Dalai Lama seeks Gorbachev’s help April 8, 2008

The former Soviet president says Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has asked him to mediate in resolving the ongoing crisis in Tibet.

Mikhail Gorbachev says that Dalai Lama is ‘concerned’ by the situation in Tibet and has expressed hope he and other well-known politicians can bring about a peaceful solution.

“I think that we can find ground for dialogue. All must show prudence and avoid reckless acts,” AFP quoted Gorbachev as saying Monday.

He added that the Dalai Lama was not disputing China’s territorial integrity, noting that Chinese officials have said Beijing was open for ‘contacts and consultations’ if the call for Tibetan independence was renounced.

Beijing has faced international criticism over its crackdown on protests in Tibet that began on March 10.

The protests have spread to other areas of China with Tibetan populations casting a shadow on preparations for the Beijing Olympics.

FT/D

China Says It Has Evidence Dalai Lama Incited Riots March 31, 2008

SHANGHAI — After two weeks in which China contended that Tibet’s government in exile had instigated the riots earlier this month to tarnish the coming Summer Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese government on Sunday issued for the first time what it said was evidence of the plot.

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said the Chinese police had a confession written by an unidentified monk who they said received orders from supporters of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In what an article described as the confession, the monk said: “For the sake of protecting myself, (the Dalai Lama clique) asked me not to participate in the demonstrations in person, just in charge of stirring people up.”

The Chinese government has not held a news conference to identify the monk or explain the circumstances of the confession, so it was not possible to verify either the existence of the monk or of such a statement.

For weeks, China has said it has strong evidence that the riots and protests in Tibet and neighboring regions were orchestrated by the “Dalai clique.”

The Tibetan government, based in Dharamsala, India, quickly dismissed such claims, saying that China was trying to pin blame on Tibetan exiles.

“These are baseless allegations,” Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama’s secretary in Dharamsala, said in a telephone interview on Sunday. “Their spinmasters are trying to put the blame on us.”

Mr. Taklha called on China to allow an independent organization to investigate the accusations.

Since riots erupted March 14 in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, journalists and diplomats have been prevented from traveling freely in Tibet and neighboring regions with large Tibetan populations, some of which have faced serious unrest.

Pressure continues to mount for China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama and find a solution to a problem that has already begun to affect preparations for the Olympics. China has tried to convince other countries that the Dalai Lama’s supporters are behind the unrest and that they finance and equip separatists inside China.

On Saturday, China said it had seized a cache of guns, ammunition, explosives and sophisticated communications equipment at a Buddhist monastery in Sichuan Province, a part of southwestern China that has been the scene of Tibetan protests.

The police in Katmandu, the capital of Nepal, scuffled Sunday with Tibetan protesters near the Chinese Embassy. More than 100 people, some of whom were chanting pro-independence slogans, were detained, Reuters reported.

In Athens, protesters tried to disrupt the Olympic torch ceremony, as Greece handed over the flame to China. The government plans to hold a ceremony in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Monday, before the Olympic torch begins its journey around the world.

European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Slovenia over the weekend, also called for an end to violence in Tibet and for talks between China and the Dalai Lama.

But Chinese leaders continue to take a hard-line approach. They contend that the Dalai Lama and his government in exile have orchestrated a violent separatist campaign, resulting in the recent clashes that killed about 20 people and wounded hundreds in Lhasa and neighboring regions.

Tibetan groups say China’s harsh suppression of the protests and riots has killed more than 140 people and has resulted in the detention and harassment of hundreds of Tibetans, including monks.

The Chinese government also said it had arrested 26 people suspected of rioting in Aba County, Sichuan Province.

There seems to be little room for compromise. China says the Dalai Lama has walked away from negotiations and has lied. For his part, the Dalai Lama says that he does not support violence, that he supports having the Olympic Games in Beijing and that he is willing to negotiate.

Group Tries to Block Torch

ATHENS — Shouting “Free Tibet” and flashing red banners reading “Stop Genocide in Tibet,” demonstrators charged a police cordon here on Sunday, trying to block the Olympic flame from making its final 100-yard run into a sprawling marble arena.

Backed by riot squads, scores of police officers detained 10 of an estimated 15 demonstrators, taking them to Greece’s national police headquarters minutes after the ceremony began.

Greece carried out a major security operation for the event, deploying more than 1,000 police officers and changing the flame’s route at least three times.

