Police crack down on rioting in Tibet

Wen blames Dalai Lama; China vows to guard territory

Nepalese police arrested a Tibetan protester in exile during an anti-China demonstration in Kathmandu, Nepal. (PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIJING - Premier Wen Jiabao said today that the unrest in Tibet was instigated by the exiled Dalai Lama and proved for all the world to see that his claims of seeking peaceful dialogue with China "are nothing but lies."

Wen, in China's first senior-level response to the rioting in Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas of the country, said the violence Friday in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, was particularly "cruel" and caused great harm to the city and its inhabitants.

He dismissed charges by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, that China's government is committing cultural genocide by submerging the region's native population under a wave of Han Chinese immigration, and he vowed to carry on with economic development in the isolated mountain territory.

"These claims that the Chinese government is engaged in cultural genocide are nothing but lies," Wen declared at a news conference marking the end of China's annual legislative sessions.

Wen spoke out after Chinese police conducted house-to-house searches in Lhasa yesterday and rounded up hundreds of people suspected of participating in a deadly outburst of anti-Chinese violence, exile groups and residents reported.

The large-scale arrests and official promises of tough reprisals suggested the Chinese government had decided to move decisively to crush the protests, despite calls for restraint from abroad and warnings that heavy-handed repression could taint this summer's Olympic Games in Beijing.

Compounding official fears of unrest, about 100 students held a candlelight vigil at a Beijing university yesterday - a peaceful affair that was remarkable because it was held in the capital.

The Tibetan regional governor, Champa Phuntsok, said yesterday that detainees who show remorse and inform on others who were part of the weeklong unrest would be rewarded with better treatment.

Buddhist monks and other Tibetans who participated in Friday's torching of Chinese-owned shops and widespread attacks on Han Chinese businessmen would be "dealt with harshly," he told a news conference in Beijing.

In a widely broadcast announcement, the government had given rioters until midnight yesterday to turn themselves in, after which they were threatened with arrest. But Urgen Tenzin, executive director of the India-based Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said he was told by telephone that about 600 Tibetans had been arrested before nightfall by a police sweep that lasted most of the day.

One Han Chinese resident contacted by telephone said a squad of police officers had knocked on the door of his home in Lhasa and demanded to see national identity cards and residence permits for all those inside. A bank officer said police entered his city-center branch and required employees to show their national identity cards and respond to questions about their residence and activities.

"We must give them tit for tat and firmly counterattack," said an editorial in the Communist Party's official newspaper in Lhasa, the Tibet Daily, in an indication of the government's determination to crack down hard.

"Ensuring the social stability of the Tibet Autonomous Region is the number one political mission," the paper said. "It is the priority. We have to take decisive and powerful measures to firmly beat down the enemy's arrogance and never withdraw our troops without victory. . . . We have to severely punish the criminals who are still beating, robbing, and burning, arresting them rapidly and with absolutely no mercy."

Phuntsok, a Tibetan who is the territory's second-ranking official, said 13 people were killed.

They perished during the most violent moments of unrest Friday, when maroon-robed monks and Tibetan youths set fires, looted shops, and beat Chinese people in what appeared to be an explosion of resentment against their economic domination.

There were no reports of casualties among security forces. But the New China News Agency said 12 were seriously injured - "like any other innocent victim," the dispatch added - by rioters hurling stones.

Sympathy protests continued outside China yesterday. In Munich, police detained 25 Tibetans after demonstrators tried to force their way into the Chinese consulate and spray-painted "Save Tibet" and "Stop Killing" on the building. Tibetan supporters also clashed with police at demonstrations in Nepal and India.

The Dalai Lama's exile organization, headquartered in Dharamsala, India, since his flight from Tibet, said Tibetans reported by telephone and Internet that they had seen about 80 bodies after the violence yesterday, identifying them as Tibetans.

The Tibet governor, at a news conference organized by the central government, said regular police and People's Armed Police sent to quell the riots never opened fire with lethal weapons, although tear gas canisters were fired according to earlier accounts.

Residents and tourists reported hearing the sound of occasional gunfire.

But video of deployments in the mostly empty streets of Lhasa yesterday showed police without weapons.

With access to Tibet restricted and tight censorship by Chinese authorities, there was no way to assess the accuracy of the competing reports issued by Chinese authorities and exile groups abroad.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.