Tibet crisis casts dark cloud over Beijing Olympics
abs-cbnnews.com | 03/20/2008 1:25 PM
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BEIJING - Tibet authorities arrested 24 suspects for "grave crimes" after troops cracked down on anti-Chinese riots that swept the mountain region, casting a shadow over preparations for the Beijing Olympic Games.
The prosecutor's office in the local capital Lhasa said the suspects were arrested for "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in bloody riots on Friday, the Tibet Daily reported on Thursday.
More arrests are likely to follow, although some outside groups say hundreds of Tibetans may have already been detained.
China's unyielding response to the unrest has brought demands for a boycott of the Games opening ceremony in August. The Olympic torch relay across 19 countries that starts next week, and which will also pass through Tibet, is likely to be dogged by protests.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government was considering whether to send a delegation to the ceremony to start the August 8-24 Games.
"If the situation does not change, we will want to express our criticism in regards of what is going on in China. I do not exclude that (shunning) the inauguration celebrations of the Olympics would be a way to mark this," Tusk said.
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama urged the United States to speak out for human rights in Tibet following the crackdown. The Bush administration has urged China to show restraint, as has the European Union.
COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
The eruption of Tibetan discontent against the Chinese presence brought bloody rioting to Lhasa on Friday, and ripples of unrest have continued across Tibet and neighboring areas.
Beijing launched a sweeping counter-offensive in Tibet and neighboring provinces that are home to many ethnic Tibetans. Troops have poured into isolated towns on winding mountain roads, and foreign reporters are barred from the area.
"The facts of the crimes are clear and the evidence is solid, and they should be severely punished," a Lhasa deputy chief prosecutor, Xie Yanjun, said, according to the news report carried on the Tibet government Web site (www.chinatibetnews.com).
"This law-breaking was organized, premeditated and carefully planned by the Dalai clique," he said.
He echoed Beijing's charge that the rioting was instigated by exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, to sabotage the Games. The Dalai Lama denies the accusation.
Beijing responded with clear irritation to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan, announced on Wednesday, to meet the Dalai Lama on a visit to Britain in May.
China's Foreign Ministry said it was seriously concerned by the planned meeting, urging Britain to recognize the Dalai Lama was trying to divide China "under the camouflage of religion".
NASTY SURPRISE
Minxin Pei, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, called the unrest a "nasty surprise for Beijing" after 20 years of relatively untroubled control in Tibet.
"The Chinese government is now engaged in a damage control PR campaign...the last thing the Chinese government wants to see is some eruption of similar violence or protest closer to the Olympics," he said.
China Human Rights Watch, a New York-based monitoring group, said it had unconfirmed reports suggesting hundreds of arrests.
State media have poured vitriol on the Dalai Lama, using language that echoes past political purges in the Communist country. The Tibet Daily said Buddhist monks who joined the riots had betrayed their faith.
"They are not real followers of Buddha but hidden separatists," the paper said, calling the Dalai Lama a "running dog of Western anti-China forces."
The anti-Chinese riots and looting in Lhasa on Friday injured 325 people and caused damage of some $28 million dollars in damage, Xinhua said. China has said that 13 innocent people died in the violence, and at least 3 rioters. Exiled Tibetan groups have said that as many as 100 Tibetans died. - Reuters
