China Accuses Dalai Lama

suchandra · March 18, 2008

Somehow the people in Tibet must feel like being threatened to become a China controlled province and gradually their traditional lifestyle based on sustainable agriculture being lost.

China accuses Dalai Lama of 'inciting' Tibet riots to 'sabotage' Olympics

By Richard Spencer in Rebkong, Qinghai and James Miles, the only western journalists in Lhasa

Last Updated: 7:57am GMT 18/03/2008

Page 1 of 2

China's Premier Wen Jiabao has blamed the Dalai Lama for orchestrating riots in Tibet that have left at least 16 people dead in the worst violence there for two decades.

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Mr Wen accused followers of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader of attempting to "incite sabotage" of Beijing's Olympic Games in August.

<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" hspace="0" width="358"><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2" width="8"> </td><td width="350"><center></center></td></tr><tr><td class="caption"><center>Tibetans throw money to pay for prayers for protesters shot dead by police in Aba county, Sichuan on Sunday

</center></td></tr></tbody></table>"There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," Wen told a news conference.

He said demonstrators "wanted to incite the sabotage of the Olympic Games in order to achieve their unspeakable goal".

"This has all the more revealed the consistent claims by the Dalai clique that they pursue not independence but peaceful dialogue are nothing but lies."

The Chinese leader defended his handling of the uprising after troops poured onto the streets of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and rounded up scores of demonstrators.

"Those claims that the Chinese government is engaged in cultural genocide are nothing but lies," he said.

Lhasa has now fallen silent after days of rioting.

The Dalai Lama has denied the allegations and called for an international inquiry into China's crackdown, while Western leaders have called for restraint.

"What can I say, these are baseless accusations," Tenzin Taklha, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama, said in Dharamsala in India. "It started off with just one or two incidents. Because of technology, because of word of mouth, word quickly spread. This was very spontaneous."

Images of several dead protesters were published by the Kirti monastery in Dharamsala, the Indian home of the exiled Tibetan government.

The streets of Lhasa - where China has blocked almost all media coverage - were swarming with security forces as a deadline passed after which China had threatened to "deal harshly" with anyone who did not surrender before midnight.

As residents of the battered city emerged quietly from their homes after days of street fighting, they saw ranks of security forces patrolling the streets, carrying batons or rifles.

Officers carrying automatic rifles were seen checking the ID papers of passers-by and two armoured personnel carriers prevented people from praying at the Jokhang temple.

Exiled Tibetans said police had been rounding up known political dissidents, and some were reportedly paraded in handcuffs through the streets.

<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" hspace="0" width="308"><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2" width="8"> </td><td width="300"><center></center></td></tr><tr><td class="caption"><center> Watch: The Dalai Lama wants an international investigation into the crackdown against protesters

</center></td></tr></tbody></table>Some Tibetans claimed they were being watched everywhere they went.

As the city at the heart of the protests fell silent, protests continued to erupt around the region and worldwide.

A small group of students staged a candle-lit vigil at a university for ethnic minorities in Beijing, bringing the demonstrations to the capital for the first time.

Any student protest in Beijing is significant, bringing back memories of the pro-democracy student protests around Tiananmen Square in 1989 which were crushed by the military with great loss of life.

In Gansu's Maqu county, which borders Sichuan province, thousands of monks and ordinary Tibetans clashed with police in various locations.

In Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, at least 59 Tibetan exiles, including monks and nuns, were detained after police broke up two protests outside a United Nations complex, using sticks and tear gas.

part 2: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/18/wtibet318.xml

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