Top official dismisses calls for Dalai Lama's return

BEIJING, June 20 (Reuters) Tibet's top government official defended Chinese rule in the Himalayan region today and dismissed calls by a veteran Tibetan Communist to allow the Dalai Lama to return home.

Reuters exclusively obtained letters sent by Phuntso Wangye to President Hu Jintao from 2004 to 2006 in which the 84-year-old former member of parliament called for the Dalai Lama's return. The letters also condemned hawks for thriving on their opposition to the spiritual leader of the predominantly Buddhist region.

Reuters disclosed the contents of the letters in March, revealing a debate in China's high political circles on the possible return of the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising.

Asked by Reuters to comment on Phuntso's letters, Qiangba Puncog, chairman of Tibet's regional government, told a Beijing news conference today: ''I feel his views do not represent that of the Tibetan people ... but represent the thinking of very few people.'' Already a committed Communist, Phuntso led Chinese advance troops into his homeland in 1951, and acted as interpreter at a 1954 meeting between the Dalai Lama and Mao Zedong in Beijing.

Later purged, he spent 18 years in solitary confinement before his political rehabilitation.

Qiangba Puncog rejected the Dalai Lama's call for a Greater Tibet - parts of western Chinese provinces populated by Tibetans as well as Tibet proper - under a single administration, saying such an entity had not existed for more than a thousand years.

ULTERIOR MOTIVES? ''I feel it (the call) has ulterior motives. In reality, it would be covert independence,'' he said. The Buddhist leader insists he does not advocate Tibetan independence.

''He travels around the world not for religious issues but to internationalise the Tibet issue and serve his political motives,'' the official said. ''He's very good at winning the hearts of Westerners.'' Qiangba Puncog defended Communist rule in Tibet, saying gross domestic product had hit 29 billion yuan (3.8 billion dollars) in 2006, up more than 12 per cent year-on-year for six consecutive years.

Per capita GDP exceeded 10,000 yuan for the first time last year, he said. The net income of farmers and herders had seen double-digit growth for the fourth year in a row and now stood at 2,435 yuan (320 dollars).

''For every 10 yuan spent by Tibet, 9 yuan came from the central government,'' Qiangba Puncog told the news conference.

China, flush with cash and the world's fourth-biggest economy, has pledged to invest 77.8 billion yuan in 180 projects in Tibet up to 2010. But the official insisted that development should not come at the expense of Tibet's fragile environment.

''We are committed to protecting the environment like we protect our own eyes,'' Qiangba Puncog said.

He rejected accusations by human rights groups that the 2006 opening of a railway linking Tibet and the northwestern province of Qinghai would assimilate Tibet into China and destroy its culture.

Qiangba Puncog insisted China was committed to protecting religious freedom and had poured more than 300 million yuan into renovation of the Potala Palace in Lhasa and two monasteries.

Tibet currently had more than 1,700 religious sites with more than 40,000 Buddhist monks and nuns, he said.

Just a few decades ago, during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Maoist zealots rampaged across Tibet, smashing Buddhist statues, destroying temples and forcing monks and nuns to abandon their religious lives.

($1=7.617 Yuan) REUTERS AK RN1416