Yet even before the handover began, three supporters of Falun Gong were detained outside Panathinaiko Stadium for distributing leaflets on the spiritual movement outlawed in China.

China accuses Dalai Lama of taking Olympics “hostage” March 23, 2008

BEIJING, March 23 (Reuters) – China has accused the Dalai Lama of plotting “terror” in Tibet and colluding with Uighur separatists in Xinjiang as it escalates a security and propaganda drive to stifle anti-Chinese unrest ahead of the Olympics.

Anti-government protests by Buddhist monks erupted in Tibet’s capital, Lhasa, from March 10 and five days later anti-Chinese rioting shook the city, killing a policeman and 18 innocent civilians, burnt or hacked to death, authorities have said.

Protests then flared in nearby provinces with large ethnic Tibetan populations, leaving at least several more people dead.

In Sichuan, Gansu and other troubled provinces, troops continued conspicuously patrolling the streets of Tibetan towns, with schools and Buddhist monasteries under tight guard.

China said on Sunday 94 people have been injured in Tibetan areas in Gansu, almost all of whom are police, Xinhua reported.

Police had discovered a semi-automatic rifle and a cache of ammunition in Gansu’s Gannan region, in what Xinhua described as the hideout of a “mobster”, in a report that repeated government offers of leniency to those who surrender.

Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, has criticised the violence and said he wants talks with China to negotiate autonomy, but not outright independence, for his homeland, which was occupied by Chinese troops from 1950.

But the government is intensifying propaganda telling its citizens and the rest of the world that the Dalai Lama, not failings in government policy, caused the trouble and that he wants to ruin Beijing’s Olympic Games in August.

“We must … win the final victory in all respects against the secessionist forces to help ensure a successful Olympic Games with a stable social situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region,” Xinhua quoted Tibet’s governor, Qiangba Puncog, as saying.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, said on Sunday that the Dalai, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, had never abandoned violence after fleeing China in 1959, following a failed revolt against Beijing.

“The so-called ‘peaceful non-violence’ of the Dalai clique is an outright lie from start to end,” the paper stated.

“In 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games, eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, will arrive. But the Dalai Lama is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence.”

The paper earlier accused the Dalai Lama of planning attacks with the aid of violent Uighur separatist groups seeking an independent East Turkestan for their largely Muslim people in northwest China’s Xinjiang region.

FEROCIOUS CRITICISM

Up to now, most of the ferocious criticism of the Dalai Lama came from the official Tibet press, but many more are joining in.

“The Dalai clique has descended into becoming an outright terrorist organisation,” said a commentary on an official Shanghai news Web site (www.eastday.com).

Beijing’s efforts to isolate the Dalai Lama could become a sticking point with Taiwan’s President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, who said the exiled leader would be welcome on the disputed island, and an Olympic boycott was possible.

China calls Taiwan a breakaway province that must accept reunification.

“The Dalai Lama, if he wants to visit Taiwan, he’d be more than welcome,” Ma — who favours closer economic ties and political dialogue with China — told a news conference in Taipei on Sunday, a day after his landslide election win.

“If the situation in Tibet worsens, we would consider the possibility of not sending athletes to the Games,” said Ma.

China’s denunciations of the Dalai Lama have drawn applause from many Han Chinese citizens, who have said Western critics fail to appreciate their government’s efforts to develop Tibet and have treated the violence in Lhasa as legitimate protest.

But the campaign has begun to draw some domestic critics.

On Saturday, a group of 29 Chinese dissidents urged Beijing to end the bitter propaganda, allow United Nations investigators into Tibet, and open direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama.

While troops have choked off much travel in Tibetan areas and blocked access by foreign reporters, officials have also said they are guarding against unrest in Xinjiang.

Tibet riot death toll at 18 March 22, 2008

BEIJING (Reuters) – Eighteen civilians and a policeman were killed in anti-Chinese rioting that rocked the Tibetan capital of Lhasa last week, the regional government said.

The official death toll in the violence, which China has blamed on the region’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, had been 13. Exiled Tibetans say as many as 100 people died.

Tibetans in China’s tense southwestern province of Sichuan said they believed police had killed several people in anti-Chinese riots there this week, disputing official claims that none died.

The unrest has alarmed China, keen to look its best in the run-up to the August 8-24 Olympic Games in Beijing when it hopes to show the world that it has arrived as a world power.

