China will seal off the Tibetan capital this week before the arrival of the
Olympic torch relay, closing the Himalayan city to farmers and insisting
that even schoolchildren must carry new passes. Panic buying has gripped the
city as hundreds of thousands of people prepare for the tight security
restrictions.
Details of the lockdown in Lhasa emerged as official Chinese media reported
that a specially adapted Olympic torch had arrived yesterday at the Tibetan
base camp of Mount Everest. Organisers hope that an ascent will mark the
literal high point of the global torch relay.
Certainly China is taking no chances of disruption to the procession when it
wends its way through the capital. Farmers for miles around have been told
that they will not be allowed to enter the city to sell their produce from
May 1. Every resident of Lhasa must register for a special pass.
Residents said that they could not remember such draconian restrictions on
movement since martial law was imposed in the city after several days of
deadly riots when rampaging Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule set fire to
swaths of the city in March 1989.
Tibetan authorities are under pressure to ensure that no monk demanding the
return of the Dalai Lama or a Tibetan chafing under Chinese rule
demonstrates in the path of the torch. A team of mountaineers is due to
carry the flame to the summit of Everest, the world’s highest peak, on about
May 10.
From May 1 until June 20, when the torch is due to pass through Lhasa,
residents of surrounding counties have been ordered not to enter the city.
Officials of counties and villages in a radius of 30 miles (50km) around Lhasa
have called meetings and notified farmers that they will not be able to
travel to the city to trade. Farmers who take crops of potatoes, yak butter
and juniper branches to sell to pilgrims to burn at altars outside main
temples have been told they will have to stop from May 1, residents told The
Times.
Residents of other villages said that only those equipped with a new special
permit issued by the local county administration would be allowed to enter
the city. They said it would be difficult for nomads and farmers to obtain
such passes as they were not registered with a government work unit.
In Lhasa, news of the measures prompted a wave of panic buying among residents
anxious that they would have difficulty negotiating security cordons around
the city to reach shops and markets. One city resident said: “People are
stocking up on food and other everyday necessities because they are worried
about a martial law-type situation.”
City residents must also obtain special passes. Before May 1, everyone must
submit a copy of their identity card and a one-inch photo to their work
unit. The local police are issuing them with a pass so that they can move
around the city. Those who do not belong to a government work unit must
complete their paperwork with their neighbourhood committee.
The passes are required for schoolchildren, including kindergarten and primary
school pupils. Residents said they believed that one reason for this was
that the torch route would encompass Jiangsu Road in the city, which is
lined with several large primary schools.
The passes are compulsory for all residents of Lhasa, including Tibetans,
ethnic Han Chinese and ethnic Hui Muslims.
Even the dead are not exempt from the checks. One family was stopped recently
by armed police en route to a site east of Lhasa where the dead are taken
for the Tibetan sky burial, in which the body is dismembered and fed to
vultures in a custom necessitated by the difficulty of burial in the frozen
ground and the lack of trees for burning. They said the police wanted to
check if their relative had died as a result of injuries received during
riots. After the body was unwrapped, they were allowed to proceed.
China says order has returned to the city since the riot on March 14 in which
Tibetans rampaged through the streets, stabbing and stoning ethnic Han
Chinese and setting fire to hundreds of shops and offices. Officials say
that 18 people were killed.
Lhasa will reopen to Chinese tourists on May 1, but the city will remain off
limits to foreigners. Foreign students are not being allowed to renew visas
after the end of the academic year in July.
Restrictions to protect the Olympics are going into effect elsewhere. Security
checks in Beijing at hotels, entertainment areas and rented homes have been
increased. The MIDI Music Festival planned for May has been moved to
October. Hong Kong travel agents said this month that the government visa
office had declared multiple-entry business visas would not be available
from mid-April to mid-October. In the past they were easy to obtain.
such reports like this with color-glass is doomed to criticize everything happened in china. the wall between china and western country so tall that you believe all chinese support olympic were wash brain and meanwhile chinese felt unfair and hostility from you. welcome to china to find true china
GQ, shanghai, china
@Patrick, Shanghai.
Wonder if yr western friend told you to seal off Lhasa is also for economic benefit. And perhaps the same benefit applies to suppressing freedom of speech in mainland China, barring entry to Hong Kong of Danish - Pillar of Shame - sculptor Jens Galschiot of group Color Orange.
Gene Asia, Singapore,
For the same economic benefit, they should have called off the world tour of the Olympic Torch.
And should have sealed off Seoul and Nagano last week so that PRC mobs overseas would not be able to attack the pro-Tibetan crowds who knew nothing about Tibet because it is a sealed-off place faraway.
Gene Asia, Singapore,
Patrick, Shanghai: Did yr western friend tell you to seal off Lhasa is also for economic benefit? And perhaps the same benefit applies to suppressing freedom of speech in mainland China, barring entry to Hong Kong of Danish - Pillar of Shame - sculptor Jens Galschiot of Group Color Orange.
Gene Asia, Singapore,
For the same economic benefit, they should have called off the world tour of the Olympic Torch. And should have sealed off Seoul and Nagano last week so that PRC mobs overseas would not be able to attack the pro-Tibetan crowds who knew nothing about Tibet because it is a sealed-ff place faraway.
