Former US President Jimmy Carter said it is obvious that Tibet's progress in industry, agriculture, education and culture has benefited the Tibetan people.

Carter made these remarks on June 28 in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on his flight from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to Beijing. He said he has long been interested in the region.

Carter had paid a two-day visit to the Tibet Autonomous Region. There he visited monasteries, temples, a university and a hospital for traditional Tibetan medicine. He found that many previously damaged monasteries and temples have been renovated by the Chinese central and local governments. He said he was pleased to see that freedom of religion and freedom of worship are flourishing there.

One June 27, the Bainqen Lama, a respected Tibetan religious leader, met with Carter and his party. He told Carter that since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Party Central Committee in 1978, the central authorities have corrected all the "leftist" errors made during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) in Tibet. Freedom of religious belief is now ensured, he said, adding that the people's life has greatly improved.

The Bainqen Lama said some American friends in the US House of Representatives do not know the Tibetan situation. They passed some amendments inconsistent with actual Tibetan conditions, saying there are violations of human rights in Tibet. The Tibetan people are unhappy about this, he pointed out. The Bainqen Lama said he hopes Carter can advise more American friends to visit Tibet to get an overall understanding of the region.

When talking about the two amendments adopted on June 18 by the House of Representatives, one on "the violation of human rights in Tibet" and the other on "human rights" in China, Carter told Xinhua that members of the US government can say anything they choose. Sometimes their comments are constructive and sometimes they can be "erroneous or destructive."

Carter said the representatives who voted for the amendments probably have no first-hand experience of Tibet and obtained information from other sources. If he relays what he saw in Tibet to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, they will have a different view on the amendments, he added.

On June 29, Deng Xiaoping, chairman of the Central Advisory Commission of the Communist Party of China, met the former US president. During the 105-minute meeting, Carter told Deng he had seen many renovated temples in Tibet, and people there can engage in religious activities freely. Carter said that as a farm owner himself, the agricultural development near Lhasa had impressed him.

Deng said Tibet has great potential for development. China's policy is based on the equality of nationalities. Since New China was founded in 1949,there has been no ethnic discrimination in the country, he said. China has 55 minority nationalities, which account for only 6 percent of the country's total population. But the percentage of minority nationality cadres in the People's Congress and administrative organs at all levels is much higher than 6 percent.

After the downfall of the "the gang of four" in 1976, Deng said, the central government took many measures to develop the minority nationality areas and decided that it will be a long-term project for the country's relatively developed provinces and municipalities to help the development of Tibet. Natural resources arc plentiful in the minority nationality areas, so these regions have good prospects for development, Deng said.

(This article appears on page 7, No. 28, 1987)