Dalai Lama to resign if....

[pledm]

Dalai Lama to Resign if Violence Worsens

(AP) Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama speaks to the media in Dharmsala, India, Tuesday, March 18,...

DHARMSALA, India (AP) - The Dalai Lama threatened Tuesday to step down as leader of Tibet's government-in-exile if violence committed by Tibetans in his homeland spirals out of control.

The rioting prompted Premier Wen Jiabao to denounce the Dalai Lama's supporters as separatists and accuse them of instigating the violence in Tibet's capital of Lhasa. It was China's highest-level response to date to the unrest.

The Dalai Lama, speaking to reporters, urged his countrymen to show restraint.

He said that "if things become out of control" his "only option is to completely resign."

Later, one of his top aides clarified the Dalai Lama's comments.

"If the Tibetans were to choose the path of violence he would have to resign because he is completely committed to nonviolence," Tenzin Taklha said. "He would resign as the political leader and head of state, but not as the Dalai Lama. He will always be the Dalai Lama."

The recent protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa, led by monks, began peacefully March 10 on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. But they grew increasingly violent, culminating Friday with widespread street violence. Chinese officials say 16 people were killed, but the Tibetan government-in-exile put the toll at 80.

While the situation inside Tibet remains unclear, much of the violence appears to have been committed by Tibetans attacking ethnic Han Chinese, the majority ethnicity in China. In the days since then, worries have grown that Chinese troops trying to reassert control over Lhasa were exacting retribution against the Tibetans.

The Dalai Lama also called on Tibetan exiles beginning a six-month march from India to Lhasa to stop their march at the border.
"Will you get independence? What's the use?" he said.

The protests have focused world attention on China's human rights record ahead of this summer's Beijing Olympics. The communist government in Beijing wants to ensure that the Aug. 8-24 Summer Olympics boosts its international image.

"By staging that incident they want to undermine the Beijing Olympics Games, and they also try to serve their hidden agenda by inciting such incidents," Wen told reporters at a news conference held at the end of China's national legislative meeting.

The hardline stance taken by the normally mild-mannered premier underscored the communist leadership's determination to regain control over the region and ensure a smooth run-up to the Games.

"There is ample fact - and we also have plenty of evidence - proving that this incident was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," Wen said. He gave no details.

Wen dismissed claims by the Dalai Lama that there was "cultural genocide" taking place in Tibet and said China will only consider dialogue with the Dalai Lama if the exiled spiritual leader was "willing to give up his proposition for so-called Tibetan independence."

Wen said protesters in Lhasa killed bystanders, smashed public utilities and cars, and set fire to stores.

"They used extremely cruel means," Wen said. "This incident has seriously disrupted public order and life in Lhasa. This incident has inflicted heavy losses of lives and property of the people in Lhasa."

However, Wen said, the city was returning to normal.

"The situation is quiet and calm, and Lhasa will be reopened to the rest of the world," he said.

China's deadline for protesters to turn themselves in or face severe punishment was Monday at midnight. Hours after that deadline passed, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia on Tuesday quoted an unnamed witness as saying that authorities in Lhasa had began arresting hundreds of people.

No details were given and the report could not be independently confirmed because of China's tight control over information and ban on trips by foreign reporters.

Police in Lhasa refused to answer any questions.

An official at the Administrative Department of the city's Communist Party office said Tuesday the city's markets, work places, schools were all back in operation.

"There are no police or troops around our area. But as to whether there are still police sealing off the downtown streets, I am not clear yet," he said. He refused to give his name.

Protests inside China have spilled from Tibet into neighboring provinces and even the capital, Beijing.

As the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama was recognized at age 2 as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama and enthroned before he turned 4. He assumed full powers at age 15, in the year that troops from Mao Zedong's newly founded communist republic entered Tibet and crushed its small army.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet following the 1959 uprising, setting up his government-in-exile in Dharmsala.



