China blames Dalai Lama for unrest
BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao accused supporters of the Dalai Lama on Tuesday of organizing violent clashes in Tibet in hopes of sabotaging the Beijing Olympics and bolstering their campaign for independence in the Himalayan territory.
The Dalai Lama urged his followers to remain peaceful, saying he would resign as head of the Tibetan government-in-exile if violence got out of control. But he also suggested China may have fomented unrest in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and nearby provinces to discredit him.
In striking an uncompromising line, Wen underscored the communist leadership's determination to restore order in Tibet and Tibetan areas of neighboring provinces.
"There is ample fact -- and we also have plenty of evidence -- proving that this incident was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," he told reporters.
"By staging that incident, they want to undermine the Beijing Olympic Games, and they also try to serve their hidden agenda by inciting such incidents," said Wen.
He said Lhasa was returning to normal and "will be reopened to the rest of the world," but did not specify when.
But Tibetans weren't the only ones hoping to show their disapproval. Moves to punish China over its handling of violence in Tibet gained momentum Tuesday, with a novel suggestion for a mini-boycott of the Beijing Olympics by VIPs at the opening ceremony.
Such a protest by world leaders would be a huge slap in the face for China's Communist leadership.
France's outspoken foreign minister, former humanitarian campaigner Bernard Kouchner, said the idea "is interesting."
Kouchner said he wants to discuss it with other foreign ministers from the 27-nation European Union next week. His comments opened a crack in what until now had been solid opposition to a full boycott, a stance that Kouchner said remains the official government position.
The idea of skipping the Aug. 8 opening ceremony "is less negative than a general boycott," Kouchner said. "We are considering it."
Asked about Kouchner's statement, China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said: "Certainly I think what he said is not shared by most of the people in the world."
Independent reporting from the region was impossible because of China's tight control over information and a ban on trips to the area by foreign reporters.
John Kenwood, a 19-year-old Canadian tourist who left Lhasa on Tuesday, said he saw street cleaners wearing orange vests emblazoned with the Beijing Olympics symbol.
"When the fighting began, you saw no Chinese," said Kenwood as he arrived in Nepal. "Now you see no Tibetans on the streets. The young Tibetans are probably hiding."
The Lhasa protests, led by Buddhist monks, began peacefully March 10, the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet had been effectively independent for decades before Chinese communist troops imposed Beijing's control in 1950.
The demonstrations took a violent turn Friday, leaving 16 people dead and dozens injured, according to the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile in India contends 80 Tibetans died.
The protests have focused world attention on China's human rights record ahead of the Olympics. The government had hoped the Aug. 8-24 games would burnish its image as a modernizing nation.
The Dalai Lama, speaking in Dharmsala, India, seat of his government-in-exile, urged nonviolence.
"I say to China and the Tibetans: Don't commit violence," he told reporters. He suggested the Chinese themselves may have had a hand in the upheaval to discredit him.
"It's possible some Chinese agents are involved there," he said. "Sometimes totalitarian regimes are very clever, so it is important to investigate."
If violence spirals out of control, he said his "only option is to completely resign" as head of the government-in-exile. A top aide said later the Dalai Lama would not give up his role as spiritual leader for Tibetan Buddhists.
U.S. officials urged China to address Tibetans' grievances and to engage in direct talks with the Dalai Lama.
"I do think that his statements point out the fact that he is not arguing for independence or separation from China. Quite the opposite, he is arguing for dialogue with the Chinese," said State Department spokesman Tom Casey.
Chinese authorities pressed ahead with efforts to round up protesters in Lhasa. Witnesses said officials had been detaining people since the weekend.
Duoji Zeren, vice governor of Tibet, was quoted on state television as saying authorities "would take determined methods to capture the primary suspects," but no details were given.
Protests spilled over from Tibet into surrounding provinces in recent days, as police and soldiers set up checkpoints across a wide swath of western China. On Tuesday, thousands of Tibetans flooded the streets in Seda, in the southern Chinese province of Sichuan, according to the Tibet Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Activist groups also circulated graphic photographs of protesters who they said were massacred Sunday by Chinese police at Kirti monastery in Sichuan province. The images showed several men who were apparently shot and bodies covered in blood. There was no way to verify the authenticity of the photographs.
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Associated Press writers Muneeza Naqvi in Katmandu, Nepal, and Gavin Rabinowitz in Dharmsala, India, contributed to this report.
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International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said last month that he expects many heads of state -- including President Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- to attend the opening ceremony.
Such an opening ceremony boycott presumably would not include the athletes, who under Olympic rules are forbidden from making any kind of protest at events or venues -- including the opening ceremony.
U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said there are no rules forcing athletes to attend opening ceremonies.
"We strongly encourage our athletes to participate in opening ceremonies," Seibel said. "It is a tremendous honor to walk into the Olympic Stadium behind the flag of your nation, and to do so in a ceremony honoring and celebrating athletes from around the world."
