US Ambassador Requests Meeting With Freed Tibetan Prisoner
(AFP | Beijing | April 12, 2002)
The US Ambassador to China on Friday asked authorities to allow a meeting with Tanak Jigme Sangpo, recently freed, and reputedly Tibet's longest-serving political prisoner. Ambassador Clark Randt was in Tibet shortly after Jigme Sangpo, 76, was freed on March 31 on medical parole from Lhasa's notorious Drapchi prison, where he had been held continuously since 1983.
But he did not meet with Jigme Sangpo during his visit. and has requested a meeting, an embassy spokesman said.
"The ambassador has requested that he or other appropriate United States government officials or persons be allowed to see Mr. Sangpo at the earliest, appropriate time," the spokeman said.
Jigme Sangpo had been told by Chinese authorities that a request to seek medical treatment abroad would be "sympathetically considered", according to the London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN).
However, John Kamm, a US-based campaigner for prisoners in China, said the former primary school teacher, who has spent 32 years in prison since 1965, did not want to leave Tibet and previously turned down freedom if this was a condition.
The US embassy spokesman did not say why Randt wanted to see Jigme Sangpo.
But he said the purpose of Randt's April 5-10 trip was to assess religious freedom, human rights, development and social conditions in Tibet.
While there, Randt met with Tibetan officials including the vice chairman of the government of the "Tibetan Autonomous Region" (TAR) Xu Mingyang, and expressed the US government's concern about human rights and religious freedom in Tibet, the spokesman said.
Randt asked about reported abuses of religious freedom and human rights and inquired about whether Tibetan authorities were doing to preserve Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic heritage, the spokesman said.
"It is important to express our views on human rights and religious freedom in a candid and constructive fashion," Randt was quoted by the spokesman saying in a prepared statement. Randt also visited Tibetan religious sites and met with NGO officials involved in environmental protection, economic development and poverty alleviation there. He spent all the time he was there in the capital Lhasa.
Jigme Sangpo was first jailed for three years from 1965 for making comments on the Chinese treatment of Tibetans, according to rights groups. In 1970 he was sentenced to 10 years hard labour for reportedly inciting his niece to flee Tibet and report Chinese abuses to exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
China seized control of Tibet in 1951 in what it called a "peaceful liberation" and has subsequently exerted a tight and often brutal control over the Himalayan region.
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