Where is the outrage. Where is the demand by all good people to stop this. Why is the world basically quiet on this subject yet noisier than a train wreck on US actions however trivial.
March 22, 2008
Tales of horror from Tibet
Witnesses to the unrest describe protesters’ rage against Chinese, and troops firing into crowds.
By Barbara Demick. Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Beijing - On a cloudless day near the top of the world, Swiss tourist Claude Balsiger had just finished a late-morning cup of tea and stepped out onto the streets of Tibet’s capital. Buddhist monks had been marching against Chinese rule all week, but today seemed calmer. Suddenly, Tibetan youths started hurling paving stones at police, who tried to protect themselves with their riot shields.
Over the next few hours, the odor of tear gas and fires replaced the scent of incense wafting from backpacker cafes. The intense Himalayan light was blacked out by smoke. And in the days that followed, violence would spread beyond Lhasa to ethnic Tibetan villages deep inside China and to Chinese embassies worldwide.
China has barred Western journalists from entering Tibet and ethnic Tibetan areas. But interviews with foreign witnesses and Chinese residents, as well as blog postings by Tibetans too frightened to be interviewed, show that during three crucial hours on March 14, woefully unprepared police fled, allowing rioters to burn and smash much of Lhasa’s commercial center.
Tibetans randomly beat and killed Chinese solely on the basis of their ethnicity: a young motorcyclist bludgeoned in the head with paving stones and probably killed; a teenage boy in school uniform being dragged by a mob. When authorities did regroup, paramilitary troops fired live ammunition into the crowds. Witnesses did not see protesters armed with anything other than stones, bottles of gasoline or a few traditional Tibetan knives.
Despite a massive deployment of Chinese forces, the protests show no signs of abating. In New Delhi on Friday, Tibetan exiles stormed the Chinese Embassy. And China posted a “most wanted” list of 21 alleged rioters, featuring grainy photographs taken from video shot by a hidden camera.
The death toll of Tibetans had risen to 99 as of Friday, with a 16-year-old girl being shot by police in China’s Sichuan County, the Tibetan government in exile said.
Chinese authorities say 19 Chinese have been killed in Lhasa: one police officer and the rest civilians.
Since their homeland was invaded by Chinese communists in 1951, Tibetans have risen up periodically against Beijing’s rule. Led by the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, their movement has been largely nonviolent. There hadn’t been a substantial uprising in Lhasa since the late 1980s, giving the city a reputation as a laid-back Shangri-La.
“Tibetans usually are so calm and friendly, but suddenly they were insane,” said Balsiger, 25, a teacher. “They were howling like wolves. . . . It was so brutal, so violent.” Monastery slit their wrists in suicide attempts, andmonks at Sera Monastery start a hunger strike. Water supplies are cut to many of the monasteries.
A foreign tourist wanders into Sera Monastery at 3 p.m., just as hundreds of monks are rushing out, their hands in the air and in obvious distress. Police surround them.
“They were grabbing monks, kicking and beating them. One monk was kicked in the stomach right in front of us and then beaten on the ground,” the tourist later tells BBC.
Paramilitary forces block roads leading out of the remote Ganden Monastery. The Chutsang Nunnery is also surrounded. neighbors’ businesses.
The mob is more interested in destroying than looting. Witnesses see cellphones, bicycles, clothing, food and furniture smashed along Beijing East Street. Cars are overturned and set on fire, often topped with burning Chinese flags.
Riots spread to the Muslim quarter, targeting the Hui, Chinese Muslims who have been opening businesses in Tibet. Rioters smash holes through metal shop gates and pour in gasoline. A Muslim family later describes to Chinese journalists how they hid in a bathroom as flames spread around them. The main gate of the mosque is set on fire, but the mob doesn’t get inside.
It is not until 4 p.m. that Chinese authorities venture back into the center of Lhasa. What happens next is unclear, because by this time the city is under a strict curfew. According to Tibetan sources, the Public Security Bureau lifts an order restricting the use of live ammunition by the paramilitary forces.
Tibetans say many people are killed in front of the main temple, the Jokhang, and that families come to collect the bodies late at night, offering prayers and strewing traditional white prayer scarves.
“Many of those killed were young Tibetans, both boys and girls,” a rioter tells Radio Free Asia. “Those who are dead sacrificed their lives for 6 million Tibetans. My disappointment is that we were not armed.”
Amid the raging violence, some Tibetans do step in to help the beleaguered ethnic Chinese.
A 24-year-old Chinese assistant at an optometry shop recalls how a teenage neighbor escorted her home, only to be chastised by a Tibetan security guard who asked, “How can you come back with a Han Chinese?”
The Tibetan girl “was horrified,” recalled her Chinese friend. “In her eyes were confusion, perplexion, sorrow and mostly astonishment.”
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