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法新社的一条新闻China says 10 killed in Tibet, security tight

BEIJING (AFP) - China said Saturday that 10 people had been burnt to death during unrest in Lhasa, as the military locked down the Tibetan capital amid fierce international scrutiny ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

Witnesses said tanks and armoured vehicles were out in force in Lhasa on Saturday, a day after the worst protests against China's controversial rule in the vast, mountainous region in nearly 20 years.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said 10 people had been left dead in the unrest, citing government officials from Tibet as blaming "mobs" for the violence.

"The victims are all innocent civilians, and they have been burnt to death," Xinhua said. It said no foreigners had been killed.

However the Tibetan government-in-exile warned the toll could be much higher, saying it had "unconfirmed reports" of about 100 deaths as it called on the United Nations to stop "human rights violations" in Tibet.

China's top official in Tibet, a vast region formally annexed by the country in 1951, said the protests were part of a "separatist" movement that authorities would not allow to succeed.

"The plot of the separatists will fail. We will challenge them firmly, according to law," the chairman of the Tibet government, Qiangba Puncog, told reporters in Beijing on the sidelines of China's annual parliamentary session.

Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles as a car burns on a street in Lhasa
©AFP

"This is very clear: This is a separatist Dalai Lama clique, inside and outside the country."

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's Buddhist spiritual leader, called on China to "stop using force" and rejected allegations that he and his government-in-exile in neighbouring India were behind the uprising in Lhasa.

"These protests are a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people," he said. "Unity and stability under brute force is at best a temporary solution."

A map showing Lhasa in Tibet where troops have surrounded the three biggest monasteries
©AFP/Graphic

Earlier, Xinhua said many police officers had been badly injured in clashes and that rioters had wielded "backpacks filled with stones and bottles of inflammable liquids, some holding iron bars, wooden sticks and long knives."

A Chinese tour operator and other people in Lhasa contacted by AFP said the tanks and armoured personnel carriers were patrolling the city on Saturday.

"There are tanks and armed soldiers on the streets. We have been told to stay in our rooms... the city is shut down," Wu Yongzhe, the tour organiser, said by phone.

The Dalai Lama
©AFP/File - Manan Vatsyayana

Wu, other tour operators and travellers said Tibet had been closed to foreign tourists.

Tibet, a mountainous region that includes Mount Everest and is more than twice the size of France, has been a flashpoint issue for China's Communist leadership ever since it came to power in 1949.

Communist forces were sent into Tibet in 1950 to "liberate" the region, with China's official rule beginning a year later.

Tibet has taken on greater importance in the run-up to the Olympics in August, which the country's leaders hope will be a chance to show off China's rapid transformation into a modern economic power to the rest of the world.

Tibetan rights groups have vowed to pile intense pressure on Beijing over its rule of the region ahead of the Games, and any perceived rights abuses now would prove unwelcome news for the Chinese leadership.

The protests are the biggest since 1989, when Chinese President Hu Jintao -- who was on Saturday given a second five-year term -- was the Communist Party chief of Tibet.

A convoy of Chinese military trucks in Lhasa
©AFP

Hollywood star Richard Gere, one of many Western celebrities who have been vocal in their support for the Tibetan cause, called for a boycott of the Olympics if the Chinese leadership mishandled the situation.

Chinese censors blacked out Western media reports about the developments in Tibet on Chinese television on Friday, and independent verification of the news from the region has been difficult.

But even official Chinese accounts have indicated the protests began Monday, when Tibetans around the world marked the anniversary of a 1959 uprising that was put down with force and led the Dalai Lama to flee into exile.

Those protests, reportedly begun by Buddhist monks, grew in the following days before erupting into anti-Chinese rioting on Friday.

Chinese-owned shops, offices and restaurants were smashed and burned by demonstrators.

Footage broadcast on Chinese television showed rioters destroying property in Lhasa, with the newsreader saying the Dalai Lama was responsible.

The unrest also spread outside Lhasa, with monks leading a rally of up to 4,000 people in Xiahe, Gansu province, the site of one of Tibetan Buddhism's most important monasteries, said the Free Tibet Campaign, an activist group.

The United States and Britain expressed concern over the violence, with the White House calling on Beijing to "respect Tibetan culture."

Rights groups allege that Beijing encourages ethnic Chinese to move into Tibet to culturally take over the region, a process made much easier by the government opening a new rail line to Tibet in 2006.

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