Gene Asia, Singapore,
Lim in Johor Bahru
Can I ask you - should the above article by Jane Macartney have been published?. And if not why not? If the gist of the above article has not been published by Xinhua in China, why not?
Stuart Griffin, Leeds, England
It would be interesting to compare how many Tibetans died as a direct result of
a) The last 50 years of the old Theocratic Tibetan Goverment
b) The first 50 years of Chinese rule
Which do you think ?
Mike, Nottm, UK
What is the point of having an Olympic torch rally where the only ones cheering are nationalist Chinese, many of the routes changed & whole areas of cities closed off to avoid protestors. If the CCP where so desperate for a rally perhaps they should just have run 2000 circuits of tiananmen square.
Mike, Nottm, UK
Mike Poulsen, Reading, Berkshire
Mike, don't just read Western media. Go to the Chinese media and websites too. You will get a balance view then. If not you are truly a biased and anti-China person.
Many Tibetan sufferings in d 1950s were by Tibetan high officials in power at the time.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Peter, London,
R u referring to Patrick, Shanghai's comments? I believe what he meant was West attacked China b'cos of its economic boom and rise. Not b'cos of freedom, human rights or Tibet which you people do not really know alot about.
I agree Patrick is absolutely right.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
I believe normalcy has returned to Lhasa. The security force is enough to ensure the safe passage of the torch. China does not need to completely seal of the city.
China has changed so much sometimes to its dismay.
If need be I wld support execution of trouble makers and separatist elements.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
My Western friends.
U talk so much about freedom. R u totally free to do what you like? There must be laws that curb some of your activities which are considered not right. How u apply such laws is your way. The Chinese are also free too subject to their laws. How it is applied is their way.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
James Currie, London, U.K quoted Mahatma Gandhi's saying with reference to Tibet.
James, when the great Gandhi said those things he was referring to the British occupation at the time. He was advocating for Independence. Tibet is different. It is a province and lives are improving.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
william gibbons, beijing, china
William, don't tell me u r in China. If u r, can't u move around freely?
I do not think China really need to seal of the city of Lhasa just for the torch run.
Yes, William, the Chinese has awaken to western lies and interference. They can't be fooled anymore
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Mike Poulsen, Reading, Berkshire said:
"I know more than a little about Tibet and the atrocities performed there by the Chinese in the fifities."
Did u witness what happened at that time? Were u there? If yes,u must be quite old now.
Come'on this is 21st Century. Tibet has changed 4 better.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Glenn, wales,
Glenn, if you are not going to watch the games, do you have to tell the whole world. Nobody will miss you, not to mention those leaders of the western world who indicated that they were not going to attend.
The Olympic games are for real sports persons and sports loving fans.
Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia
Kevin Webster, Plymouth, England:
Could you please suggest a proper method to have the torch replay finished smoothly whilst you know that some FREE TIBET activists promised to try their best to ruin the event there?
Yolande, sheffield,
When Israel retaliated against Hamas it's not crackdown but China arresting violent Tibetans who burnt people alive and that's crackdown. Double standards.
Alan, London, UK
Patrick, Shanghai - I know more than a little about Tibet and the atrocities performed there by the Chinese in the fifities. Some of the excesses of cruelty at that time beggar belief. And sometimes seemingly as much for entertainment as to subjegate the people.
Mike Poulsen, Reading, Berkshire
it's so funny, you say a lot if you know nothing about Tibet. Do you mean is that the so called freedom ?
Peter, London,
why so many people are easy to fooled.
Peter, London,
I only hope the Tibetan people can take solace in the following quote;
"...When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always... Exploitation and domination of one nation over another can have no place in a world striving to put an end to all war..."
Mahatma Gandhi
James Currie, London, U.K
a western friend told me the reason why western media attacks China is fundamentally economic benefit, not the so called freedom and human right, actually, they know a little about tibet.
Patrick, Shanghai,
this is pathetic, how can you have an olympic celebration, which is for the whole world then close down a city and stop people coming and going...this is the disgusting face of communism...when are chinese people going to wake up to the fact that they have been lied to about their history
william gibbons, beijing, china
It's good to know what measures the Chinese govenment had took to insure the security during the torch pass in Lhasa rout.
Since the riot on March 14 I think it is necessary to seal off the city out of the potential dangers.
Jack , Beijing, China
China cannot face reality so it attempts to mold and shape reality to fit its version. This is the way it has always been under the CCP. But this strategy can only work so far - let them eat cake.
Stuart Griffin, Leeds, England
The amount of security required, as shown in the photograph, surely makes this exercise wholly pointless, and grossly embarassing to both the Chinese authorities and the Olympic Committee.
I for one will not watch any of this devalued Olympics.
Glenn, wales,
Surely tghis is sufficient proof of the draconian methods used by the Chinese to supress the Tibetan's. The so called free world should at best boycot the opening ceremony in protest and show our support for the Tibetans, let them see they are not a forgotten people.
Kevin Webster, Plymouth, England