and not about whether a Chinese woman can sing in Tibetan.

Do the Chinese have an historical claim on Tibet? Certainly no more of one than the Brits have on Ireland. Yes, there were periods when Tibet was administered from Peking. Unlike Britain and Ireland, though, there were also times when the Mongols (closely related to the Tibetans) were running China. The claim is questionable at best.

The real problem seems to be the fact that traditionally Tibet is a Theocracy, run by the head priest of the Buddhists of the country, and that runs contrary to the Marxist teachings of Mao. So, the Chinese develop a yearning for "democracy" for Tibet, meaning a system of elections administered by the Communist party of China. The entire world knows exactly how free the Chinese elections have been.

So, what it boils down to, is do the Tibetans have the right to choose to be governed by the High Priest? Is there religous coercion involved? Would the world see it in the same way if the Chinese were attempting to bring down the head Imam of Iran? Just because we in the West have a fairly positive view of the Dalai Lama, he's seen as the "rightful ruler", but is that justified?

So we come to the real point, self-determination. Are we for it or against it? What happens when a Khomeini is truly the people's choice for the leadership of their country? Do they have the right to choose what we see as a repressive government?

The music is just more Chinese propaganda. Meaningless, intended to justify in their own eyes the course they've determined on. "Hey, look how broadminded we are! Look at us, we're fighting a repressive theocratic government in the name of power moving to the "people"!" But what remains is a land grab by Peking, and the suppression of a beloved government.

Logically we of the West have to come to some sort of consistent attitude towards this type of political maneuver, we can't continue to argue that Tibetan theocracy is wonderful and deserving of continuation while the Iranian theocracy, engaged in very similar activities, is repressive and to be condemned. That course just fuels the self-justification of Peking, and the rage of Iran. We can't have it both ways.

The Dalai Lama's role in this uprising seems to be minor, and in fact is irrelevant. It's been 50 years since he fled Tibet. The West has to look beyond the cult of personality built around him, and come to terms with what self-determination really means, and how important it is, and what we should do and should not do in the name of allowing nations to determine their own fate.

I'm an ex CPS caseworker in one of the southeast states, and way back in the 1980's my agency actually initiated and carried out a smaller but similar raid on a fundamentalist children's home. Upon entering the home, my co-workers discovered young girls who were considered incorrigable by their parents chained to their beds, physically and mentally abused. No polygamy was involved, but the numbers, while less by about 75 percent, were large enough to give anyone involved some insight into just what a logistical nightmare Texas is facing. No one has the excess capacity in their emergency care system to accomodate this sort of group, simply finding beds and clothing, feeding and providing medical care for all these people is just about impossible given the kind of budgets these agencies work with.

Seperating the women and children, while it seems cruel and problematical, may be the only way to get any sort of straight testimony out of these kids. These women have undergone long-term conditioning not much different from what McCain went through in the POW camp, they've been raised from childhood specifically to be sexual toys for the handful of mostly older men who make up the core of the cult. Leaving the children with the mothers pretty much guarantees that you will get no cooperation, no real insight into what was actually going on inside the cult, and that no long term change will occur. The only hope for a legal end to this morass is to keep up the pressure on the women. And, practically, withholding the children is the only way to put pressure on these women. Left to their own impulses, they'll step right back into the arms of the waiting cult, to be met by legal representatives advising them that if they say nothing all will be "well". It's just a fact that all of those of us who have worked with abused women discover pretty early in our careers that the women will actually oppose efforts to improve their situation. Change comes with glacial speed.

My agency removed close to 100 girls from the abusive home and arrested the personnel in charge, placed the girls into temporary homes, then arranged for bus tickets and returned each girl to their home. The personnel supervising the home were arrested, and we thought the situation was under control.

What happened? The "minister" who ran the home was bailed out, packed all the facility's property up and moved one state to the west. The home was open in a new location in a couple of weeks. Most of the girls were returned to the home by their parents, to be abused again. The legal case went nowhere because of the lack of a way to compel testimony. The state where they relocated was a 10 Commandments state, God fearing and not sparing the rod, and the net result was nothing changing.

Texas has an opportunity to radically improve the lives of these women and children. I only hope they can maneuver through this legal morass and manage to bring about some real change in this situation. Realistically, I think they most likely will change nothing, the cult will move to Arizona or New Mexico and it will be business as usual.