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Curbs on Protest in Tibet Lashed by Dalai Lama •
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Tibet Governor Promises Harsh Consequences
The Associated Press
Monday 17 March 2008
Beijing - Tibet's governor promised leniency to anti-Chinese protesters who
turned themselves in before the end of Monday - and harsh consequences for
those who don't - while troops fanned out to quell sympathy protests that have
spread to three neighboring provinces.
Champa Phuntsok said last week's violent demonstrations in the regional capital
of Lhasa left 16 dead and dozens injured. Unconfirmed reports from Tibetan exile
groups put the death toll at 80, a claim he denied.
The uprising, the fiercest against Chinese rule in the region in almost two
decades, has embarrassed China's communist government and undermined its efforts
to have an unblemished run-up to the Beijing Olympics.
The ensuing crackdown, meanwhile, led the Dalai Lama, Tibetans' exiled spiritual
leader, to decry what he called "cultural genocide" in his homeland and call
for an international investigation.
He also expressed helplessness in the face of the surrender demand. The Washington,
D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said residents were fearful of a
military sweep after the deadline at midnight on Monday.
The Tibet governor described a scene of chaos throughout Lhasa on Friday with
"people engaged in reckless beating, smashing, looting and burning." Shops,
schools, hospitals and banks were targeted and bystanders were beaten and set
on fire, he said.
"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of
justice and China is no exception," said Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan
installed in the governor's role.
"If these people turn themselves in, they will be treated with leniency within
the framework of the law," he said. "If these people could provide further
information about the involvement of other people in those crimes, then they
could be treated even more leniently."
Otherwise, he added, "we will deal with them harshly."
He said he did not know if anyone had surrendered so far. A woman from the
duty office of Lhasa's Public Security Bureau and a man from the publicity department
of the city's Communist Party Committee said they had no idea about the situation.
Both refused to give their names or any other details.
Meanwhile, security forces were mobilizing across a broad expanse of western
China, where demonstrations were springing up in Tibetan communities in the
provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu.
A witness in Sichuan said Monday that government troops had moved into a county
in Aba prefecture, where clashes between monks and police broke out Sunday with
unconfirmed reports of as many as seven killed.
"There are troops that moved into Maerkang County," said a clerk at the Jinchuan
Hotel, who asked not to be further identified.
In Qinghai, riot police sent to prevent protests set off tensions Sunday when
they took up positions outside a monastery in Tongren. Dozens of monks, defying
a directive not to gather in groups, marched to a hill where they set off fireworks
and burned incense in what one monk said was a protest.
In the town of Xiahe in Gansu, authorities clamped down with a curfew after
two days of protests inspired by those in Lhasa. Patrols of riot police, in
black uniforms, helmets and flak jackets, and armed police in green uniforms
carrying batons marched through the town Sunday in groups of 10 and 20.
In the provincial capital of Lanzhou, about 500 Tibetan students gathered Sunday
on the Lanzhou Northwest Minorities University's soccer field to show solidarity
with Tibetans in Lhasa.
About 50 of them stayed overnight amid a strong security presence but were
prevented by security forces from leaving the campus to enter the city on Monday,
the Free Tibet rights group said.
In Gansu's Maqu county, which borders Sichuan, violence broke out Monday when
thousands of protesters, including monks, clashed with dozens of police.
A police officer at the county public security bureau said about 10 policemen
were injured. A man who answered the phone at the Maqu county government office
said the situation had stabilized.
In Nepal, meanwhile, police used bamboo batons to disperse about 100 Tibetan
protesters and Buddhist monks in Katmandu on Monday, arresting around 30.
The unrest in Tibet began March 10 on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against
Chinese rule of the region. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before
communist troops entered in 1950.
Beijing has said the violence was engineered by supporters of the Dalai Lama,
whose government-in-exile has been based in the Indian hillside town of Dharmsala
since he fled Tibet after the failed 1959 uprising. He is still the region's
widely revered spiritual leader and one of the figures most reviled by China's
communist leadership.
Speaking to reporters in India on Sunday, the Dalai Lama called for his followers
to protest peacefully but said he would not order them to end the demonstrations.
"Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide
is taking place," the Dalai Lama said, referring to an influx of Chinese migration
into Tibetan areas and restrictions on Buddhist practices - policies that have
generated deep resentment among Tibetans.