The violent protests in Tibet, the most serious challenge in almost two decades to China's rule in the region, are forcing governments and human rights campaigners to re-examine their approach to the Aug. 8-24 games.
Human Rights Watch, which has not been pushing for a boycott, may soon change its stance and urge heads of state not to go to the opening ceremony, said Sophie Richardson, the New York-based group's Asia advocacy director. So far, the group has been suggesting that foreign leaders "think long and hard" about whether they want to seen alongside China's leadership, she said in a telephone interview.
"Their presence at the games is going to be represented and reported by the Chinese government as a sign of approval," she added.
Prince Charles already has said he will skip the Olympics. He supports Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile since an uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
Hollywood director Steven Spielberg also withdrew in February as an artistic adviser to the opening and closing ceremonies, saying China had not done enough to halt the bloodshed in Darfur. China buys much of Sudan's oil and supplies many of the weapons used in the Darfur conflict.
China is trying to stop any boycott movement from gathering steam. In the government's highest-level comment on the protests in Tibet and neighboring provinces, Premier Wen Jiabao accused the Dalai Lama and his supporters of orchestrating the violence to taint the Olympics.
"The Beijing Olympics will be a grand gathering for people from around the world," Wen said. "We need to respect the principles of the Olympics and the Olympic Charter and we should not politicize the games."
The International Olympic Committee has been forced to lobby against boycott calls and the possibility of the games turning into a political demonstration.
The IOC's basic position, as stated repeatedly by Rogge, is that it is a sports organization and unable to pressure China or any other country on political matters.
IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau reiterated that the Olympic Charter forbids protests at any games sites. Her comment came in response to suggestions from some French lawmakers that Olympic athletes wear Tibetan armbands or scarves on medal podiums or at the opening ceremony.
"It's unsportsmanlike to want to gag athletes, to follow in the footsteps of totalitarianism," said one of the lawmakers, Gerard Bapt.
Moreau would not get into specifics on how the IOC might respond to protests in Beijing.
"Lots of people and lots of organizations are commenting at the moment. We don't want to get dragged into the debate. We have rules and procedures, which means that when things happen, we can deal with them. We are not going to start commenting about what might, or what might not, happen," she said.
The consensus is that a total boycott would only hurt the athletes, as shown by the political boycotts of the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Olympics. The Dalai Lama has also said a boycott is not the answer.
European calls for a boycott of the opening ceremony predate the protests in Tibet, which began peacefully March 10 on the anniversary of the failed 1959 uprising.
A Dutch lawmaker, Joel Voordewind, had already suggested last month that countries "take part in the games but skip the party beforehand."
But the Tibetan unrest has added urgency to the issue by refocusing attention on China's human rights record.
Even before the Tibetan protests, three-time Olympic swimming gold medalist Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands called on Rogge to speak out on behalf of all athletes urging China to improve its human rights situation. On Monday, world 50-meter butterfly champion Roland Schoeman of South Africa said the IOC "should stand up and say, 'The way these people (Tibetans) are being treated is not acceptable.' "
Luciano Barra, a longtime Italian Olympic official who was deputy CEO of the 2006 Turin Winter Games, also believes the IOC should prepared to do and say more.
"For a question of credibility, the public opinion will say, 'You are just thinking about the games, not thinking about millions of people and freedom," he said.
About 400 people chanted a prayer and waved Tibetan flags Tuesday at a protest near the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Wangpo Tethong, who presides over the self-declared Tibetan National Olympic Committee, said Rogge "must clearly denounce the killings and force China to stop it."
For some Olympic watchers, the violent demonstrations in Tibet come as no surprise and are something the IOC can't be expected to resolve.
"This is what people anticipated when giving the games to Beijing. The Tibetan issue is always there. This was clearly going to be part of the last six months of the run-up to the games," John MacAloon, a University of Chicago professor and Olympic historian, said in an interview.
IOC executive board member and marketing chief Gerhard Heiberg said Olympics officials can't lecture China but does raise human rights and other issues in its regular, private contacts with the Chinese.
"We still maintain that the Olympics are mainly a sports event and we do not want to get involved in a sovereign state's domestic and foreign policy," the Norwegian said in an interview. "Formally we keep out of this, but of course, behind the scenes there can be silent diplomacy, trying to explain how things could hurt the success of the games. This is also important."
Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders came out in favor Tuesday of an opening ceremony boycott by heads of state and government, and royalty. The president of the EU Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, also said politicians should consider staying away from the ceremony if the violence continues.
"Calling for a complete boycott of the Olympic games is not a good solution. The aim is not to deprive athletes of the world's biggest sports event or to deprive the public of the spectacle," said Reporters Without Borders. "But it would be outrageous not to firmly demonstrate one's disagreement with the Chinese government's policies."
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Associated Press Writers Angela Charlton in Paris, Stephen Wilson in London, Eddie Pells in Denver, Stephen Wade in Beijing and Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.