China urged to drop Tibet from Olympic torch route
BEIJING (AFP) — An envoy of the Dalai Lama urged Beijing to cancel "provocative" plans to run the Olympic torch relay through Tibet, but China promptly dismissed his call Friday as a bid to sabotage the Games.
Meanwhile, a report said China would begin putting people on trial this month over the unrest -- the biggest challenge to Chinese rule in Tibet in decades -- as Beijing has moved to ensure no repeat before the August Olympics.
Lodi Gyari, an envoy of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, told a US Congressional hearing on Thursday that Beijing's communist leaders should abandon plans to bring the Olympic flame through Tibet.
"This idea of taking the torch through Tibet, I really think, should be cancelled precisely because that would be very deliberately provocative and very insulting after what has happened," he said.
The torch will pass through Tibet in May to go up Mount Everest, and then again when it goes through Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in June. Chinese officials have already pledged tight security for the Tibetan legs.
Gyari said that if the Chinese authorities went ahead with the torch run in Tibet, it would "bring more adverse publicity" to the Olympic Games in Beijing -- which China wants to be a national showcase of its rising standing.
"The Olympic flame is the highest symbol of the Olympic spirit. It represents peace, friendship and progress," Zhu Jing, a spokeswoman for the Beijing Olympic organising committee, said Friday in response to Gyari.
"The fact that the 'Dalai clique' calls for a cancellation of the torch relay has exposed the reality of its attempt to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games," she told AFP.
China frequently refers to the so-called "Dalai clique" but has refused to provide any specific details about its membership or structure.
Protests in Lhasa claimed their first lives on March 14, amid fierce anti-Chinese demonstrations to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising.
The unrest quickly spread to neighbouring Chinese provinces populated by Tibetans.
Beijing says rioters killed 18 civilians and two police officers. Exiled Tibetan leaders have put the death toll from the Chinese crackdown at 135 to 140 Tibetans, with another 1,000 injured and many detained.
With access to Tibet still denied -- foreign tourists would not be allowed in until May and journalists are barred -- it remains extremely difficult to verify information about the situation in the isolated region.
The Tibet Commerce newspaper said late Thursday that more than 1,000 people had either been caught by police or turned themselves in.
Trials of at least some would begin in April, the paper reported, citing the deputy chief of the Lhasa communist party, Wang Xiangming.
"We must use legal procedures to severely punish various crimes committed on March 14," said the president of the Tibet Higher People's Court, identified in Mandarin as Luobu Dunzhu, in a separate report in the Tibet Commerce on Friday.
"We must ensure social stability and the smooth development of Tibet into a moderately well-off society, while also ensuring a successful Beijing Olympics," he was quoted as saying.
Police had confiscated a total of 185 guns and rifles in raids on monks' dormitories near Buddhist temples in Tibet as well as the western provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, the Beijing News reported.
Chinese authorities have also stepped up propaganda efforts aimed at winning the allegiance of the people of Tibet, and not least members of the Communist Party.
The Chinese Communist Party recently issued a notice calling for a strengthened campaign to bolster the anti-Dalai Lama spirit among its rank and file in Tibet and other areas inhabited by Tibetans, the Beijing News said.
In future, the paper said, a willingness to "struggle" against the "Dalai clique" will be a key criterion for evaluating party members.
China's rights record has also been highlighted by the sentencing Thursday of AIDS activist Hu Jia to three-and-a-half years in jail.
In 2001, China promised that if it won the right to host the Games, "tremendous" human rights improvements would ensue, a pledge repeated in October by Liu Jingmin, Beijing's vice-mayor and a top Games organiser.
