Deadly Confrontation Spreads in Tibetan Region of China
by KEITH BRADSHER and RICK GLADSTONE Published: January 24, 2012
by KEITH BRADSHER and RICK GLADSTONE Published: January 24, 2012
The new confrontation, in the town of Seda, known in Tibetan as Serthar, was reported by Free Tibet, a London-based organization that advocates Tibetan autonomy, and by Phayul.com, a Tibetan exile Web portal. Their accounts said that Chinese security forces opened fire on a crowd of Tibetan protesters in Serthar. Free Tibet said that it had confirmed two deaths and an unspecified number with “serious wounds,” and that the town was under curfew. “This is the second consecutive day that Chinese forces have opened fire and killed unarmed Tibetan protesters,” said Stephanie Brigden, director of Free Tibet. The Phayul.com account of the Serthar shooting said that 5 Tibetan protesters had been killed and more than 40 wounded, that all shops in the town were closed and that Serthar was “under virtual martial law, with large numbers of Chinese security personnel maintaining a strict surveillance.”
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government concerning the Serthar confrontation, which came one day after a conflict in the neighboring community of Luhuo, where at least two Tibetan protesters were killed by Chinese security forces. Both towns are in Sichuan Province. Seeking to counter the narrative of Tibetan advocacy groups about the violence in Luhuo, the Chinese government said Tuesday that the episode had started as a riot by monks and protesters who attacked stores and a police station. “The mob, some armed with knives, threw stones at police officers and destroyed two police vehicles and two ambulances,” said a report by Xinhua, the official news agency. Citing Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Xinhua said that one protester had been killed in Luhuo and that four protesters were hospitalized with injuries, while five police officers were injured.
The accounts from both sides suggested that the violence in the area was the worst since a series of large-scale protests that rocked Tibetan-populated regions of China in early 2008, just five months before the Olympic Games in Beijing.
Free Tibet said that 2 protesters had been killed and 31 wounded by gunfire, while the International Campaign for Tibet said that 3 protesters had been killed and 49 injured, nine of them with gunshot wounds. The exile government said that at least one person had been killed, and possibly six. The Xinhua report made no mention of gunfire. The Foreign Ministry was closed Tuesday in observance of the second day of Chinese New Year. Free Tibet had said that the protest might have started with demands for religious freedom, or with a refusal to observe Chinese New Year, which comes a month before the time when Tibetans traditionally mark a new year.
“There had been some stones thrown, but we’re uncertain about the sequence of events, whether that was after the security forces opened fire,” Ms. Brigden said. She said that she had not heard any reports from the Tibetan side of knives wielded against the Chinese security forces, adding, “I would suggest that is untrue.” Citing a Tibetan monk in India, Radio Free Asia said that thousands of Tibetans had participated in the protest on Monday and that they had destroyed “Chinese shops and other Chinese facilities in the area.” Free Tibet also said in a separate statement that tear gas had been used on Monday against protesters in Aba, another ethnic Tibetan community located 100 miles northeast of Luhuo in western Sichuan Province.
Mr. Hong was quoted by Xinhua as denouncing the Tibetan groups outside China, saying, “Overseas forces of ‘Tibet independence’ have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet.”
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