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BEIJING: China declared a “people’s war” in Tibet on Sunday
following the biggest uprising against Chinese rule there in nearly
20 years, as it smothered the region’s once peaceful capital with
security forces.
Residents reported that soldiers were blanketing
the city, two days after violent protests left many people dead and
presented China’s communist rulers with a huge domestic crisis
just five months from the Beijing Olympics.
The United States over the weekend maintained
the international pressure on China, which wants to project an image
of a peaceful power ahead of the Games, to exercise restraint in
dealing with Tibetan unrest.
However China’s communist government indicated
it was in no mood to compromise in dealing with the biggest
challenge to its rule of the vast Himalayan region since protests in
1989 were crushed by the military.
“We must wage a people’s war to beat
splittism and expose and condemn the malicious acts of these hostile
forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai Lama group to the
light of day,” the Tibetan Daily said.
It was quoting a statement from Tibetan
political and security chiefs made at an emergency meeting on
Saturday in response to Friday’s deadly unrest.
“This grave outburst of fighting, destruction,
and burning was planned by reactionary separatist forces both within
and outside our borders to smash the social order with the ultimate
goal of an independent Tibet.”
Eyewitness reports have said protesters on
Friday chanted support for independence and the Dalai Lama, who fled
his homeland in 1959 following a failed uprising and is still
revered by the Tibetan Buddhist faithful.
Authorities plan to attack this support with a
propaganda push, the Tibetan Daily said.
“We must firmly guide public opinion in the
correct direction . . . to let all ethnic minorities understand the
truth as soon as possible,” it said.
The violence, which saw Tibetan rioters target
Chinese businesses and buildings, left at least 10 people dead,
according to the official Chinese account in the state-run press.
But the Tibetan government-in-exile on Saturday
said it had confirmed that 80 people had been killed, and had
received unconfirmed reports of 100 fatalities.
With China having set a deadline Monday at
midnight for demonstrators to surrender, the Dalai Lama is to give a
press conference in his exile base in Dharamshala, northern India on
Sunday afternoon.
The Nobel peace laureate has expressed his
“deep concern” about China’s crackdown on the latest unrest,
and urged Chinese authorities to address the “resentment of the
Tibetan people through dialogue” rather than through force.
With Lhasa sealed off to foreign journalists,
independent information was scarce, making it impossible to
determine exactly how many people were killed.
A number of people in Lhasa told Agence France-Presse
that gunshots were heard in the city on the weekend, but this could
not be confirmed.
Students for a Free Tibet said Chinese
authorities had detained “hundreds of Tibetans” and expressed
concern for their whereabouts, but this report could also not be
verified.
Lhasa’s mayor, Doje Cezhug, insisted on Sunday
the situation in the city and throughout the region was calm.
“We didn’t enforce martial law there, and
the situation in Tibet as a whole is good at present,” the mayor
said in Beijing on the sidelines of China’s annual parliamentary
session, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
However, people inside Lhasa said the city
remained extremely tense, with soldiers on every street corner and
residents either under orders, or too scared, to go outside.
“Nobody is going outside. We are not sure if
there is a curfew but it is clearly implied,” one foreigner in
Lhasa, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution,
told AFP by phone.
“You would be mad to go outside, there are
police and security everywhere.”
Tanks and armored vehicles moved into Lhasa on
Friday to quell the unrest, while the three main monasteries in the
city were sealed off.
Tibetan rights groups said the protests were an
outpouring of frustration at decades of brutal Chinese rule.
China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to
“liberate” the region and officially annexed it a year later.
The latest protests were held to mark the
anniversary of the 1959 uprising that led to the Dalai Lama fleeing
and establishing his exile base in Dharamshala.
He won the Nobel Peace prize in 1989 for his
peaceful resistance to Chinese rule and insists he does not want
independence for Tibet, but rather greater cultural autonomy and an
end to repression.
However, China views the Dalai Lama as a
dangerous “splittist” who is intent on achieving independence
for his homeland.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on
Saturday urged the Chinese government to “exercise restraint.”
Rice said she was “deeply saddened” that
Friday’s protests “resulted in the loss of lives” and
expressed concern “that the violence appears to be continuing.”
Many other nations, including Germany, Britain,
Sweden and Canada, have also expressed concern about the events in
Lhasa and urged China to act with moderation.
-- AFP
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