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[pledm]

Just an update;

China locked in `Life/Death battle with Dalai Lama forces over tibet;

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN,Associated Press Writers AP - Wednesday, March 19BEIJING - Chinese officials blasted the Dalai Lama as a "wolf in monk's robes" Wednesday and said protests among Tibetans this month have sparked a life-and-death struggle between China and followers of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

State media, meanwhile, reported more than 100 people had surrendered to police in and around Tibet's regional capital of Lhasa, where peaceful protests against Chinese rule turned violent last Friday. The communist government had promised leniency for those who handed themselves in _ and harsh punishment for those who did not.

"Those criminals ... shouldn't think they can get lucky. All criminals will definitely be caught in the net," the official Tibet Daily newspaper said in a report posted on its Web site.

It was impossible to confirm the reports and no figures were given for people hunted down and arrested.

Foreign media are banned from Tibet, and China's entirely state-controlled media have faithfully reported only the official version of events, in which the government has said rioters killed 16 people. The government said troops did not fire on protesters and has denied claims by overseas Tibetan groups that 80 people were killed.

The Lhasa protests marked the biggest challenge in almost two decades to Chinese rule in the Himalayan region, which People's Liberation Army forces occupied in 1950 after several decades of effective independence.

Initially led by monks, the demonstrations began peacefully on March 10, the anniversary of a failed uprising in 1959 against Chinese rule, and then spiraled out of control.

On Tuesday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused supporters of Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, of organizing the violent clashes in hopes of sabotaging this summer's Beijing Olympics and bolstering their campaign for independence in the Himalayan territory.

Tibet's hardline Communist Party chief was quoted was quoted Wednesday issuing a particularly viscous personal attack on the Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

"The Dalai is a wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast," Zhang Qingli was quoted in the Tibet Daily as saying at a meeting of the Tibet government.

"We are now engaged in a fierce blood-and-fire battle with the Dali clique, a life-and-death battle between us and the enemy," Zhang said.

Building on such comments, Tibet's former governor Raidi accused the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile of engineering the riot to "disturb the social stability at such a sensitive time."

"The violent crime instigated by the Dalai clique is nothing but a symbol that shows fierce head-on combat between us and the Dalai clique," Raidi was quoted as saying by Xinhua on Wednesday.

The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet during the 1959 uprising, has urged his followers to remain peaceful, saying he would resign as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if violence got out of control.

However, he also suggested China may have fomented unrest in the Lhasa and nearby provinces to discredit him.

The protests have focused world attention on China's human rights record ahead of the Olympics, prompting discussion of a possible boycott of the Games' Aug. 8 opening ceremony and calls from U.S. officials and others for China to address Tibetans' grievances and engage in direct talks with the Dalai Lama.

Critics say China fuels such anger through harsh restrictions on Tibetan culture and Buddhism _ including routine villification of the Dalai Lama, who is still deeply revered by most Tibetans. The government has also been accused of marginalizing Tibetans economically, in part by encouraging migration to Tibet by members of the Han Chinese ethnic majority.

Lhasa was reportedly calm under a tight security presence that moved in over the weekend.

An employee of the local Coca-Cola bottler, who declined to give his name, said a small demonstration was held in the city on Tuesday, but protesters had fled when troops arrived.

He said the company had conducted no business since Friday when customers, including a wholesaler, shops and supermarkets had been attacked and looted.

Protests spilled over from Tibet into surrounding provinces in recent days, as police and soldiers set up checkpoints across a wide swath of western China. On Tuesday, thousands of Tibetans flooded the streets of Seda, in Sichuan province, according to the Tibet Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Activist groups also circulated graphic photographs of protesters who they said were massacred Sunday by Chinese police at Kirti monastery, also in Sichuan. The images showed several men who were apparently shot and bodies covered in blood. There was no way to verify the authenticity of the photographs.

A receptionist at the area's Nianbao Hotel said weapons had been fired as hundreds of Tibetan protestors poured into the streets. She said the area had been sealed off under a curfew and residents were confined to their homes.

[Summer]

It is such a sad situation in Tibet. I really don't understand China's government! Communism sucks in my opinion!