Protesting monks dash China's show of peace in Tibet

Published on Thursday 27 March 2008 23:28

A GROUP of monks overturned a carefully orchestrated visit for foreign reporters to Tibet's capital, an embarrassment for the Chinese government struggling yesterday to prove Lhasa was calm.

The government had arranged the trip to show how peaceful Lhasa was after riots shattered China's plans for a peaceful run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games in August.

But the outburst by a group of 30 monks in red robes came as the journalists were being shown around the Jokhang Temple – one of Tibet's holiest shrines – by Chinese government handlers.

"Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!" yelled one young Buddhist monk, who then started to cry.

They insisted their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, had nothing to do with the anti-government riots in Lhasa, where buildings were burned and looted and ethnic Han Chinese were attacked.

Officials shouted for the journalists to leave and tried to pull them away.

"They want us to curse the Dalai Lama, and that is not right," one monk said during the 15-minute outburst.

"This had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama," said another, referring to the 14 March riots in which the Chinese government says 22 people died, while Tibetan exiles claim the death toll is 140.

Reporters were earlier taken to a Tibet medical clinic that was attacked by protesters and were shown a clothes shop where five girls had been trapped and burned to death.

The monks, who first spoke Tibetan and then switched to Mandarin so journalists could understand them, said they knew they would probably be arrested.

Troops who had been guarding the temple were removed the night before the visit, they said. One monk said authorities planted other monks in the monastery to talk to the journalists, calling them "not true believers but… Communist Party members."

"They are all officials, they (the government] arranged for them to come in. And we aren't allowed to go out because they say we could destroy things, but we never did anything," another monk said.

Later the Chinese-installed vice-governor of Tibet said the Jokhang monks were confined to the monastery because some had joined protesters. He promised they would not be punished for their outburst.