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LISA: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. China says it hopes to attract 3,000,000 tourists to Tibet this year. Now, that may seem surprising. Chinese authorities are still cracking down on ethnic Tibetans after last spring's protest against Chinese rule. The Chinese government has also blocked most foreign journalists from visiting Tibet, and it's imprisoned Tibetans who have tried to pass on information to the outside world. But in Dharamsala, India, exiled Tibetans find ways of staying informed. The World's Mary Kay Magistad has the story.

MARY KAY: This Tibetan refugee reception center in Dharamsala has been quieter than usual, since the protests inside Tibet in March.

KARMA: Since 10th of March, there are not many people who are coming from Tibet because of the border security and the military pressure in Tibet.

MARY KAY: This is Karma, a doctor who works in the refugee reception center, debriefing Tibetans who do manage to make it here.

KARMA: They bring us the information. Inside Tibet, there is so many tensions and also the military pressures and this new policy of a Patriotic Education Campaign.

MARY KAY: The Patriotic Education Campaign pressures Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama and declare their allegiance to China. Xering is an exiled monk from an ethnic Tibetan area of Sichuan province that held its own protest last spring. He says the pressure on monks at the monastery there has been intense. He says in the aftermath of the March protest, more than 100 soldiers moved onto the Curty monastery grounds and tried to intimidate monks into denouncing the Dalai Lama. He says the monks not only refused, they abandoned the monastery for a month until local officials, concerned about public image, agreed to ease up. But in other Tibetan areas, there's been little easing up. Some independent rights groups say more than 100 Tibetans have been killed since the crackdown began and hundreds more are missing. Tibetans who speak out about the subsequent Chinese crackdown have risked harsh punishment. A Tibetan aid worker received life imprisonment for sharing information with foreigners about the crackdown. Tibetan monk Jigni Juri from Gyantse province, was re-arrested in November after making this video about being detained and tortured in the spring. In the video, he says prison interrogators beat him so badly he was hospitalized twice. He says the interrogators wanted him to denounce the Dalai Lama and blame him for the protests; Jigby refused. They also warned him not to tell anyone he'd been tortured. Chinese authorities have worked to control the story, and when it comes to perceptions of the Chinese public, they've pretty much succeeded. Most people in China will say what happened in March was unprovoked violence by Tibetan rioters. Kansang Salam was one of the Lhasa rioters. Now in Dharamsala, he admits he set a police car on fire with his own cigarette lighter. But, he says, it was hardly unprovoked. Earlier that day, he says, a friend standing right next to him was shot and killed by Chinese police.

KANSANG: The reason why I was angry at the time because I did see a lot of Tibetans fell down on the ground and got shot, and so that's why. I was very angry.

MARY KAY: He says he's also long been angry about Chinese people pouring into Tibet and depriving Tibetan people of the right to speak their own language, practice their own religion, and educate their own children, as guaranteed by China's constitution. The Dalai Lama's envoys tried in November to persuade Chinese officials to reopen Tibetan monastery schools that were closed after the protests. One of the envoys was Kelsang Geltzen.

KELSANG: Our Chinese counterpart told us, “This again shows clearly your intention to separate Tibet from China and to seek independence, because you are very well aware that the monasteries are the hotbeds of separatists.”

MARY KAY: The Chinese government says Tibetans need to accept that they're part of China, that they're Chinese, and that they should be grateful for all that's been done for them. Economic growth in Tibet was 10 percent last year. That's thanks mostly to infrastructure projects, including moving some 300,000 Tibetan farmers and herders into permanent brick homes near roads. That gives the nomads easier access to schools and hospitals, and it gives authorities easier access to them. The government hopes that as it reopens Tibet this year to tourists, mostly Chinese tourists, they'll see all this as evidence of China's generosity to a far-flung province and won't linger too long to ask Tibetans how they feel. For The World, I'm Mary Kay Magistad.

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