In the rioting in Lhasa, “241 police officers were injured, 23 critically, and one police officer was killed by the mob,” the government in a statement carried by Xinhua.

The number of injured civilian rose to 382 from 325. Some 58 were seriously wounded.

Police in Tibet issued a notice last Saturday, urging rioters to give themselves up. The number had climbed to 183 by Friday.

The Public Security Bureau of Lhasa has issued a “most wanted” list for 21 suspects and posted their pictures on the Internet.

Tensions remain high in Tibet, Sichuan and other neighboring areas where the government has poured in troops.

Protesters ’surrender in Tibet’ March 19, 2008

More than 100 people have turned themselves in to police following anti-China riots in Tibet’s main city, Lhasa, Chinese state media has said. People surrendered to secure leniency in response to a deadline set by the authorities, Xinhua news agency said.

China says it will harshly punish protesters who do not surrender. Police in Lhasa have been searching houses and making arrests, activists say.

China has blamed the Dalai Lama for the protests – a claim he roundly rejects.

The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader has called for an end to violence, saying Tibetans have to live with the Chinese whether they like it or not.

‘Life and death struggle’

Tibet’s Communist Party secretary Zhang Qingli has warned of a “long-term” struggle against the Tibetan exile movement.

“We are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life and death struggle with the Dalai Clique,” he told a teleconference of regional leaders on Wednesday.

We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side-by-side The Dalai Lama Crackdown on the news Lama’s birthplace blocked

“Leaders of the whole country must deeply understand the arduousness, complexity and long-term nature of the struggle,” he said in remarks carried online by the China Tibet News.

The protests began on 10 March, on the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, and gradually escalated.

China says 13 people were killed by rioters in Lhasa. Tibetan exiles say at least 99 protesters have died in clashes – in Lhasa and beyond – with authorities.

‘Widespread arrests’

According to the Tibet regional government, 105 people involved in the protests had handed themselves over to police by 2300 (1500GMT) on Tuesday, Xinhua reported.

All had been involved in “beating, smashing, looting and arson”, the agency quoted Baema Chilain, vice-chairman of the regional government, as saying.

TIBET DIVIDE China says Tibet was always part of its territory Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before 20th century 1950: China launched a military assault Opposition to Chinese rule led to a bloody uprising in 1959 Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama fled to India Accounts from Tibet Send us your comments Tibet adds to Olympic woes

Foreign media have not been allowed into Lhasa and the flow of information out is tightly controlled, but rights groups say they have heard reports of widespread arrests.

“In Lhasa we (have been told about) hundreds of arrests,” Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet told the French news agency AFP.

In a statement, US-based group Human Rights Watch urged China to allow independent monitors access to detainees.

Chinese authorities have insisted no lethal force was used to quell the protests, which have since spread to regions that border Tibet.

But rights groups have accused Chinese security forces of a violent crackdown.

Call for inquiry

On Tuesday Tibetan activists released images they say support their claim of heavy casualties and Chinese brutality.

They say the pictures depict protesters killed by Chinese security forces at Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province on Sunday – but the BBC is unable to verify these claims.

A representative of the Chinese embassy in London, Yu Jing, said it was “hard to judge from the pictures” but that if they were accurate, there would be an explanation.

She said some reports suggested the local police station and police officers had been attacked, and that Chinese officials were looking into the claims.

Tibetan activists say Chinese troops shot indiscriminately(Warning: Graphic content) In pictures: Shooting claims

The Tibetan exile government said it had also heard reports of 19 deaths in neighbouring Gansu province.

On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the violence.

The Dalai Lama – who in 1989 won a Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment to non-violent protest – has rejected Chinese claims of involvement and called for calm.

“Violence is against human nature,” the Dalai Lama said. “We must not develop anti-Chinese feelings. Whether we like it or not we have to live side-by-side.”

He has called for an international inquiry into why the riots took place.

China says Tibet has always been part of its territory but Tibet enjoyed long periods of autonomy before the 20th Century and many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959.

Police Crack Down on Anti-Chinese Violence in Tibet March 17, 2008

BEIJING, March 17 — Vowing a harsh crackdown, Chinese police conducted house-to-house searches in central Lhasa Monday and rounded up hundreds of Tibetans suspected of participating in a deadly outburst of anti-Chinese violence, exile groups and residents reported.

