"We will be independent one day," one woman among them told The Associated Press. As long as the Dalai Lama is alive, "we have hope."

Like many Tibetans, the woman planned to go back to her home in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, after coming to India for the series of sermons on Buddhism that mark the Tibetan New Year, which began Feb. 17. She would not give her name for fear that Chinese authorities would discover she had come to India.

The sermons the Dalai Lama delivers after the start every New Year are on March 10, which also is the anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet that forced the Dalai Lama into exile in 1959.

The Dalai Lama will deliver a special anniversary message Wednesday. Commemorations in song and dance and protests are planned by Tibetans in the northern Indian town of Dharmsala, where the Dalai Lama has established a government-in-exile, and elsewhere in India.

The trip from Lhasa, 1,000 miles east of Dharmsala, is treacherous. The mountainous frontier between Tibet, India and Nepal is almost impossible to police.

The severe cold deters Chinese patrols in the winter months, including March, when it is too frigid to staff border checkpoints.

Pilgrims and refugees make their way on foot in bitter cold over the mountains, usually first to Nepal where they hitch rides or take buses the rest of the way. Nepalese border guards often try to extort money from the Tibetans, or turn them back.

But over the years, thousands of Tibetans have followed their leader to settle in Dharmsala. Around 3,000 refugees arrive in India each year to stay, as well as thousands of others who come for short periods -- to see the Dalai Lama, or to drop their children off to receive a cultural education, unavailable in Tibet, at the orphanage schools Tibetans run in Dharmsala.

Figures from the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, which is recognized by no other state, show that the Chinese have outnumbered Tibetans in Tibet for nearly a decade because of both Chinese immigration into the province and the Tibetan exodus.

When Tibetans reach Dharmsala, the Dalai Lama often encourages them to return home so that Tibetan culture will not die out there. The administration is also running low on resources to provide shelter and education for the refugees.

In Tibet, reports show the decades of rule by China, where Communist ideology frowns on religion, is slowly diminishing a culture fundamentally based on Buddhism, said Thubten Samphel, the Dalai Lama's foreign affairs secretary.

"Last month the Chinese government introduced an official policy of atheism in a direct attempt to strike at the root of the Tibetan identity," said Samphel, who fled Tibet in 1962. "We believe this policy will not work. Buddhism has been with the Tibetan people for over 1,000 years. Communism has been there for 50."

The Dalai Lama, whom China accuses of trying to break up the country, calls for more autonomy for Tibet rather than independence. He travels the world to speak out against what he calls China's suppression of Tibetan culture.

Human rights groups claim that more than 1,000 Tibetans are political prisoners in China. The U.S. Senate last month adopted a resolution asserting that China "continues to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in ... Tibet."

China dispatches "patriotic education" teams to Tibetan monasteries to stamp out support for the Dalai Lama. But China denies accusations that it is destroying or undermining Tibetan culture.

Another visitor from Lhasa who spoke on condition of anonymity said life has been deteriorating in Tibet.

"Over the last 20 years, prices have increased but wages remain much the same," she said. "The youth are becoming wanderers. Most are unemployed and many Tibetan girls are turning to prostitution."

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Last updated: 9-Mar-99