The Nobel Peace laureate said that he felt "helpless" in the face of the
Chinese ultimatum for protesters to surrender. "I feel very sad, very serious,
very anxious. Cannot do anything. That is helpless," he said.
"This is something like the people's movement," he said, calling himself
just a spokesman for the Tibetan people. "Morally, I don't want to demand 'do
this, do that."'
Beijing restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to
independently verify the casualties and the scale of protests and suppression.
Hong Kong broadcaster TVB said Monday that public security officers kicked
out reporters from three Hong Kong television stations in Lhasa - Cable TV,
TVB and ATV.
Local governments in western China were also starting to ban foreign reporters,
citing safety concerns.
State television broadcast extensive footage of torched buildings and streets
strewn with burned and looted goods, underscoring the government's drive to
emphasize the destructive nature of the protests without discussing their underlying
causes.
Champa Phuntsok said "The rioters resorted to extremely brutal means."
In one case, gasoline was poured over a person who was then set on fire and
died, he said. In another, the protesters "knocked out a police officer on
patrol and then they used a knife to cut a piece of flesh from his buttocks
the size of a fist."
He described 13 of the dead as "innocent civilians," and said another three
people died jumping out of buildings to avoid arrest. Dozens of armed police
and public security officers were also injured, Champa Phuntsok said.
--------
Associated Press Writer Binaj Gurubacharya contributed to this report
from Katmandu, Nepal.
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Curbs on Protest in Tibet Lashed by Dalai Lama
By Somini Sengupta
The New York Times
Monday 17 March 2008
Dharamsala, India - The Dalai Lama accused China on Sunday of waging
"cultural genocide" against his followers in Tibet and called for
an international inquiry into the suppression of protests there, his strongest
defense to date of Tibetan Buddhists who have staged an uprising against Chinese
rule.
Speaking at the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, the Dalai
Lama endorsed the right of his people to press grievances peacefully against
the Chinese authorities, and said he would not ask Tibetans to surrender to
Chinese military police by midnight on Monday, as Beijing has demanded. He said
that he had no moral authority to do so and that Tibetans had beseeched him
not to capitulate to that demand.
"Whether the Chinese government admits it or not, a nation with an ancient
cultural heritage is actually facing serious dangers," the Dalai Lama
told reporters during an emotionally charged news conference here. "Whether
intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place."
His comments reflected the inflamed passions among Tibetans abroad, who view
the revolts, the largest since the late 1980s, as a watershed moment.
Some Tibetans hope to press for outright independence from China. They argue
that they have an unprecedented political opportunity to push for change as
China prepares to be the host country for the Olympic Games in August and faces
intense scrutiny of its human rights record.
The Dalai Lama, 72, who heads the Tibetan government in exile and serves as
the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, does not call for Tibetan independence
and has remained far more cautious, fearing that the reprisals could worsen
in Tibet. But his tone on Sunday and the words he chose to describe the Chinese
crackdown are the strongest he has used since his representatives began negotiations
with the Chinese in 2002.
Though the impact of the Dalai Lama's words was difficult to gauge, they
were almost certain to further enrage Beijing. Even as he spoke, there were
unconfirmed reports that demonstrations by ethnic Tibetans had spread to the
nearby Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai.
The developments also appeared to diminish the Dalai Lama's hopes of
persuading Chinese leaders to allow him to return to Tibet, his goal in talks
between his representatives and Communist Party leaders.
"They have no experience how to deal with problems through talk, only
suppress," he said.
Aides to the Dalai Lama said they had confirmed 80 killings on March 13 and
14 in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, including 26 victims killed just outside
Drapchi prison. Tibetan exiles in Dharamsala said they had also received news
that at least two Buddhist monks had set themselves afire in protest. The claims
could not be independently confirmed. China says the death toll in the recent
unrest is much lower.
China says Tibet has been part of its territory for hundreds of years. It has
exercised full control only since 1951.
Several times during the news conference, the Dalai Lama reminded reporters
that he was not calling for secession. "As far as material development
concerned, we get much benefit" from being part of China, he said. He
also said he remained supportive of the Olympics' being held in China
but called on the international community to exercise its "moral responsibility"
to remind Beijing about human rights.
