‘They cried long live the Dalai Lama – then the firing started’
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Chinese paramilitary police killed eight people and wounded dozens more when they fired on a protest by several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers, The Times has been told.
The protesters were enraged by a government inspection team trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama.
The clash, one of the bloodiest since Tibetan protests against China erupted last month, occurred in the village of Donggu, high in the mountains of Sichuan province near the border with Tibet, after government officials entered the sprawling ancient hillside monastery of Tongkor.
They searched the room of every monk, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures. The monastery’s website (www.donggusi.com) says that it is home to 350 monks. A contact telephone for the monastery was not operational yesterday.
When the officials had removed the photographs, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop police from throwing the images on the ground — an act seen as a desecration by Tibetans, who revere the Dalai Lama as their god king. A young man working in the monastery, Cicheng Pingcuo, 25, also made a stand and both were arrested.
The team of officials then demanded that all the monks denounce the Dalai Lama, who fled China after a failed uprising in 1959. One monk, Yixi Lima, stood up and voiced his opposition, prompting the other monks to add their voices.
About 6.30pm, the entire monastic body marched down to a nearby river, where paramilitary police were encamped and demanded the release of the two men. They were joined by several hundred local villagers, many of them enraged at the detention of the elderly monk, who locals say is well respected in the area for his learning and piety.
Shouting “Long Live the Dalai Lama”, “Let the Dalai Lama come back” and “We want freedom”, the crowd demonstrated until about 9pm.
Witnesses said that up to 1,000 paramilitary police used force to try to end the protest and opened fire on the crowd. In the gunfire, eight people died, according to a local resident in direct contact with the monastery. These included a 27-year-old monk identified as Cangdan and two women named as Zhulongcuo and Danluo.
Witnesses said that a 30-year-old villager, Pupu Deley, was killed, with the son of a villager named Cangdan, and the daughter of a villager called Cuogu. Two other people, whose identities were not available, were also killed, the witnesses said. Among those wounded was one person with a bullet through the ear and another shot in the shoulder. About 10 people were still missing yesterday, including another monk, Ciwang Renzhen.
One witness, who declined to be identified, said: “People were very angry after the old lama was detained. He is very much loved and so many ordinary people were very excited.”
State-run Chinese media confirmed that the police resorted to force but insisted that it was only after a government official was attacked and seriously wounded by protesters. “Local officials exercised restraint during the riot and repeatedly told the rioters to abide by the law,” they reported.
3 responses so far ↓
wil // April 5, 2008 at 4:41 pm
But the Governor of GA or someone on his staff said during their recent whoring trip to Shanghai that “commerce is a separate issue” from human rights, which local news solemnly and parentally repeated over and over
pjwalker911 // April 5, 2008 at 5:30 pm
It is a communist dictatorship where people are routinely imprisoned and tortured for speech and belief. There is no freedom of press, no freedom of speech, no right to bear arms, no right to privacy or due process, it has the most elaborate secret police networks in the world, people are punished for having children, women are forced into abortion and sterilization, no right to property which the government or chicom corporations can grab anytime they want it, actual slave labor is more common than fair work conditions, labor camps are run for profit by the chicom elite, they have been given most favored nation status, they have been handed massive technology transfers that enhance their military yet their generals say they want to nuke us, they have been handed all our manufacturing, they have been allowed to run a huge trade-deficit with us, the Rockefellers, UN’s Maurice Strong and Bush family are deeply connected to the chicom elite, we are now deeply in debt to them, they send toxic food products and toxic toys back to us here and we are expected to love them for it, organs are harvested from political prisoners for huge profits, but you know human rights is a separate issue. We should just let them have anything they want because after all they are the Model State according to the UN and David Rockefeller.
I think I’m going to hurl now, so stand back.
wil // April 6, 2008 at 4:19 am
Ditto
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