Bombing Reported in Tibetan Capital

A bomb reportedly exploded near police headquarters in the capital of Tibet last week on the eve of President Clinton’s visit to China. It was the second recent report of violence in Chinese-occupied Tibet.

The London-based Tibet Information Network said in a statement sent to Associated Press on Thursday that three or four people were injured by the June 24 blast near the Public Security Building in Lhasa. The group said it did not know who was responsible for the blast, the first reported in Tibet in 18 months.

It was also unknown whether the blast was timed to coincide with Clinton’s arrival in China, where the president urged Chinese President Jiang Zemin to negotiate a resolution of the Tibetan situation with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled Buddhist religious and political leader.

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly called for Tibetans to remain nonviolent in their struggle against the Chinese. However, with China unwilling so far to grant Tibet the cultural and religious autonomy the Dalai Lama says he is willing to settle for, elements with the Tibetan freedom movement have recently stepped up their tactics.

Earlier in the week, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy in India said six jailed Tibetans--including a Buddhist monk and four nuns--had been killed in May by Chinese prison guards during pro-Tibetan freedom incidents in Tibet’s Drapchi prison.

China has forcefully occupied Tibet since 1950. In 1959, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after a failed uprising.