Tibet monks disrupt journalists' tour
Group complains about lack of religious freedom as Chinese gov't crackdown continues
LHASA, China - A group of Tibetan monks disrupted a tour by foreign reporters to Lhasa yesterday, complaining there is no religious freedom and the Dalai Lama is not to blame for recent violence.
About 30 monks surged into a carefully stage-managed visit to the Jokang Temple in Lhasa by foreign reporters.
They yelled: "Tibet is not free. Tibet is not free."
They also said their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, had nothing to do with recent anti-government riots by Tibetans in Lhasa, where buildings were torched and Chinese were attacked. Government handlers tried to pull the journalists away when the monks protested.
The government has said the March 14 riots were supported by "the Dalai clique."
With the exception of yesterday's disruption, the first group of foreign journalists allowed into the Tibetan capital since soon after the riots has been given a carefully monitored glimpse of a city divided.
On Wednesday, the first day of the visit, police presence was visible but not overbearing in the newly built up and heavily Chinese portions of Lhasa, teams of security forces stood in the lanes near the Jokhang Temple.
Two Tibetan teachers drinking in a nearby bar said they were enjoying a first night out after nighttime curfews kept them at home eating mainly tsampa -- roasted barley -- since the day after the March 14 riot. One reason the curfew was loosened, they said, was the foreign media visit.
An acrid odour hung in the blocks near the old city where rows of burned out buildings stand as evidence of the violence. Many shops were closed, some from a lack of business, others from looting that left their Chinese owners with little to sell.
"People are leaving because there's no business," said Jin Zhenman, a South Korean who came to Tibet to study traditional Buddhist painting and now runs a shop.
China rarely allows foreign reporters into Tibet under normal circumstances, so the media tour underscores the leadership's determination to contain any damage ahead of the Beijing Olympics that was supposed to celebrate China as a modern, rising power.
Asked to comment on the reporters' trip, the Dalai Lama -- the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetans -- called it a "first step." He said he hoped the trip would take place "with complete freedom."
The rioting and four days of protests that preceded it were the worst anti-Chinese demonstrations in Lhasa in nearly two decades and they sparked protests in Tibetan areas across western China.
Chinese state media and officials said Wednesday that more than 660 protesters have surrendered in Lhasa and in Sichuan province, site of at least two violent confrontations between police and Tibetan protesters.
The Chinese government has maintained its response was measured and comparable to what any responsible government would do when faced with civil unrest.
That message underlined much of the official program put on for the roughly two dozen U.S., European, Middle Eastern and Asian reporters from the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Financial Times, Japan's Kyodo News Agency, KBS of South Korea, and Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
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