NEW DELHI (AFP) — Tibetan Buddhist monks Friday tried to storm the heavily guarded Chinese embassy complex in New Delhi as the Olympic Games opening ceremony got underway in Beijing, police said.
Up to 150 saffron-clad monks chanting anti-Chinese slogans drove up to the embassy in two buses and tried to tear down steel barricades in front of the fenced embassy in New Delhi's diplomatic quarter, a police spokesman said.
As the police tackled the Tibetan exiles, some burst through the barricades and ran towards the embassy walls but were stopped, the police official said.
The monks, wearing headbands which said "Free Tibet," screamed anti-Chinese slogans and urged India for help.
"Stop killing Tibetans while you hold these Olympics Games," the group shouted.
"We beg India to help us," some of the men cried as police officers hustled them into police buses.
"We've further strengthened security at the embassy and taken the monks into preventive custody," the police spokesman told AFP.
Police set up water cannons to head off any further protests.
In March, Tibetan exiles broke into the Chinese embassy complex and were wrestled to the ground after reaching a cultural centre inside.
India, which has given sanctuary to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, has called on Tibetan exiles not to use Indian soil as a springboard for their anti-China political campaign.
India is home to more than 100,000 Tibetan refugees.
But India has seen frequent anti-China protests since the issue of Tibet was thrown into the international spotlight in March during a Chinese crackdown on protests against Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region.
Tibetan exiles in India and Nepal have been staging the protests in the lead-up to the Games, saying the occasion was an opportunity for their plight to be recognised around the world.
Friday's protest came two days after the Dalai Lama offered his best wishes for the Olympics, saying they would be a moment of "great pride" for the Chinese people.
The 73-year-old Buddhist leader, based in Dharamshala in northern India, repeated his support for the Games, ignoring opposition from radical younger followers.
Beijing earlier this year accused the Dalai Lama of seeking to "sabotage" the Olympics and of fomenting unrest in Tibet against China's rule in a bid to embarrass the Chinese government -- charges the Buddhist leader denied.
China accuses the Dalai Lama of being a separatist, but he insists he does not want independence for Tibet and instead is only seeking greater autonomy for the region as well as an end to religious and cultural repression.
But more radical younger Tibetan exiles are demanding full independence for Tibet.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
