Critics say the mainland must have something to hide if it seizes visitors to a

IN June the mainland government apparently made an unprecedented gesture to solve a bitter dispute over a multi-million-dollar World Bank resettlement project in Qinghai.

It promised to allow unfettered access to an area, dominated by a secret penal labour camp, to which some 60,000 largely Muslim Hui peasants are to be moved. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue announced that politicians, journalists, academics and anyone else could go there 'at any time' unaccompanied by government officials to see the US$40 million (HK$310.2 million) project for themselves.

Things could hardly have turned out worse. On August 18, Daja Wangchuk Meston, an American who visited the area following this offer, was seized by the State Security police and then broke his back supposedly jumping out of a window during interrogation.

Now facing the possibility of being crippled for life, he was airlifted out of the mainland on Friday for treatment in Hong Kong.

Gabriel Lafitte, 50, who describes himself as a freelance academic for the University of Melbourne in Australia, was held and interrogated in Xining just as a top level Australian government delegation was in the Qinghai provincial capital to discuss human rights.

The visit formed part of the bilateral 'dialogues' which Western governments began when they abandoned trying to pass UN resolutions. The delegation was not allowed to meet Mr Lafitte, nor was a consular official.

Mr Lafitte was released after he says he was forced to sign a 'confession' under duress. The US State Department said it believed that he and Mr Meston were producing an independent study of the project and what the local people think of it. Mr Lafitte, when contacted by the Post at his Melbourne home, was unwilling to elaborate to protect the third member of their group, Tsering Dorje, a local translator, who has gone missing and is expected to spend many years in prison.