Anti-Chinese protesters in Tibet burn cars and shops; 2 reported killed

Tini Tran, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING - Protests led by Buddhist monks against Chinese rule turned violent Friday, with shops and vehicles torched and gunshots echoing through the streets of Lasha, Tibet's ancient capital.

A report by a U.S.-funded radio station said two people had been killed.

The European Union called on China to show restraint and Washington said Beijing needed to respect Tibetan culture. Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, appealed to China not to use force against protesters.

The Dalai Lama called on the Chinese leadership to "address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people."

"I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence," he added.

The largest demonstrations in nearly two decades against Beijing's 57-year-rule over Tibet began Monday, coming at a critically sensitive time for China as it attempts to portray a unified and prosperous country ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

The demonstrations turned violent Friday when witnesses reported hearing gunfire and seeing vehicles in flames in the city's main shopping district in the centre of Lhasa.

Crowds hurled rocks at security forces and at restaurant and hotel windows.

Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the U.S. government, quoted witnesses as saying two bodies were seen lying on the ground in the Barkor area, a shopping district in the old city where the protests have been centred.

The protests that began on Monday's anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule were initially led by hundreds of Buddhist monks, but also attracted large numbers of ordinary Tibetans.

They were spreading to Tibetan areas outside Lhasa, a city of about 250,000 permanent residents, not including large numbers of soldiers and members of China's paramilitary People's Armed Police.

A western traveller told BBC World television that police had attacked monks near monasteries and said he saw military convoys moving into Lhasa carrying heavily armed troops.

Photographs taken by camera phone and forwarded to journalists by the Indian branch of Students for a Free Tibet showed an apparently peaceful protest march staged Friday in Xiahe, a traditionally Tibetan corner of the western Chinese province of Gansu.

The pictures showed robed monks - some displaying the banned Tibetan national flag - and lay people marching along a main street. Security forces with riot helmets and shields lined the way, but there was no indication of clashes.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it has issued an advisory to Americans warning them to stay away from Lhasa after receiving "first-hand reports from American citizens in the city who report gunfire and other indications of violence."

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported that several shops were burning in Lhasa and that owners of nearby businesses had shut their doors.

Monks reportedly set fire to a shop after a protest near a small temple in Lhasa was stopped by police.

A witness, a woman who did not want to give her name, said hundreds of people have joined in demonstrations that began earlier in the day.

"The monks are still protesting. Police and army cars were burned," she said. "There are people crying. Hundreds of people, including monks and civilians are in the protest."

Another Lhasa resident said military police had closed all roads leading to the city centre.

"The situation is quite serious. There's a curfew in the city and I can see military police block all the roads to the centre of the city. Nearly all the stores and shops are closed," said the man, who also asked to be unnamed.

The violence was the latest in a spate of protests inside and outside Tibet that have put an unwelcome spotlight on China's policies in Tibet in the lead-up to this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing. Tibetan exiles have also held high-profile protests in northern India.

Monks at the major Sera Monastery in Lhasa launched a hunger strike Thursday to demand that armed police withdraw from the monastery grounds and that detained monks be released, RFA reported.

At the Drepung Monastery, two Buddhist monks are in critical condition after attempting to commit suicide by slashing their wrists, RFA said, citing authoritative sources.

Tourists have been warned away from all the monasteries, said one tourist staying at a Lhasa hotel.

"The Red Army is downtown. It's not safe to walk around. All the major monasteries are closed," said the tourist, who refused to give her name or her nationality. "Tourists don't feel comfortable walking around because police are all over."

Officials who answered phones at police and Communist party offices in Tibet on Friday said they had no information about the violence and refused to comment.

Chinese Communist troops occupied Tibet in 1951 and Beijing continues to rule the region with a heavy hand.

Beijing contends Tibet is historically a part of China. But many Tibetans argue the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries and accuse China of trying to crush Tibetan culture by swamping it with Han people, the majority Chinese ethnic group.

© The Canadian Press, 2008