China says Dalai Lama caused Lhasa riots
China accused the Dalai Lama on Sunday of orchestrating the recent anti-government riots in Tibet in a bid to mar the Beijing Olympics and overthrow the area's communist leaders.
By PTI |
CHENGDU: China accused the Dalai Lama on Sunday of orchestrating the recent anti-government riots in Tibet in a bid to mar the Beijing Olympics and overthrow the area's communist leaders.
The accusations in Communist Party newspapers came as the government said protests that had spread from Tibet into other provinces were under control, as many of those areas swarmed with troops and were cut off from outside scrutiny.
``The evil motive of the Dalai clique is to stir up troubles at a sensitive time and deliberately make it bigger and even cause bloodshed so as to damage the Beijing Olympics,'' said the Tibet Times, calling it ``a life-and-death struggle between ourselves and the enemy.''
Accusing the Dalai Lama _ a Nobel Peace Prize winner who advocates nonviolence and denies being behind the March 14 riots in Lhasa _ of damaging the Olympics is an attempt to further demonize him in the eyes of the Chinese public, which is strongly supportive of the Olympics.
``The Beijing Olympics are eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, but the Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence,'' said the People's Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
The latest broadside against the spiritual leader, who is revered by Tibetans, comes as the government ramped up efforts to put its own version of the unrest before the international public as information from the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other areas with sizable Tibetan populations slowed to a trickle.
The violence has become a public relations disaster for China ahead of the August Olympics, which it has been hoping to use to bolster its international image.
The government banned foreign media from Tibetan areas and has been attempting to fill the vacuum with its own message. Footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and an examination of Western media Web pages accusing them of biased reporting by ignoring Tibetan violence were disseminated via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which has been blocked in China.
The accusations in Communist Party newspapers came as the government said protests that had spread from Tibet into other provinces were under control, as many of those areas swarmed with troops and were cut off from outside scrutiny.
``The evil motive of the Dalai clique is to stir up troubles at a sensitive time and deliberately make it bigger and even cause bloodshed so as to damage the Beijing Olympics,'' said the Tibet Times, calling it ``a life-and-death struggle between ourselves and the enemy.''
Accusing the Dalai Lama _ a Nobel Peace Prize winner who advocates nonviolence and denies being behind the March 14 riots in Lhasa _ of damaging the Olympics is an attempt to further demonize him in the eyes of the Chinese public, which is strongly supportive of the Olympics.
``The Beijing Olympics are eagerly awaited by the people of the whole world, but the Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence,'' said the People's Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party.
The latest broadside against the spiritual leader, who is revered by Tibetans, comes as the government ramped up efforts to put its own version of the unrest before the international public as information from the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other areas with sizable Tibetan populations slowed to a trickle.
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The violence has become a public relations disaster for China ahead of the August Olympics, which it has been hoping to use to bolster its international image.
The government banned foreign media from Tibetan areas and has been attempting to fill the vacuum with its own message. Footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and an examination of Western media Web pages accusing them of biased reporting by ignoring Tibetan violence were disseminated via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which has been blocked in China.
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