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Beijing slams Spain for `interference'

China said yesterday that a Spanish court's investigation into claims of genocide in Tibet was an interference in its internal affairs and called the claims "sheer fabrication."

"The claims of so-called genocide in Tibet are sheer libel, sheer fabrication," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) at a regular news briefing.

Liu said China opposed any interference in its internal affairs, including issues involving Tibet.

A Spanish judge opened proceed- ings on Monday in a lawsuit brought by the Madrid-based Committee to Support Tibet. The group filed the suit against several former Chinese officials under a Spanish law allowing prosecution of human rights crimes even if they were committed in another country.

In its lawsuit, the group said that more than 1 million Tibetans have been killed or gone missing since China occupied Tibet in 1951.

According to a judicial source, Judge Ismael Moreno heard testimony from Thubten Wangchen, an exiled Tibetan who is now a Spanish citizen and director of the Tibet house in Barcelona.

As part of the inquiry, the judge ordered the questioning of alleged witnesses to genocide and victims of abuse now living in London and Canada.

"This is an historic day," Wangchen told journalists upon leaving the court.

He added that it was the first time a Tibetan could tell a judge what took place in Tibet in the decade from 1980 to 1990.

The goal is to "talk about what happened in Tibet on the international level so that the Chinese government sees its errors and begins to respect human rights," he said.

The Spanish courts gave the go-ahead in January to the complaint charging "genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism against the Tibetan people," which was brought by Wangchen and the Tibet house foundation along with the non-governmental organization Tibet Support Committee.

The complaint names former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and former premier Li Peng (李鵬) and five other top Chinese leaders who allegedly were responsible for the repression in Tibet.
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