Mar 19, 2008 7:15 am US/Eastern
China: Dalai Lama Is A 'Devil With A Human Face'
BEIJING (AP) ―
Ignoring calls for dialogue, China called the Daila Lama a "wolf in monk's robes" and said it was locked in a "life-and-death battle" with his supporters after protests marking the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet in almost two decades.
State media, meanwhile, reported more than 100 people had surrendered to police in and around Tibet's regional capital of Lhasa, where peaceful protests turned violent Friday.
The protests, which Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of orchestrating, sparked a crackdown by Chinese forces and focused international attention on the country's human rights record ahead of this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing.
The communist government has promised leniency for protesters who handed themselves in - and pledged to harshly punish those who did not.
"Those criminals ... shouldn't think they can get lucky. All criminals will definitely be caught in the net," the official Tibet Daily newspaper said in a report posted on its Web site.
It was impossible to confirm the reports of surrender and no figures were given for people hunted down and arrested.
Foreign media are banned from Tibet, and China's entirely state-controlled media have reported only the official version of events, in which the government has said rioters killed 16 people. The government said troops did not fire on protesters and has denied claims by overseas Tibetan groups that 80 were killed.
The official Xinhua News Agency said mobs smashed and torched shops, homes, banks, government schools and offices, along with dozens of vehicles, setting fires in more than 300 locations altogether. Xinhua said losses to businesses were estimated at more than $14 million.
Police barred foreigners from traveling to areas outside Tibet with large Tibetan populations and were seen removing Tibetans from vehicles traveling into lower lying areas populated mainly by Chinese.
Chinese forces occupied the Himalayan region in 1950 after several decades of effective independence.
The protests were the biggest since an earlier demonstrations in 1989 that were suppressed by the military, and have prompted discussion of a possible boycott of the Olympic Games' Aug. 8 opening ceremony. The U.S. has called on China to address Tibetans' grievances and engage in direct talks with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader.
But Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama's supporters of organizing the violent clashes in hopes of sabotaging the Olympics and bolstering their campaign for independence in the Himalayan territory.
Tibet's hardline Communist Party chief issued a personal attack against the Daila Lama in comments published Wednesday.
"The Dalai is a wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast," Zhang Qingli was quoted in the Tibet Daily as saying at a meeting of the Tibet government.
"We are now engaged in a fierce blood-and-fire battle with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death battle between us and the enemy," Zhang said.
Tibet's former governor Raidi accused the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile of engineering the riot to "disturb the social stability at such a sensitive time."
"The violent crime instigated by the Dalai clique is nothing but a symbol that shows fierce head-on combat between us and the Dalai clique," Raidi was quoted as saying by Xinhua on Wednesday.
Initially led by monks, the demonstrations began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, and then spiraled out of control.
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet during the uprising, has urged his followers to remain peaceful, saying he would resign as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if violence got out of control. However, he also suggested China may have fomented unrest in the Lhasa and nearby provinces to discredit him.
Critics say China fuels such anger through harsh restrictions on Tibetan culture and Buddhism - including routine vilification of the Dalai Lama, who is deeply revered by most Tibetans. The government has also been accused of marginalizing Tibetans economically, in part by encouraging migration to Tibet by members of the Han Chinese ethnic majority.
Because of the crackdown on protests, some Tibetan activist groups have argued that the Olympic torch relay should not go through Tibet. Beijing plans for the torch to be carried to the top of Mount Everest.
Organizing committee Executive Vice President Jiang Xiaoyu said Wednesday that the ascent to the top of the world's tallest mountain would be the "highlight" of the relay and "a great feat in Olympic history."
Lhasa was reportedly calm under a tight security presence that moved in over the weekend.
An employee of the local Coca-Cola bottler said a small demonstration was held in the city on Tuesday, but protesters had fled when troops arrived. He, and others in and around Tibet, declined to give their names because they feared harassment from authorities.
He said the company had conducted no business since Friday when customers' shops and supermarkets had been attacked and looted.
Protests spilled over from Tibet into surrounding provinces in recent days, as police and soldiers set up checkpoints across a wide swath of western China. On Tuesday, thousands of Tibetans flooded the streets of Seda, in Sichuan province, according to the Tibet Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Activist groups also circulated graphic photographs of protesters who they said were massacred Sunday by Chinese police at Kirti monastery, also in Sichuan. The images showed several men who were apparently shot and bodies covered in blood. There was no way to verify the authenticity of the photographs.
A receptionist at the area's Nianbao Hotel said weapons had been fired as hundreds of Tibetan protesters poured into the streets. She said the area had been sealed off under a curfew and residents were confined to their homes.
On Tuesday in neighboring Gansu province, Tibetans on horseback and motorcycles attacked a government compound near the town of Hezuo, but were beaten back by police wielding clubs. Protesters lowered the C hinese flag and raised the snow lion emblem of independent Tibet in its place, but quickly dispersed when paramilitary reinforcements arrived.
There were no reports of serious injuries or arrests.
Tibetans in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu tried to enter an area where the United Nations offices are located, but were stopped by police.
In Bangkok, about 20 demonstrators unfurled a Tibetan flag outside the Chinese Embassy and called on Beijing to "immediately stop the killing and human rights abuses" in Tibet.
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