DATE=10/22/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA / TIBET / L-O
NUMBER=2-255356
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: China says the door is open for talks with
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, but only
if he admits his homeland is part of China and stops what a
Chinese official in Tibet calls his separatist activities.
VOA correspondent Roger Wilkison reports the official
accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding several terrorist
attacks in Tibet but gave no details.
TEXT: A day after British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged
visiting Chinese President Jiang Zemin to open talks with
the Dalai Lama, Beijing's official English-language
newspaper, the China Daily, quoted a senior Chinese
official in Tibet as saying the Dalai Lama is insincere and
a troublemaker.
The newspaper -- in a report picked up from the official
Chinese news agency Xinhua -- quotes Xu Mingyang as saying
the Dalai Lama has masterminded a series of separatist
activities in Tibet, including several explosions and
assassinations. The report says Mr. Xu made his comments
to a visiting group of foreign reporters in Lhasa, the
Tibetan capital. But it did not say whether he mentioned
specific attacks.
Mr. Xu, whom the newspaper identified as executive vice-
chairman of the Chinese administration in Tibet, also says
a man who last August tried to set off an explosion in
front of Lhasa's Potala Palace -- the former home of the
Dalai Lama -- is alive and has confessed to his crime.
Pro-Tibet groups say the man died in custody after police
beat him. The report in the China Daily gave no further
details.
Tibetan independence activists have beset President Jiang
on his trip to Britain, but a Chinese spokesman has
dismissed the protesters as mostly Westerners who have no
understanding of either Tibet or China.
Mr. Xu repeated the standard Chinese line that Beijing will
talk to the Dalai Lama if he stops calling for Tibet's
independence, acknowledges that Tibet and Taiwan are parts
of China and halts unspecified separatist activities.
The Dalai Lama has said repeatedly that he wants
negotiations for Tibetan autonomy under Chinese rule that
would preserve and promote ethnic Tibetans' cultural,
religious and linguistic identity. The 1989 Nobel Peace
Prize winner has also condemned all forms of violence to
protest Chinese rule.
Tibet has been occupied by Chinese troops since 1950. The
Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 with tens of thousands of
Tibetans after a failed uprising. (SIGNED)
NEB/RW/FC
22-Oct-1999 05:22 AM EDT (22-Oct-1999 0922 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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