China clamps down on Tibet after protests

BEIJING — Soldiers on foot and in armored carriers swarmed Tibet's capital, Lhasa, on Saturday, enforcing a strict curfew a day after protesters burned shops and cars to vent their anger against Chinese rule. In another western city, police clashed with hundreds of Buddhist monks leading a sympathy demonstration.

The violence erupted two weeks before China's Summer Olympic celebrations kick off with the start of the torch relay, which passes through Tibet. China is gambling its crackdown will not draw an international outcry over human-rights violations that could lead to boycotts of the Olympics.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Saturday he opposed an Olympic boycott over Tibet.

"We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes."

Anniversary of uprising

The latest unrest began Monday on the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet was effectively independent for decades before communist troops entered in 1950.

Initially, the protests were led by Buddhist monks demanding the release of other detained monks. Their demands spiraled to include cries for Tibet's independence and turned violent Friday when police tried to stop a group of protesting monks. Pent-up grievances against Chinese rule came to the fore, as Tibetans directed their anger against Chinese and their shops, hotels and other businesses.

China's official Xinhua news agency reported at least 10 civilians were burned to death Friday. The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India said Chinese authorities killed at least 30 Tibetans and possibly as many as 100. The figures could not be independently verified.

In Lhasa on Saturday, police manned checkpoints and armored personnel carriers rattled on mostly empty streets as people stayed indoors under a curfew, witnesses said.

Several witnesses reported hearing occasional bursts of gunfire.

Law-enforcement agencies issued a notice offering leniency for demonstrators who surrender before the end of Monday and threatening severe punishment for those who do not.

Even as Chinese forces appeared to reassert control in Lhasa, a second day of sympathy protests erupted in an important Tibetan town 750 miles away.

Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans after they marched from the historic Labrang monastery and smashed windows in the county police headquarters in Xiahe, witnesses said.

Also Saturday, police broke up a protest by 200 Tibetans in Nepal's capital, Katmandu, beating them with bamboo batons and arresting at least 20, as Tibetan exile communities ramped up demonstrations around the world.

Worldwide protests

In the U.S., protesters clashed with police outside the Chinese Consulate in New York on Saturday, leaving people on both sides injured, according to police and witnesses. Several arrests were made, and some officers were injured. About 80 protesters also gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

In Australia, police used batons and pepper spray to quell a demonstration at the Chinese consulate in Sydney.

China restricts access to Tibet for foreign media, making it difficult to independently verify the scale of protests.

Yet even as Beijing has tried to block information on the last six days of unrest through telephone taps, Internet filtering and travel restrictions, it is being frustrated by some of the very advances it is promoting.

Along both sides of the road leading up to Xiahe, the mud walls of impoverished ethnic Tibetan villages are lined with giant hand-painted advertisements for cellphone and Internet services offered by state-owned companies.

This proliferation of communication devices has made it far easier for Tibetans to share with the world details of this crackdown than during previous rounds.

"Protests have taken place in Tibet for years, but they're only now getting reported," said Tsering Tashi, London-based representative of the Dalai Lama with the Office of Tibet.

As Chinese society becomes more dynamic, this leak-prone environment has forced the state to disclose negative news in something closer to real time or risk losing credibility with its own citizens.

Information from the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.