China Accused Of "Cultural Genocide"

Dalai Lama Calls For Probe Of Beijing's Crackdown; China Blocks YouTube Over Videos Of Protests

(CBS/AP)  Tibet's governor says 13 civilians were killed and dozens wounded in violence that broke out in Lhasa on Friday.

Champa Phuntsok gave the figures Monday at a news conference called to explain the government's response to anti-government protests over the past week.

The death toll is an update over the government's previous figure of 10 killed. Tibetan exiles have said the Chinese government's crackdown on protests in Lhasa have left as many as 80 people dead.

Protests that started in Lhasa have spread into three neighboring provinces as Tibetans defy the crackdown in the fiercest challenge to Beijing's rule over the region in nearly two decades. The Dalai Lama warned that Tibet faced "cultural genocide" and appealed to the world for help.

Protests against Chinese rule of Tibet were reported in neighboring Sichuan and Qinghai provinces and also in western Gansu province. All are home to sizable Tibetan populations.

The demonstrations come after protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa escalated into violence Friday, with Buddhist monks and others torching police cars and shops in the fiercest challenge to Beijing's rule over the region in nearly two decades.

"Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place," said the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. He was referring to China's policy of encouraging the ethnic Han majority to migrate to Tibet, restrictions on Buddhist temples and re-education programs for monks.

He told reporters in Dharmsala, the north Indian town where Tibet's self-declared government-in-exile is based, that an international body should investigate the government's crackdown on the Lhasa protests.

Tibet was effectively independent for decades before Chinese communist troops entered in 1950. The latest unrest began March 10 on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule of Tibet.

The protests are an embarrassment for China, coming just weeks before the Beijing Summer Olympics ceremonies kick off with the torch relay, which is set to pass through Tibet.

Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama's government in exile, said multiple sources inside Tibet had counted at least 80 corpses since the violence broke out Friday. He did not know how many of the bodies were protesters. On Friday, the exiled government said at least 30 protesters had been killed by Chinese authorities and the number could be as high as 100.


China Blocks YouTube Over Videos Of Tibetan Protests

Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site.

Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.

There were no protest scenes posted on China-based video Web sites such as 56.com, youku.com and tudou.com.

Chinese leaders encourage Internet use for education and business but use online filters to block access to material considered subversive or pornographic.


Protests Spread To Other Provinces

In Sichuan province, Tibetan monks and police clashed Sunday in Aba county after the monks staged a protest, said a resident there who refused to give his name. He said one policeman had been killed and three or four police vans had been set on fire.

The India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said at least seven people have been shot dead in the county. There was no way of immediately confirming the claim.

In Qinghai province, 100 monks defied a directive confining them to Rongwo Monastery in Tongren city by climbing a hill behind the monastery, where they set off fireworks and burned incense to protest the crackdown in Tibet.

Businesses were shuttered, and about 30 riot police with shields took up posts near the monastery. Police forced journalists to delete photographs of police.

In western Gansu province, more than 100 students protested at a university in Lanzhou, according to Matt Whitticase of London-based activist group Free Tibet.

A curfew was imposed in Xiahe city in Gansu province on Sunday, a day after police fired tear gas on a 1,000 protesters, including Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens, who had marched from the historic Labrang monastery.

Large communities of ethnic Tibetans live far outside modern Tibet in areas that were the Himalayan region's eastern and northeastern provinces of Amdo and Kham until the communist takeover in 1951. Those areas were later split off by Beijing to become the Chinese province of Qinghai and part of Sichuan province.

Lhasa appeared to remain under a curfew on Sunday, though some people and cars were seen on the streets during daylight. The government has not announced the curfew but residents said authorities have warned them not to go outside for several days now.

Hong Kong Cable TV said about 200 military vehicles each carrying dozens of armed soldiers, drove into the center of Lhasa on Sunday. The footage showed mostly empty streets, but for armored and military vehicles patrolling and soldiers searching buildings.

Loudspeakers on the streets repeatedly broadcast slogans urging residents to "discern between enemies and friends, maintain order."

Xinhua said most shops in the Old Town area of Lhasa, which saw the brunt of the violence, were still closed Sunday. It said some shops in other parts of the town had reopened.

China's communist government is hoping Beijing's hosting of the Aug. 8-24 Olympics will boost its popularity at home as well as its image abroad. But the event has already attracted international scrutiny of China's human rights record and its pollution problems.

International criticism of the crackdown in Tibet so far has been mild, with no threats of an Olympic boycott or other sanctions. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Sunday on China "to exercise restraint in dealing with the protests."