The large-scale arrests and official promises of tough reprisals suggested the Chinese government has decided to move decisively to crush the protests despite calls for restraint from abroad and warnings that heavy-handed repression could taint next summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Tibetan regional governor, Champa Phuntsok, said detainees who show remorse and inform on others who were part of the week-long unrest would be rewarded with better treatment. But Buddhist monks and other Tibetans who participated in Friday’s torching of Chinese-owned shops and widespread attacks on Han Chinese businessmen would be “dealt with harshly,” he told a news conference in Beijing.

In a widely broadcast announcement, the government had given rioters until midnight Monday to turn themselves in, after which they were threatened with arrest. But Urgen Tenzin, executive director of the India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said he was told by telephone that about 600 Tibetans had been arrested before nightfall by a police sweep that lasted most of the day.

One Han Chinese resident contacted by telephone said a squad of policemen had knocked on the door of his home in Lhasa and demanded to see national identity cards and residence permits for all those inside. A bank officer said police entered his city-center branch and obliged employees one by one to show their national identity cards and respond to questions about their residence and activities.

“We must give them tit for tat and firmly counterattack,” said an editorial in the Communist Party’s official newspaper in Lhasa, the Tibet Daily, in an indication of the government’s determination to crack down hard.

“Ensuring the social stability of the Tibet Autonomous Region is the number one political mission,” the paper said. “It is the priority. We have to take decisive and powerful measures to firmly beat down the enemy’s arrogance and never withdraw our troops without victory . . . We have to severely punish the criminals who are still beating, robbing and burning, arresting them rapidly and with absolutely no mercy.”

Champa Phuntsok, a Tibetan who is the territory’s second-ranking official under party secretary Zhang Qingli, said 13 people were killed during the rampage, raising the previous official death toll by three. They perished during the most violent moments of unrest Friday, when maroon-robed monks and Tibetan youths dressed in normal clothes set fires, looted shops and beat Chinese in what appeared to be an explosion of resentment against their economic domination.

There were no reports of casualties among security forces. But the New China News Agency said 12 were seriously injured — “like any other innocent victim,” the dispatch added — by rioters hurling stones, lashing out with knives and swinging clubs.

The Dalai Lama’s exile organization, headquartered in Dharamsala, India, since his flight from Tibet in 1959, said Tibetans reported by telephone and Internet that they had seen about 80 bodies after the violence Friday, identifying them as Tibetans killed in the disturbances.

The Tibet governor, at a news conference organized by the central government, said regular police and People’s Armed Police sent to quell the riots never opened fire with lethal weapons, although tear gas canisters were fired according to earlier official accounts. Residents and tourists reported hearing the sound of occasional gunfire. But video of deployments in the mostly empty streets of Lhasa Monday showed police without weapons.

With access to Tibet restricted and tight censorship by Chinese authorities, there was no way to assess the accuracy of the competing reports issued by Chinese authorities and exile organizations abroad.

The Communist Party’s main newspaper, People’s Daily, said Monday in its first account indicating the scope of the violence that “an extremely small minority” had engaged in acts of arson and vandalism that were being dealt with by authorities. But most public opinion abroad, it reported, was riveted on just concluded meetings of the National People’s Congress and the People’s Political Consultative Conference, during which Premier Wen Jiabao was formally reelected.

China Daily, the party’s English-language publication aimed primarily at foreigners, published a front page article about pro-Chinese Tibetan figures condemning the violence in Lhasa, which it said was “engineered by the Dalai clique.” Inside, it published a dispatch from the New China News Agency giving readers detailed descriptions of the attacks on shop owners.

Official Chinese television also showed footage of the destruction, focusing on attacks by the rioters to end several days of near silence about what was going on. Censorship of outside reporting on the Tibetan violence was uneven, with some satellite television reports on CNN or the BBC blocked and others allowed to run uninterrupted.

Although China’s censors mainly worry about what the country’s 1.3 billion inhabitants learn, foreign impressions of the violence in Tibet were of concern as well because of the Beijing Olympics scheduled in August. President Hu Jintao’s government has been eager to use the games as a showcase for China’s economic progress over the last three decades and an occasion for international recognition of his attempts to modernize the country and its socialist system.

