China to try Tibet rioters
China says it will put the Lhasa rioters on trial and reopen Tibet to tourism by May, underscoring the government’s drive to close the book on recent unrest well before the summer’s Beijing Olympics.
Other Tibetan regions may remain off-limits considerably longer, however, with police in western Sichuan province barring foreigners yesterday.
China continues to blame the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibet’s Buddhists, for a bloody riot in Lhasa on March 14.
In Washington, the Dalai Lama’s special envoy told US politicians that China must bear full responsibility for recent violence and suffering in Tibet and said his homeland was being “brutally occupied”.
“The situation today is grim,” Lodi Gyari said at a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing.
But China has begun portraying life in Tibet as gradually returning to normal.
State television showed Chinese travellers returning to Lhasa and the regional tourism authority announced Tibet would reopen to foreign groups on May 1.
Tour operators, hotels and restaurant owners have complained of losses from the closure of the region’s borders in a massive security clampdown.
Trials for rioters will held before May 1, Lhasa’s deputy Communist Party secretary was quoted as saying in the state-run Tibet Commerce newspaper.
Wang Xiangming said about 1,280 alleged rioters were captured or turned themselves in.
Rights groups have voiced concerns over the potential abuse of prisoners and American activist John Kamm said he had submitted a list of 17 Tibetan monks who were detained on March 10 at the start of peaceful protests that turned violent four days later.
Mr Kamm, executive director of the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation, said China appeared determined to defy international criticism over its Tibet policies.
“What gives me some hope is that there’s some recognition that China’s international image has taken a beating,” Mr Kamm told reporters in Beijing.
Beijing has sent thousands of police and paramilitary troops into Tibet and neighbouring Tibetan areas to maintain an edgy peace, hunt down protest leaders and surround Buddhist monasteries in Lhasa.
Police manning a checkpoint stopped reporters trying to enter Aba prefecture - state – yesterday, a primarily Tibetan area in Sichuan province.
At a news conference in Beijing, Aba’s deputy chief Xiao Youcai, said life was “completely normal” in the area, but that it was “too dangerous” for foreign journalists.
