Report: Development Harming Tibet

Tuesday December 11, 2007 3:01 AM


By MATTHEW ROSENBERG

Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI (AP) - China's push to develop Tibet is leaving Tibetans behind and threatening the fragile environment of the plateau, the source of rivers that serve hundreds of millions of people in Asia, Tibet's government-in-exile said in a report released Monday.

The report says Beijing should stop dictating the future of the region and give Tibetans a say in how the plateau is developed.

``Many past mistakes can avoid being repeated if Tibetans are treated as equal partners,'' the report said, echoing demands by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, that China give the region full autonomy.

Despite the report's often confrontational content - it says China is responsible for Tibet's abysmal 48 percent literacy rate, for example - its authors insist they are not looking to assign blame.

Rather, they say their aim is to work with Beijing to improve conditions in Tibet.

The report ``will make the Chinese understand that the development taking place in Tibet does not help the Tibetan people,'' said Kalon Tempa Tsering of the Central Tibetan Administration, the India-based exile government led by the Dalai Lama.

Whether Beijing will listen is another matter. Beijing has long insisted it helped Tibetans by ending the Dalai Lama's rule - which Chinese officials often deride as ``feudal'' - and that its efforts to develop and industrialize the region will result in a modern, thriving Tibet.

Tibet's exiled government says otherwise, and the report catalogs numerous problems created by Chinese rule - from the from the erosion of Tibetan culture to threats to the plateau's fragile environment.

In Beijing, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official who would not give his name said the ministry was aware of the report but had no immediate comment.

A central issue is a new railroad linked Beijing to Tibet's capital, Lhasa. Tibetans fear that an influx of China's Han majority, which has grown since the train began running last year, will overwhelm the region's Buddhist culture.

The train is also bringing tourists - some 2.45 million in 2006, a 36 percent jump over the previous year, the report said.

``Such a drastic increase in tourism will surely overwhelm this destination, which is considered to be a place of spiritual power, mental purification and transformation,'' it said.

The railway is also making it easier for Beijing to mine the plateau rich in iron, copper, zinc and other minerals, and speed construction of numerous dams that will provide hydroelectric power needed to fuel China's growing economy.

Tibet, the world's highest plateau, is the source of rivers that serve hundreds of millions of people and such projects could ``seriously decrease the water supplies'' across South and Southeast Asia, the report said.

Chinese communist troops occupied Tibet in 1951 and Beijing continues to rule the region with a heavy hand. Beijing enforces strict controls on religious institutions and routinely vilifies the 71-year-old Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 amid an aborted uprising against Chinese rule.

China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially an independent state for most of that time.