political organizations from various countries belong, proposes to publicize and make known a situation which is not officially denounced by the media because of the major interests with China that are at stake.

Thousands of postcards destined for Chinese embassies throughout Europe ask for the frontier of the "Roof of the World"to be reopened. It was closed on March 8, 1989 when after further rebellions by the Tibetan population, the Chinese Government applied martial law.

On March 10 every year, the day of the anniversary of Chinese repression, demonstrations are organized outside all the Chinese embassies in Europe.

Giovanni Negri, former Radical Secretary, one of the promotors and a Member of the Italian Parliament, has created an "interparliamentary group on Tibet", to which members of all the Italian parties belong.

The March 10 demonstrations were organized in Paris by the Committee for the Support of the Tibetan People to which even the young Chinese student movement belongs. They were also organized in Zurich by Tibetan exiles and "The Office of Tibet", in Brussels, Prague, Moscow, Budapest, Lisbon and Madrid by Radical Party militants of the Transnational Radical Party, and in Rome by the Italia-Tibet Association and the Transnational Radical Party.