In that light, some Chinese officials suggested the riots in Lhasa were orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and his exile followers in an attempt to spoil the games. Similarly, they charged earlier this month that separatists in the Uighur Muslim region of Xinjiang were planning a terrorist attack with the Olympics in mind.

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, has opposed efforts by human rights advocates, including Tibetans, to use the Olympics as a way to pressure Beijing for concessions. He told reporters over the weekend that he rejected the idea of an Olympic boycott because of Tibet but was concerned by the reports of violence in Lhasa.

China sets deadline for rioters to surrender March 15, 2008

BEIJING (Reuters) – China set a “surrender deadline,” announced deaths and showed the first extensive television footage of rioting in Lhasa on Saturday, launching a crackdown after the worst unrest in Tibet for two decades.  

The response came following torrid protests on Friday which flew in the face of official claims the region was immune from unrest as Beijing readies to hold the Olympic Games in August.

Xinhua news agency said 10 “innocent civilians” burnt to death in fires that accompanied bitter street clashes in the remote, mountain capital on Friday. It said no foreigners died but gave few other details, and the report could not be verified.

Tibetan law-and-order departments offered leniency for participants who turn themselves in by Monday midnight.

“Criminals who do not surrender themselves by the deadline will be sternly punished according to the law,” stated the notice on the Tibetan government Web site (www.tibet.gov.cn). It added that those who “harbor or hide” them also face harsh treatment.

The government offered rewards and protection for informers.

But a source close to the self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile suggested China’s death toll of 10 was not the full story. He said at least five Tibetan protesters were shot dead by troops. Other groups supporting Tibetan independence have claimed many more may have died.

The Olympic torch arrives in Lhasa in a matter of weeks.

China has accused followers of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of masterminding the rioting, which has scarred its image of national harmony in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics.

“This was closely planned by the Dalai clique to separate Tibet from the motherland,” said the regional government notice, adding the claim that the burning of schools, hospitals, shops and houses was “premeditated.”

A rash of angry blog posts appeared after China confirmed deaths in Lhasa and Hollywood actor Richard Gere, a Buddhist and an activist for Tibetan causes, suggested an Olympic boycott.

“Westerners think they know all about China, telling us that this, that and the other is bad,” wrote one blogger, who listed historical reasons justifying Tibet’s inclusion in China.

Tibetan crowds in the remote mountain city attacked government offices, burnt vehicles and shops and threw stones at police on Friday in bloody confrontations that left many injured.

A Reuters picture showed a protester setting afire a Chinese national flag. Another depicted security personnel shielding themselves against rocks hurled by protesters. Television footage showed plumes of smoke rising over Lhasa and buildings ablaze.

Qiangba Puncog, the top government official in Tibet, told reporters in Beijing that Tibetan authorities had not fired any shots to quell the violence.

But the International Campaign for Tibet cited unconfirmed reports of scores of Tibetans killed. John Ackerly of the group said in an e-mailed statement he feared “hundreds of Tibetans have been arrested and are being interrogated and tortured.”

Danish tourist Bente Walle, 58, said Lhasa was like a ghost town on Saturday.

“Today Lhasa is completely closed and there is Chinese military all over,” she said, adding that many people were tying white prayer scarves on doors. “The Tibetans put them on their doors to tell everybody: here is a Tibetan.”

NO CHANGE OF POLICY

The riots emerged from a volatile mix of pre-Olympics protests, diplomatic friction over Tibet and local discontent with the harsh ways of the region’s Party leadership.

China has chided the leaders of the United States and especially Germany in past months for hosting the Dalai Lama, saying such acts boost what they call his “separatist” goals. It has also urged India to stop protests there by exiled Tibetans.

“We are fully capable of maintaining the social stability of Tibet,” Xinhua quoted an official as saying in a statement repeated across Chinese state media on Saturday.

But already the protests have become an international issue in relation to Beijing’s Games, which China hopes will showcase its economic progress and social harmony.

Asked whether he thought the unrest in Tibet would affect the torch relay, Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, said no.

“The preparations for the Torch relay in Tibet and taking the flame up Mount Qomolangma have been progressing smoothly,” he said. Mount Qomolangma is better known as Mount Everest.

(Additional reporting by Guo Shipeng, Nick Mulvenney and Ben Blanchard in Beijing, John Ruwitch in Chengdu and Sophie Taylor in Shanghai; Editing by Nick Macfie and Jerry Norton)