Violence In Tibet As Monks Clash With The Police

BEIJING — Violence erupted Friday morning in a busy market area of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans brawled with Chinese security forces in bloody clashes. Witnesses said angry Tibetan crowds burned shops, cars, military vehicles and at least one tourist bus. State media said at least 10 people died.

Residents in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, walked through Barkhor, an ancient part of the city where protesters had set fire to a shop and several vehicles on Friday. More Photos

The chaotic scene was the latest, and most violent, confrontation in a series of protests that began on Monday and now represent a major challenge to the ruling Communist Party as it prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. By Saturday morning, Chinese armored vehicles were reportedly patrolling the center of the city.

Beijing is facing the most serious and prolonged demonstrations in Tibet since the late 1980s, when it suppressed a rebellion there with lethal force that left scores, and possibly hundreds, of ethnic Tibetans dead. The leadership is clearly alarmed that a wave of negative publicity could disrupt its elaborate plans for the Olympics and its hopes that the games will showcase its rising influence and prosperity rather than domestic turmoil.

Thousands of Buddhists in neighboring India and Nepal took to the streets Friday in solidarity. Concerned that the protests might spread elsewhere in China, the authorities appeared to be moving the military police into other regions with large Tibetan populations.

Roughly 1,000 special police officers were deployed in the town of Bamei, in Sichuan Province, the site of a temple sacred to Tibetans, witnesses said by telephone on Friday. Residents in Lhasa, reached by telephone, said the authorities had placed much of the city under a curfew by Friday night while military police officers were blocking many city streets. One resident reported seeing armored vehicles in the center of the city.

The United States Embassy in Beijing warned American citizens on Friday not to travel to Lhasa. The embassy said it had “received firsthand reports from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other indications of violence.”

In a meeting in Beijing on Friday, the United States ambassador to China, Clark Randt, urged Chinese officials to act with restraint, “and not resort to use of force in dealing with the protesters,” the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters.

The Chinese authorities blamed the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, for the violence and said the government would maintain stability in Lhasa. “The government of Tibet Autonomous Region said Friday there had been enough evidence to prove that the recent sabotage was ‘organized, premeditated and masterminded’ by the Dalai clique,” reported Xinhua, the Chinese government’s official news agency.

The Dalai Lama released a statement on Friday calling on both sides to avoid violence and appealing to China’s leaders to “address the long simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people.” A spokesman for the Dalai Lama called China’s accusations “absolutely baseless.”

The situation in Lhasa represents a complicated predicament for the Communist Party, which is now holding its annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. Party leaders are already grappling with growing criticism of China’s domestic human rights record and its ties to Sudan, which the United States has accused of waging a genocidal campaign in its Darfur region.

In the past China has not hesitated to crush major protests in Tibet or to jail disobedient monks. President Hu Jintao, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party, served as party boss in Tibet during a violent crackdown in 1989. His support for the bloody suppression of unrest that year earned him the good will of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader, and led directly to his elevation to the Politburo Standing Committee and eventually to China’s top leadership posts.

But Chinese leaders may be more reluctant to order such heavy-handed tactics as Beijing prepares for the Olympics. On Friday, different accounts emerged about how the Chinese military police in Lhasa handled the demonstrations.

Radio Free Asia, a nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, quoted Tibetan witnesses who described police officers firing into crowds of protesters and killing at least two people in the city’s ancient Barkhor area. On Saturday morning, Radio Free Asia quoted witnesses who described seeing dead bodies around Lhasa.

Later on Saturday Xinhua reported 10 deaths had been confirmed.

Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from Beijing, and Steven Lee Myers and Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York. Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.

Huang Yuanxi, Zhang Jing and Jake Hooker contributed research from Beijing, and Steven Lee Myers and Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York. Somini Sengupta contributed reporting from New Delhi.

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