New Tibet clashes erupt in China

At least two people have been killed in fresh clashes between Tibetan protesters and Chinese police.

The violence followed a demonstration yesterday in Garze, a prefecture in Sichuan province, which started as a peaceful march by monks and nuns but turned violent when armed police tried to suppress the crowd.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said the protesters attacked police with knives and stones, killing one policeman.

A Tibetan rights group said an 18-year-old monk died and another was critically wounded after security agents fired live rounds.

Garze borders Tibet, where several days of anti-government protests led by monks spiralled into violence on March 14 in the capital, Lhasa. Demonstrations in support of the Lhasa protests have since burgeoned rapidly throughout provinces surrounding Tibet.

The unrest in Garze indicates that Tibetan defiance is still running strong a week after thousands of Chinese troops fanned out to patrol areas outside of Lhasa and clamp down on fresh protests.

The uprising is the broadest and most sustained against Chinese rule in almost two decades, and the Communist leadership has accused Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and his supporters of masterminding the dissent. The government says at least 22 people have died in Lhasa while Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans were killed, including 19 in Gansu province.

Meng Jianzhu, the minister of public security, ordered Tibet’s security forces to remain on alert for further unrest and said “patriotic education” campaigns would be strengthened in monasteries.

Unrest among Tibet’s Buddhist clergy has been blamed in part on compulsory “patriotic education” classes, widely reviled by monks for cutting into religious study and forcing them to make ritual denouncements of the Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after the failed uprising.

In India, the Dalai Lama reiterated his opposition to violence and said he would resign as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if the situation gets out of control.

“We always respect Chinese people and their culture,” he said.

The Tibet Daily said 13 people were formally arrested in Lhasa yesterday for taking part in a March 10 protest outside Jokhang.

Xinhua said Lhasa prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 29 people allegedly involved in riots on March 14. They were accused of “endangering national security” and “committing severe criminal offences.”

In Aba, another Sichuan county, Xinhua said 381 people involved in protests had surrendered to police. Aba is where state media said police shot and wounded four rioters in self-defense on March 16, the first time the government acknowledged shooting any protesters.