Word: lhasa
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...still nearly five months before the Olympic torch is to be lit in Beijing, officially starting the 29th summer Olympics. But diplomats in the Chinese capital believe that a high-level game of chicken has already begun, one that has now turned deadly - first, in Lhasa, the capital of what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region, and now elsewhere, according to Tibetan exiles and human rights groups...
...extensive the violence has been thus far is not at all clear. Tibetan exile groups claimed on Sunday that 80 people were killed in Lhasa on Mar. 13 and 14. Those claims are as yet unconfirmed by any independent reporting and Beijing says just 10 "innocent" people were killed in Lhasa. It denies any deaths elsewhere. The Dalai Lama surely stoked Beijing's anger on Sunday by claiming, from the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile, when he accused China of "cultural genocide" against Tibetans and by declining to urge his followers in Tibet to surrender to authorities there...
China understands well, this diplomat says, that the world is carefully gauging how it responds to the unrest. He notes that initial reports out of Lhasa had the People's Armed Police, an anti-riot squad, responding to the demonstrations - not the potentially much more lethal People's Liberation Army. The problem for China is that the unrest, while apparently contained for the moment in Lhasa, spread to other cities on Sunday. The government's dilemma is obvious: if Beijing insists publicly - and actually believes - it has been relatively restrained in its response to the unrest so far, what happens...
...Saturday, hundreds of young monks, nuns and ordinary Tibetans, furious at the Chinese crackdown in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, marched to Jwalamukhi, where an earlier group of marchers had been detained for 14 days by Indian authorities. Nearly 700 people had descended on the town by evening. Organizers of the original march feared that passions could get out of hand and had to turn the protestors away, telling them to remain non-violent. On Sunday, hundreds more people gathered at Tsulagkhang Temple. More marches are planned for the coming days...
...march to Lhasa, which started it all, was the brainchild of activists impatient with the "middle-path" approach. One of them, Tenzin Tsundue, now in detention in India, has been a longtime supporter of more fervent resistance. In 2002, he made news by scaling 14 stories of scaffolding of a Mumbai five-star hotel when Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was inside. "Some would say there is a disconnect between young Tibetans and our political leadership, and that it would help if the Dalai Lama moved toward a sterner position - possibly say China better get serious about the talks or walk...