Rice said she was "concerned by reports of a sharply increased police and military presence in and around Lhasa." Her statement urged China to release those jailed for protesting.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet.

[grazinggoat]

I think that the Dalai Lama made a fatal mistake by associating himself with the Butcher of Crawford.

It''''s hard to take him very seriously now.

Too bad for the people of Tibet.

Posted by FeelFree1 at 04:20 PM : Mar 16, 2008

-Wise remark FF1! Been longtime no chat.... Lol!

[griz326]

The government in exile and the Free Tibet organization are almost certainly instigators in this sad story. Never in the history of humanity has a government improved the lives of so many people in such a short time. China is doing its best, but doesn''t mess around with rule breakers. It is terribly sad that political forces would attempt to shame China and provoke a completely predictable response when the country has been making "energetic progress in the good." I''ve been to China 4 times over 30+ years; my opinion is supported by my experiences traveling in many parts of China. To me it is just sad.

[tianshu-2009]

To rudy654
Thank you for your understanding. What I want to do is not to persuade you, but offer another opinion to balance off.
In fact, nobody have the right to tell definitely what the reality is unless all the details confirmed by one''s own eyes.

[jerr11]

The whole world should just give the 2008 Olympics a pass.

Don''t give these Chinese warlords any more credibility!

[alphaa10-2009]

George Orwell''s "1984" accurately depicts the Tibet of today.

CBS reports, "Loudspeakers on the streets repeatedly broadcast slogans urging residents to "discern between enemies and friends, maintain order." "

And remember, Big Brother is watching you...

In fact, Big Brother is watching almost everybody in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere of Beijing, thanks to US telecommunications hardware firm Cisco. This patriotic company sold the PRC the equipment required to track down dissenters, turn off their websites, monitor or block their email and prevent most of the people of China from getting anything but the Xinhua version of reality.

The Beijing olympics is known, aptly enough, as the "Genocide olympics" for not only Darfur but for Tibet.
Chinese imperialism is the last thing Hu Jintao wants to surface before the opening ceremonies, but what better time for the world to understand what his regime represents?

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by Tianshu at 10:24 PM

I appreciate getting your perspective on what is happening in China and Tibet. I might disagree with you, but it is important to know what people there think.

[tianshu-2009]

To lorinkundert
I''m sorry to say that you have a wrong definition of Chinese. Chinese do not equals to Han people, but formed by 56 ethnic groups. My several Mongolian friends from Inner Mongolia, also think they are Chinese and love the country.
The system of the Mongolian Empire is quite special, since it is formed by the Kingdoms of several Khans. Yet there is only one emperor, who is the emperor of Yuan Dynasty. Normally, Yuan Dynasty is considerred as one of the Chinese Dynasties, when the Mongolian minority ruling the Han Majority, as well as other minority ethnic groups in China.

[tianshu-2009]

To SharnCedar (continued)
Secondly, after I had access to those "free" western media more than four years ago, I understand no media can offer you untortured image of the reality. Albeit western medias are not cencored by the government, journalists writing the articals always have an incentive to cater the popular tastes and to exaggerate the reality. If you can see some cases with your own eyes, while listening to the westerners'' reports, you can easily find that the those reports are not showing the truth about the event, either. Besides, the most dangerous thing is, westerners seldom pay attention to the limitation of the news they heard and never think about reality with their own brain, which is different from some Chinese.
Therefore, I have all the access to the information offered by the western media, and besides, I know the situation in China through my own experience and chaterring with my friends living there.
By the way, even if I am no expert on the history of Buddhism, I know that the Tibetan Buddhism and the one popular with Han people belongs to different sects. The most popular opinion today is that Buddhism went to the Han area of China through "Xiyu", which refers to the eastern part of the silk road, during the period of Northern-Southern Dynasties.

[tianshu-2009]

To SharnCedar
Firstly, I have been studying outside China, and have access to your "free" media for almost five years, and none of my opinions or comments above is taught by Chinese media.
It is true that Chinese media never report all the news happened every day, and that seldom more than one voice can be heard on one issue, but Chinese people have much more ways to know about the country they are living even under this authorized media system. They know that the media only stands for the governments'' opinion, and they have to form their own with their experiences and private discussion with friends. I believe it is true even for a middle school student according to my own experience.

[lorinkundert]

Tibet up until the Mongol conquest was an empire in it''s own right and never did it actually belong to China, it belonged to the Mongol empire that also ruled China.