American Detainee In China Has Spinal Injuries

August 23, 1999

By Matt Pottinger

BEIJING (Reuters) - An American researcher injured in a fall trying to escape from Chinese police has suffered spinal damage and broken bones, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Monday.

Daja Meston, who was investigating a controversial World Bank project in the remote western province of Qinghai, was in "serious but stable condition" in a hospital in the provincial capital Xining, the spokeswoman said.

"He has suffered broken bones and spinal and internal injuries," she said.

Meston, 29, from Newton, Massachusetts, met an American doctor and a consular official over the weekend, she said.

Sunday, "he had two brief conversations with the consular officials, both focused on his medical condition," she said.

U.S. officials were working with the Chinese to try to arrange a medical evacuation, but it was unclear whether or when that would take place, she said.

"There is no specific schedule at this point," she said.

Meston and Melbourne University researcher Gabriel Lafitte, 50, were detained after they entered China on tourist visas and traveled to Qinghai, bordering Tibet, to investigate a World Bank project to resettle impoverished farmers.

China deported Lafitte Saturday.

Tibetan rights activists say the project threatens indigenous culture by moving ethnic Chinese farmers onto lands inhabited by Tibetans.

The World Bank and China say the project will alleviate poverty for the local population and for the farmers who moved. Millions of dollars will be provided for schools and irrigation works in the region, they said.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the pair was suspected of "photographing in closed areas where clearly marked restriction signs were posted."

The men "were neither entrusted by the World Bank nor invited by relevant Chinese departments," it said.

U.S. consular officials appeared to confirm Chinese media accounts that Meston was injured after jumping from a building in an attempt to escape police.

"The reports that we've received from the (U.S.) officials in Xining are consistent with the reports that he jumped or fell from a window while attempting to escape," the embassy spokeswoman said.

Meston's wife, Phuntsok Meston, was expected to join him in China, the spokeswoman said.

After the World Bank approved the Xining project in June, Zhu Xian, China's senior representative to the bank, said China welcomed scrutiny of the project.

In an unprecedented move, politicians and foreign reporters were invited to visit the project and talk to local residents.