Anti-China protests erupt in Tibet Violence erupted Friday in a busy market area of the Tibetan
capital, Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans clashed
with Chinese security forces. Witnesses say angry Tibetan crowds burned
shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus.
The chaotic scene was the latest, and most violent, confrontation in
a series of protests that began Monday and now represent a major
challenge to the ruling Communist Party as it prepares to play host to
the Olympics in August.
Beijing is facing the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in
the remote Himalayan region since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a
rebellion there with lethal force that left scores and possibly
hundreds of ethnic Tibetans dead.
The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, and his
supporters around the world have embraced the protesters in Lhasa, and
thousands of Buddhists in neighboring India and Nepal took to the
streets Friday in sympathy.
Beijing is clearly alarmed that the wave of negative publicity could
disrupt its elaborate plans for the Olympics and its hopes that the
Games will showcase its rising influence and prosperity rather than
domestic turmoil. Residents in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said the
authorities had placed much of the city under a curfew by Friday night
while military police were blocking many city streets. One resident
reported seeing tanks in the center of the city. he U.S. Embassy in Beijing warned American citizens on Friday not to
travel to Lhasa. The embassy said it had "received firsthand reports
from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other
indications of violence."
Xinhua, China's official news agency, issued a short statement in
English confirming that shops in Lhasa had been set on fire and that
other stores had closed because of the violence. But the protests
otherwise received no coverage in the Chinese press.
The Dalai Lama released a statement on Friday calling on both sides
to avoid violence and appealing to the Chinese leadership to "address
the long simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue
with the Tibetan people."
The situation in Lhasa represents a complicated predicament for the
Communist Party, which is now holding its annual meeting of the
National People's Congress in Beijing. Party leaders are grappling with
growing criticism of China's domestic rights record and its ties to
Sudan, which the United States has accused of waging a genocidal
campaign in its Darfur region.
Just as Beijing sees the Olympics as a chance to strut confidently
on the world stage, so its opponents see the international publicity
ahead of the Games as a chance to press deep grievances against the
one-party state.
In the past, China has not hesitated to crush major protests in
Tibet or jail disobedient monks. President Hu Jintao, who is also
general secretary of the Communist Party, served as party boss in Tibet
during a violent crackdown against protests in 1989. His support for
the bloody suppression of unrest that year earned him the good will of
Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader, and led directly to his
elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee and eventually to China's
top leadership posts.
But Chinese leaders may be more reluctant to order such heavy-handed
tactics as Beijing prepares to host the Olympics. On Friday, different
accounts emerged about how Chinese military police in Lhasa handled the
demonstrations.
Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit news agency financed by the U.S.
government, quoted Tibetan witnesses who described Chinese police
officers firing into crowds of protesters and killing at least two
people in the city's ancient Barkhor area. Other accounts from Tibetans
suggested that the police had also attacked Buddhist monks.
But a Chinese resident, reached by telephone, said stories were
spreading among Chinese residents that soldiers had been injured and
had not been allowed to fight back against Tibetans throwing rocks.
Another Chinese man living near the Barkhor area said family members
told him that two soldiers died and that Tibetans were beating Chinese
residents with iron rods.
The sharp escalation in violence Friday, and the sense of dread
described by several residents, came a day after the Chinese Foreign
Ministry said that the situation in Lhasa had stabilized. The protest
started Monday when Buddhist monks began peaceful demonstrations
against religious restrictions by the Chinese authorities. The police
arrested 50 or 60 monks, but other protests followed on Tuesday and
Wednesday as monks in two different monasteries took to the streets.
The apparent epicenter of protests Friday was the Tromsikhang
Market, a massive, concrete structure built in the Barkhor area of
Lhasa by the Chinese authorities in the early 1990s. "It's chaos in the streets," said a person who answered the telephone at a bread shop near the market.
What actually sparked the violence is unclear, as accounts differed
between Chinese and Tibetan residents. Monks from the Ramoche Temple,
located a short walk from the market, reportedly began to march in the
Barkhor area.
The Ramoche monks intended to protest the rough treatment of monks
who had marched earlier in the week, according to a Tibetan activist in
the United States who has communicated with people in Lhasa.
When police officers began beating the monks, ordinary Tibetans
rioted in the Barkhor area, the activist said. Angry mobs set fire to a
police car and a store owned by a Chinese shopkeeper, the activist said.
But a Chinese travel agent in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said
Tibetans had instigated the violence and set fire to an empty tour bus
parked outside the Ramoche Temple. Another Chinese resident described
50 or 60 young Tibetans burning stores owned by Chinese merchants as
well as two fire trucks and two police cars.
"I saw someone who was dead and covered in a sheet," the Chinese
resident said in a telephone interview. "The Tromsikhang market was
destroyed, except for the shops owned by Tibetans. I heard a soldier
shouting, 'Please go home and stop fighting!' "
News agencies also reported clashes between monks from Ramoche
Temple and military police. "The monks are still protesting," a witness
told The Associated Press. "Police and army cars were burned. There are
people crying. Hundreds of people, including monks and civilians are in
the protests."
Radio Free Asia reported that Tibetan protesters were waving
traditional white scarves and shouting, "Free Tibet." The agency said
the riots began about 10 a.m. and had largely quieted down by 3:30 p.m.
after paramilitary police were mobilized.
Meanwhile, anxious tourists stranded in Lhasa posted worried
comments on online forums for travelers. "The situation seems to be
very nervous and paranoid up here," wrote one person in broken English
in a chat room sponsored by the Lonely Planet tour guide. "There is
police and military everwhere. Suddenly you would see some policeman
running and rushig (sic) somewhere."
The ethnic friction evident in the violence Friday has long simmered
just below the surface in Lhasa. For more than two decades, a steady
influx of Chinese migrants has transformed and stratified the city.
The protests in Lhasa coincided with the anniversary of a failed
1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that forced the Dalai Lama
to flee to India.
Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from
Beijing, and Steven Lee Myers and Graham Bowley contributed reporting
from New York. Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from India. |