Rome, March 30:

The speaker of Tibet’s parliament in exile called at a news conference in Rome

today for “neutral” international observers to evaluate the situation inside the restive Chinese province.

“Independent, neutral, unbiased observers should go into Tibet to find out the real situation,” said Karma Chophel, who also heads an ad hoc Tibetan Solidarity Committee formed by Tibet’s government in exile based in India.

“The European Union, Canada, the United States, Australia, these countries have more opportunity to see that wrongs in the world must be made right,” Chophel told the news conference organised by Italy’s libertarian Radical Party.

“If demonstrations and uprisings go on in Tibet then China will continue (clamping down), then the (international) voice should get stronger and stronger,” he urged.

“In the present very urgent circumstance, information is hard to obtain but according to reliable sources a very, very brutal subjugation of the Tibetan people is going on in Tibet,” he said.

The Chinese authorities “are known for using brute force against demonstrators, even on their own people,” he said, adding: “They use propaganda hoping to fool the world, so we must consider our actions with caution.” Chophel charged that “China is ready to label Tibetans as terrorists in order to win international blessing for their actions.” The parliament speaker rejected Chinese claims that the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama “instigated the uprisings in Tibet.” He said: “Those who know the true fact of the matter know that this is a genuine outcry and outburst over Chinese misrule.” Insisting that the current uprising is “genuine,” Chophel said it was being led by third- and fourth-generation Tibetans “if you count from 1959,” the year of a failed uprising that sparked an exodus of Tibetans mainly to India, forming a government in exile in the northern town of Dharamsala.

In addition, Chophel said, unrest is occurring in areas outside the Tibet Autonomous Region to the northeast and southeast that are officially part of China proper. “That goes to show that genuinely Tibetans are not happy with Chinese rule,” he said.

The parliament speaker said that while Tibetans inside Tibet were now seeking full independence from China, the government in exile remained in favour of “genuine autonomy” — self-rule apart from foreign affairs and defence.