The Chinese Saga of Olympic Shame Deepens -- Protesters clash with
police in Tibetan capital/IHT
International Herald Tribune
Protesters clash with police in Tibetan capital
By Jim Yardley
Friday, March 14, 2008
BEIJING: Violent protests erupted Friday in a busy market area of Lhasa,
the Tibetan capital, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans clashed
with Chinese security forces. Witnesses say the protesters burned shops,
cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus.
The chaotic scene marked the most violent demonstrations since protests
by Buddhist monks began in Lhasa on Monday, which was the anniversary of
a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The ongoing
protests have been the largest in Tibet since the late 1980s, when
Chinese security forces repeatedly used lethal force to restore order in
the region.
The developments prompted the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of
Tibetan Buddhism, to issue a statement, saying that he was concerned
about the situation and appealing to the Chinese leadership to "stop
using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan
people."
By Friday night, the Chinese authorities had placed much of the central
part of the city under a curfew, including neighborhoods around
different Buddhist monasteries, according to two Lhasa residents reached
by telephone. Military police were blocking roads in some ethnic Tibetan
neighborhoods, several Lhasa residents said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing warned American citizens to stay
away from Lhasa. The embassy said it had "received firsthand reports
from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other
indications of violence."
The Chinese government's official Xinhua news agency issued a
two-sentence bulletin, in English, confirming that shops in Lhasa had
been set on fire and that other stores had closed because of violence on
the streets. But the Chinese news media otherwise carried no news about
the protests.
The disturbances appear to be becoming a major problem for the ruling
Communist Party, which is holding its annual meeting of the National
People's Congress this week in Beijing. China is eager to present a
harmonious image to the rest of the world as Beijing prepares to play
host to the Olympic Games in August.
Information emerging about the protests Friday was scattered and
difficult to verify. But witnesses in Lhasa say the violence erupted
Friday morning at the Tromsikhang Market, a massive, concrete structure
built in the old Tibetan section of the city by 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.
A local travel agent, reached by telephone, said a riot broke out at the
market and around the nearby Ramoche Temple because of friction between
Tibetan and Han Chinese traders. The agent said fires erupted near the
Ramoche Temple and elsewhere in the market area, while Tibetan traders
also overturned a tour bus and set it ablaze.
"There was a fight between the bus owner and the Tibetans who set the
fire," said the agent, who is Han Chinese. "But not serious. Only
several people got hurt."
The demonstrations apparently expanded as protesters set fire to other
shops. Western news agencies reported that monks from the Ramoche Temple
went into the streets and clashed with police officers. "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."
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 grammar and spelling on a
Lonely Planet guide chat room. "There is police and military everywhere.
Suddenly you would see some policeman running and rushig somewhere ... "
Another Lhasa resident reached by telephone described the protests
Friday as the most violent of the week.
"There have been several riots in recent days," said Liu, the resident,
who would only give her surname. She said friends who witnessed the
riots described them to her. "Today's riot is more serious. I have a
full-time job in a state-owned company, and we got notice from our
superiors not to go watch the riots."
In his statement, the Dalai Lama said: "These protests are a
manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people under
the present governance."
He also called on his "fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence."
Beijing has kept a tight lid on dissent in the months before the Olympic
Games. But people with grievances against the governing Communist Party
have tried to promote their causes at a time when, with heavy
international attention focused on China, top officials may be wary of
cracking down using force.
Tibet was taken militarily by China in 1951 and has remained
contentious, particularly because of the bitter relations between the
Communist Party and the Dalai Lama.
Sporadic talks between China and the Dalai Lama's representatives have
produced no results, and Beijing continues to condemn him as a
"splitist" determined to severe the region's ties to China. In the past,
the Dalai Lama has said that he accepts Chinese rule but that Tibetans
need greater autonomy to practice their religion.
Accounts from Tibetan advocacy groups, from the U.S.-financed Radio Free
Asia and from tourists' postings on the Internet suggest that protests
emerged from three of the most famous monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism.
Robert Barnett, a Tibet specialist at Columbia University who has
communicated with Tibetan exiles, said the initial incident occurred
Monday afternoon when about 400 monks left Drepung Loseling Monastery
intending to march eight kilometers, or five miles, west to the city
center. Police officers stopped the march at the halfway point and
arrested 50 or 60 monks.
But Barnett said the remaining monks held the equivalent of a sit-down
strike and were joined by an additional 100 monks from Drepung. The
monks "were demanding specific changes on religious restrictions in the
monastery," Barnett said.
He said monks wanted the authorities to ease rules on "patriotic
education" in which monks are required to study government propaganda
and write denunciations of the Dalai Lama.
On Tuesday morning, the Drepung monks apparently agreed to return to the
monastery.
But another protest was under way in the heart of the city, outside the
Jokhang Temple, the most sacred temple in Tibet. About a dozen monks
from the Sera Monastery staged a pro-independence protest, waving a
Tibetan flag in front of onlookers in the crowded square outside the
temple. Police officers arrested the monks. Foreign tourists posted
video on the Internet of officers shooing away people.
The arrests sparked another protest on Tuesday. Witnesses told Radio
Free Asia that 500 or 600 monks poured out of the Sera Monastery, about
three kilometers north of the Jokhang Temple. They shouted slogans and
demanded the release of their fellow monks.
"Free our people, or we won't go back!" the monks chanted, Radio Free
Asia reported. "We want an independent Tibet!"
Witnesses said that police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.
A protest was reported Wednesday at Ganden Monastery, about 55
kilometers east of Lhasa.
Radio Free Asia reported Thursday that two monks at Drepung had
attempted suicide.
Barnett said the protests were the largest in Lhasa since 1989, when
protests by monks from the Drepung and Sera monasteries led to a bloody
clash with Chinese security forces and the imposition of martial law. At
that time, the Communist Party chief in Tibet was Hu Jintao, who is now
the president of China and the party's general secretary.
Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from
Beijing. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.
Notes:
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