Violence spreads in Tibet

Violence spilled over from Tibet into neighbouring provinces today as Tibetans defied a Chinese government crackdown and the Dalai Lama warned that the area faced “cultural genocide” and appealed to the world for help.

Supporters of the Dalai Lama said 80 people had been killed during the protests in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and at least another 72 injured. It was the latest negative publicity for China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

Protests were reported in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces. All are home to Tibetan populations.

The demonstrations come after five days of protests in Lhasa escalated into violence on Friday, with Buddhist monks and others torching police cars and shops in the fiercest challenge to Beijing’s rule over the region in nearly two decades.

“Whether the (Chinese) government there admits or not, there is a problem,” the Dalai Lama said. “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some cultural genocide is taking place.”

He told reporters in Dharamsala, the north Indian town where Tibet’s self-declared government-in-exile is based, that an international body should investigate the government’s crackdown on the protests in Lhasa.

Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama’s government, said multiple sources inside Tibet had counted at least 80 corpses since the violence broke out Friday. He did not know how many of the bodies were protesters. At least another 72 people had been injured, he said.

The official Xinhua News Agency has said at least 10 civilians were burned to death on Friday.

The figures could not be independently verified because China restricts foreign media access to Tibet.

A resident of Aba county in Sichuan, who refused to give his name, said there was a clash between Tibetan monks and armed police after the monks staged a protest. He said one policeman had been killed and three or four police vans had been set on fire.

The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said at least seven people have been shot dead in the county. There was no way of immediately confirming the claim.

In Qinghai, 100 monks defied a directive confining them to Rongwo Monastery in Tongren city by climbing a hill behind the monastery, where they set off fireworks and burned incense.

The act frayed tensions. Businesses were shuttered, and about 30 riot police with shields took up posts near the monastery. Police forced journalists to delete photographs of the riot squads.

In Gansu, more than 100 students protested at a university in Lanzhou, according to Matt Whitticase of activist group Free Tibet. Witnesses said a curfew was imposed in Xiahe city in the province today, a day after police fired tear gas on a 1,000 protesters, including Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens, who had marched from the historic Labrang monastery.

Large communities of ethnic Tibetans live far outside modern Tibet in areas that were the Himalayan region’s eastern and north-eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham until the communist takeover in 1951. Those areas were later split off by Beijing to become the Chinese province of Qinghai and part of Sichuan province.

Hong Kong Cable TV said about 200 military vehicles each carrying dozens of armed soldiers, drove into the centre of Lhasa today. The footage showed mostly empty streets, but for armoured and military vehicles patrolling and soldiers searching buildings.

Loudspeakers on the streets repeatedly broadcast slogans urging residents to “discern between enemies and friends, maintain order”.

The violence on Friday erupted just two weeks before China’s Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which will pass through Tibet.

China’s communist government is hoping Beijing’s hosting of the August 8-24 Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But the event has already attracted the scrutiny of China’s human rights record and its pollution problems.

International criticism of the crackdown in Tibet so far has been mild, with no threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on China “to exercise restraint in dealing with the protests”.

Ms Rice said she was “concerned by reports of a sharply increased police and military presence in and around Lhasa”. Her statement urged China to release those jailed for protesting.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet.

“We believe that the boycott doesn’t solve anything,” Mr Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.

“On the contrary, it is penalising innocent athletes and it is stopping the organisation from something that definitely is worthwhile organising.”

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.

The protests by Buddhist monks spiralled to include cries for Tibet’s independence and turned violent when police intervened. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.