Asked whether he endorsed the protests in Tibet, during which, the Chinese
authorities say, ethnic Tibetans assaulted Han Chinese, the Dalai Lama said
Tibetans were entitled to air grievances peacefully. "Protest -
peaceful way express their deep resentment - is a right," he said.
The unrest comes during the twilight of the Dalai Lama's life, during
which he has achieved awards and acclaim but little progress to resolve the
fate of Tibet, which he fled for India after a failed uprising in 1959.
China has consolidated its hold on the frontier region, most recently extending
a rail line that many Tibetans believe will spread Han Chinese domination.
Some Tibetans say they fear that Beijing is simply waiting for the Dalai Lama
to die in hopes that his influence will be difficult to replicate.
The latest clashes in Lhasa are by far the largest since the late 1980s, when
China declared martial law and violently suppressed demonstrations there, leaving
scores, perhaps hundreds, of ethnic Tibetans dead. The Dalai Lama said Sunday
that he feared such a crackdown again.
"I do feel helpless," he said. "I feel very sad, very serious,
very anxious. Cannot do anything."
The Dalai Lama said the Chinese ultimatum to Tibetan protesters to surrender
reminded him of 1959. Asked if he could stop the protesters from defying the
deadline, he replied, "I have no such power."
He went on to say that he had spoken with a caller in Tibet on Saturday who
said, "Please don't ask us to stop." The Dalai Lama promised
he would not, even though he expected the Chinese authorities to suppress the
protests with force.
"Now we really need miracle power," he said, before laughing starkly.
"But miracle seems unrealistic."
He took questions for more than an hour inside a temple in the lap of snow-capped
Himalayas. The limits of his influence, and even his "middle path"
message of freedom for Tibetans, rather than total independence for Tibet, came
into sharp relief as thousands of mostly young Tibetan exiles raised a chorus
of stridently anti-Chinese slogans and called for outright secession.
"We, the young people, feel independence is our birthright," said
Dolma Choephel, 34, a social worker active with the Tibetan Youth Congress,
who went to a demonstration on Sunday morning outside the gates of the main
town temple. "We understand the limitations of the Dalai Lama's
approach. What we got after six rounds of talks - this violence?"
She was referring to the six negotiating sessions between the Dalai Lama's
representatives and Chinese authorities over the past six years.
Just behind where Ms. Choephel stood, Buddhist monks began a hunger strike.
Protesters laid Chinese flags on the road, inviting cars and pedestrians to
trample them. Later, thousands streamed down the hill, to Dharamsala town, the
largest Tibetan settlement in India. Many had painted their faces with the colors
of the Tibetan flag.
"Long live the Dalai Lama," they chanted, making it plain that,
despite their more radical calls, they remained loyal to him.
For the second consecutive day, protests appeared to have spread into Tibetan-populated
regions beyond Tibet. Buddhist monks and the police reportedly clashed in Abe
County in Sichuan Province. A crowd of about 200 Tibetan protesters burned a
local police station, according to news agency reports. One witness said a police
officer was killed in the confrontation.
The India-based Tibet Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported that the
police had killed at least eight Tibetan protesters. Meanwhile, monks at a monastery
in Qinghai Province defied an order to remain inside the Rongwo Monastery, according
to The Associated Press.
A day after Buddhist monks and other Tibetans demonstrated in Xiahe in Gansu
Province, residents said the military police had secured the city. Witnesses
said numerous people were injured in Xiahe after the Tibetans hurled rocks and
the police responded with tear gas.
Meanwhile, Chinese military police continued to canvass the streets of Lhasa
on Sunday in what has become a virtual lockdown of the city. More than 200 transport
vehicles, each carrying as many as 60 military policemen, had moved into the
central part of Lhasa, according to a Hong Kong television crew there.
Foreigners were blocked from traveling to Lhasa, while some tourists trapped
there during the riots said the authorities were arranging for them to leave.
Some witnesses reported continued unrest in small pockets of the city and described
hearing the sound of gunshots.
India has been the host country for Tibetan refugees since the Dalai Lama's
exodus, but on condition that they not protest against the Chinese government
on Indian soil. India's efforts to improve ties with China in recent years
have made the Tibet issue exceptionally tricky. The Dalai Lama, while acknowledging
India's hospitality, described the government's official position
as "overcautious."
--------
Hari Kumar contributed reporting from Dharamsala, and Jim Yardley
from Beijing.
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