The ****trait of a Nervously Whispering "Olympic Host" -- Tibetans in
central China share anxiety and accounts / IHT
International Herald Tribune
Tibetans in central China share anxiety and accounts
By Jake Hooker
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
CHENGDU, China: In the back room of a Tibetan teahouse, three robed
monks spoke in whispers.
One said his home in Luhuo County had been littered with fliers calling
on Tibetans to protest. A second monk said soldiers had surrounded his
monastery in Aba County. The third dialed home. After folding shut his
cellphone, he said, the police had killed one Tibetan protester and
wounded nine others in his hometown in Serta County.
"Tibetans are dying for no reason," said the Luhuo monk, as the whine of
a police siren drifted through an open window. "But this is happening in
remote places and nobody knows."
From Chengdu, a city of 10 million people in the middle of China, all
roads leading west have been closed - except for convoys carrying
soldiers and riot police officers to subdue Tibetan anti-government
protests. Chengdu has always been a gateway to the remote Tibetan
plateau, but now it feels like a border outpost, tense and anxious, at
the eastern edge of what several Tibetans here described as a war.
If it is a war, it is one the outside world cannot see. Police
roadblocks have closed off a region half the size of France. Foreign
journalists trying to investigate re****ts of bloodshed or arrests in
places like Aba are turned away or detained.
Journalists have complained repeatedly that such restrictions prevent
them from learning what is happening in Tibetan areas, while the Chinese
authorities have accused the foreign media of exaggerating the plight of
Tibetans and underemphasizing ethnic Tibetan attacks on Han Chinese, the
country's main ethnic group.
But Tibet's capital, Lhasa, which saw violent riots on March 14, is
hundreds of kilometers away and now under heel. The situation in the
isolated, mountainous region west of Chengdu is far less certain. The
Chinese Foreign Ministry has cautioned foreign tourists against
traveling to restive regions west of Chengdu, in Gansu, Qinghai and
Sichuan provinces. Pro-Tibet advocacy groups issue daily re****ts of new
demonstrations by Buddhist monks, while Chinese state media have
re****ted scattered confrontations.
In Chengdu, Tibetans gravitate to Wuhouci, a neighborhood known for a
teeming marketplace that sells Tibetan Buddhist ceremonial objects,
clothing and art. Usually, Tibetan monks and traders pass through the
market, buying crimson robes or printed scriptures, but the police
lockdown has left many people stranded and desperate for news from home.
"Do you know how many died in Aba?" asked Nyima, 28, a monk from the
Garong monastery in Nyagrong County. He has lived in Chengdu for three
months, sleeping above his shop, and has tried to call friends in Lhasa
and other places beset by violence.
For many Tibetans stuck in Chengdu, Aba County is a painful question
mark. After the unrest in Lhasa, violent clashes between Tibetans and
security forces erupted in Aba. Initially, state media had little to say
about the unrest there, but they have since re****ted that the police
fired in self-defense on a crowd of Tibetans that had attacked the local
police station and set it afire. Tibetans who have called relatives in
Aba say the death toll may be more than 20, a figure that could not be
independently confirmed.
A young Tibetan woman from Aba who sells Buddhist statues and jewelry at
a local shop said her family was safe but had also warned her that the
conflict in Aba had not yet ended.
"They are fighting a war," said the woman, whose name is Haijiang.
A Tibetan college student from Aba had also made a worried call home.
His relatives described a confrontation that began on the eve of an
annual Buddhist ceremony at the local Kirti monastery. The student's
family said a huge contingent of soldiers and military police officers
arrived with weapons. "People got very nervous," the student said.
In recent years, the authorities tightened religious restrictions,
including closing down a religious school.
But on March 16, two days after the violence in Lhasa, protests began at
Aba after a monk at Kirti declared that Tibetans should not have to live
under Chinese rule, the college student said. Protesters holding images
of the Dalai Lama marched through the streets, and the police did not
stop them, the student said.
But when protesters burned a police station outside the monastery and
tried to set fire to a local prison, soldiers with machine guns fired
into crowds, killing at least 13 Tibetans and wounding many others, the
student said. He said "three or more" Chinese soldiers were killed.
"The next day, the town looked green with the soldiers," he said. "Every
day, helicopters hover over the city."
"Very nervous, very nervous," he said, adding, "Everyone kept inside the
houses." The streets of the town were empty, he said.
In Chengdu, the police say the city is safe and secure, but the Wuhouci
neighborhood is enduring its own lockdown amid fears of ethnic violence.
Armed police officers surround the neighborhood. White patrol cars
cruise the streets, fla****ng their lights as officers bark through
megaphones at vehicles to keep moving.
Last week, the local police called a news conference to dispel rumors of
a bomb threat. Chinese shopkeepers worriedly gossiped about re****ts that
a Tibetan man from Aba had stabbed and killed two Han Chinese in the
city. He Jiansheng, a deputy police chief, confirmed that a stabbing had
occurred but said a single victim had only minor wounds.
One shop owner, Zuo Bihe, 30, a Han Chinese, said his relations with
Tibetans in nearby shops were friendly, though he rarely joined them for
a meal or for tea. Han Chinese customers generally prefer to buy from
Chinese-owned shops, and Tibetan customers from Tibetans, he said,
because "there's a lack of trust."
With so many police officers present, monks and other Tibetans are
meeting in quiet corners. In the back room of the Tibetan teahouse on
Saturday, the three monks compared notes. One, aged 40, told of news
from Serta County, where he said Tibetans had taken over a government
compound and raised the Tibetan national flag. Armed police officers
were delayed from suppressing the uprising because of a collapsed
bridge, he said.
Another monk had come to Chengdu from Aba to buy printed Buddhist
scriptures. Now he gathered information by telephone. Armed police
officers had encircled six monasteries in Aba and arrested "many, many"
monks, he said. He was told that 23 people had died so far, even though
China's state-run media have re****ted only four injuries.
Two days later, one of the three monks again called his hometown of
Luhuo. "The sound of gunfire can be heard in Luhuo," the monk said. "A
lama died. A soldier died. They are fighting a war now."
Jimmy Wang contributed re****ting from Chengdu; Jim Yardley contributed
re****ting from Beijing.
International Herald Tribune Copyright
www.iht.com
|
