BEIJING—Fresh protests broke out in a Tibetan area of southwest China, defying a huge security crackdown there, even as officials in Tibet vowed swift, harsh punishment for those who sparked the initial anti-Chinese unrest.
The latest protest to shake Tibetan areas of China occurred on Thursday night in Donggu Township, Ganzi (Garze) Prefecture, a largely ethnic Tibetan area in Sichuan Rrovince's mountainous western regions, Chinese Communist Party-controlled Xinhua news agency reported late on Friday.
"Police were forced to fire warning shots and put down the violence," an official with the prefectural government said.
The report did not explain the cause of the unrest or whether it involved ethnic Tibetans, who have been protesting against China's invasion, occupation, and increasing repression in Tibet, and calling for the return of the exhiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.
Ganzi and neighbouring Aba in Sichuan province have seen torrid confrontation between Tibetan protesters and police in past weeks. Anti-riot troops have poured into the area.
The widespread unrest began in Lhasa, the capital of neighbouring Tibet province, and there officials on Friday vowed quick trials for those behind the unrest.
Lhasa was last month hit by Buddhist monks' protests against Chinese rule that gave way to deadly rioting on March 14, and since then security forces have poured in to reimpose control there and in other restive Tibetan areas.
China says 19 people died in the Lhasa violence but representatives of the Dalai Lama say some 140 people died in the unrest across Tibet and nearby areas.
Chinese officials have accused the Dalai Lama of organising the unrest to press for Tibetan independence ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August, and vowed to come down hard on rioters and on protesters supporting him.
The Dalai Lama has repeatedly denied the accusations and said he wants true autonomy, but not outright independence, for Tibet.
Epoch Times Staff
Evidence demonstrates that the Chinese communist regime in Beijing is using agents provocateurs to set off violent outbreaks in otherwise peaceful demonstrations in Tibet. The Chinese regime is using these staged violent incidents to justify increasing violent military repression and a blockade of media reports from Tibet.
Tibetan monks began demonstrating against Chinese communist repression and cultural genocide on the 49th anniversary of an uprising against the Chinese communist invasion and occupation of Tibet.
Possibly because China has come under so much international scrutiny since the start of the Olympics, the monks, soon joined by Tibetans around the world, continued their demonstrations despite increased police and military repression. Tibetans in China even staged limited demonstrations to support their countrymen.
Some protests turned violent, and many Tibetans were beaten and shot; as with the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989, the Chinese regime denied all such reports, despite photographic evidence.
Recently, individuals from Britain's GCHQ, the government communications agency that monitors global electronic communications, revealed that intercepted communications supported claims by the Dalai Lama and others that Chinese soldiers, dressed as monks, staged violent incidents at demonstrations to allow the CCP to bring in extra military forces from China, to suppress the demonstrations.
Photographs taken in Tibet, supported by eyewitness accounts, pinpoint incidents of undercover policemen inciting violence at peaceful rallies.
Courts Back Crackdown
The region's courts have made clear that they will back the crackdown, hand out tough verdicts and reinforce the government's campaign against the Dalai Lama.
Tibet's top law-and-order official Baima Chilin told judges to "use the weapon of the law to attack enemies, punish crime, protect the people and maintain stability," the Tibet Daily reported.
"Use trial according to the law of all the criminals to shock criminality and root out the base of the separatists. Use ample evidence to expose to the world the Dalai clique's lies of peace and non-violence."
Baima Chilin ordered swift trials and said the judges "have the confidence of the Party."
The United States and many European countries have expressed worry about the tensions, calling on Beijing to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and allow foreign reporters and observers to freely visit Tibet.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, held "private discussions" with Chinese officials on Tibet and raised access to the region, her spokesman said on Friday.
"The issue of accessibility is obviously paramount because without that it's very hard to come to any conclusions about what has happened or what should happen next," Arbour's spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing in Geneva.
Chinese officials and state media have criticised Western news reports of the Tibetan unrest, claiming they have misrepresented violence as peaceful protest, vilified efforts to develop Tibet, and echoed false claims of independence advocates.
Reports written by Tibetans tell a story quite different from the Chinese'regime's Party line. Tsering Woeser, a noted Tibetan writer currently under house arrest in Beijing, has collected and published reports in her blog that tell of widespread police brutality, and soldiers shooting demonstrators at will. (Please see A Record of the Tibetan Unrest: March 26—March 29 and A Record of the Tibetan Unrest: March 10—March 25 )
Tibetan site Phayul.com posted photographs of Tibetans dead from Chinese gunshot wounds while the Chinese regime's media were denying that anyone had been hurt.
Chinese Communist Party leaders made similar claims of no, and then low, military killings regarding the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. At first the CCP denied that any students had been killed, and that the only casualties were soldiers attacked by students. Despite video and photographic evidence, the CCP leadership held to this claim for years, finally admitting that as many as a few hundred civilians might have been killed or injured.
Eyewitness accounts coupled with photo and video evidence puts the number of dead at, at least, 3,000.
Additional reporting by James Fish
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