Tibet Rioters, Police Clash; 11 Die, 100 Hurt

Eleven people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on Sunday in a clash between pro-independence protesters and police, according to an official Chinese news report.

The incident began around noon when 13 Buddhist monks and nuns staged a protest march around central Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, carrying banners and shouting, “Independence for Tibet!” the official New China News Agency reported early today.

The protest escalated into widespread rioting that left one policeman and 10 protesters dead after police opened fire, the news agency reported. It said that some of the protesters had firearms and shot at police.

Fired Warning Shots

Western tourists in Lhasa who spoke by telephone with reporters in Beijing said that police used tear gas and fired warning shots to try to control the protesters but eventually shot directly into crowds of rioters.

Fleeing protesters carrying the banned “mountains and snow lion” flag of Tibetan independence were shown in a front-page picture today in the official People’s Daily.

Shortly after the demonstration began, “several hundred people joined the paraders, and they started throwing stones at a police station,” the news agency said. “By 3 p.m., more than 600 rioters marched onto East Beijing Road, smashing windows, robbing more than 20 restaurants, hotels and shops and setting fire to commodities and furniture.”

The protesters attacked offices of the city’s Chengguan District and the Communist Party, smashed traffic lights and damaged more than 20 police vehicles, the report said.

A Canadian tourist, Roch Berphiaume, told the Associated Press that he saw Tibetans ransacking Chinese-owned stores and restaurants.

“There was a lot of firing,” Berphiaume said. Security forces were “running with machine guns and rifles,” and at one point a stray bullet came through his third-floor hotel window, he said.

Forty Officers Hurt

Forty police officers were injured, with 11 of them requiring hospitalization, the agency reported. Although the agency said some of the rioters had fired at police, Berphiaume and several other Western witnesses who spoke with reporters in Beijing said they did not see any protesters with weapons.

In the chaos of the police shooting and rioting, 10 civilians were killed and more than 60 were injured, including both rioters and onlookers, the news agency report said. Medical workers who rushed to the scene were also attacked, it said.

China has firmly controlled the region since 1951 and now looks upon the advocacy of independence there as treason.

Pro-independence sentiment among Tibetans remains widespread, however. Sunday’s protest was the fourth in a series of major demonstrations that have ended with police gunfire and fatalities since the first such incident on Oct. 1, 1987. On that occasion, from six to 14 people were killed, according to the best available information.

8 Killed a Year Ago

Sunday’s protest came exactly one year after a similar incident there left at least eight people dead. In another protest on Dec. 10, police shot and killed a monk who was carrying the outlawed flag of Tibetan independence, according to witnesses who later spoke with reporters.

This month also marks the 30th anniversary of an abortive anti-Chinese uprising that resulted in the flight to India of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s traditional religious and political leader. Authorities in Lhasa had expressed the fear that the anniversary would bring further outbursts of anti-Chinese sentiment.

Rumors circulated in Lhasa during January that a small quantity of weapons had been stolen from Chinese security forces and that authorities feared they might be used in pro-independence protests. It was not immediately clear whether this in fact is what happened Sunday, or whether such rumors may have been intentionally spread by Lhasa authorities to help justify the possible use of force to put down demonstrations.

Police Shooting of Monk

Western witnesses said that the flag-carrying monk killed on Dec. 10 was shot by police before any rioting began.

All the pro-independence demonstrations over the past 18 months have been spearheaded by Buddhist monks but have received support from ordinary Tibetans.

The New China News Agency report on Sunday’s incident did not say whether there was any police action against the original 13 demonstrators that might have provoked the subsequent rioting.

The report said that before Sunday’s incident, local authorities had attempted to dissuade potential protesters “from making trouble” and to “educate them so as to maintain social order.”