January 24, 2012
By KEITH BRADSHER and RICK GLADSTONE
The New York Times
HONG KONG — Deadly showdowns between Chinese security forces and Tibetans in a restive region of western China spread to a second town on Tuesday, outside advocacy groups reported. At least two and perhaps as many as five Tibetans were killed by gunfire and many more wounded, the groups said, in what appeared to be the most violent outbreak in the region in nearly four years.
The new confrontation, in the town of Seda, known in Tibetan as Serthar, was reported by Free Tibet, a London-based organization that advocates Tibetan autonomy, and by Phayul.com, a Tibetan exile web portal. Their accounts said that Chinese security forces opened fire on a crowd of Tibetan protesters in Serthar. Free Tibet said it had confirmed two deaths and an unspecified number with “serious wounds,” and said the town was under curfew.
“This is the second consecutive day that Chinese forces have opened fire and killed unarmed Tibetan protesters,” said Stephanie Brigden, director of Free Tibet.
The Phayul.com account of the Serthar shooting said that five Tibetan protesters were killed and more than 40 wounded, that all shops in the town were closed and that Serthar was “under virtual martial law, with large numbers of Chinese security personnel maintaining a strict surveillance.”
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government concerning the Serthar confrontation, which came one day after a conflict in the neighboring community of Luhuo, where at least two Tibetan protesters were killed by Chinese security forces. Both towns are in Sichuan province.
Seeking to counter the narrative of Tibetan advocacy groups about the violence in Luhuo, the Chinese government said on Tuesday that the incident had started as a riot by monks and protesters who attacked stores and a police station.
“The mob, some armed with knives, threw stones at police officers and destroyed two police vehicles and two ambulances,” said a report by Xinhua, the official news agency. Citing Hong Lei, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Xinhua said that one protester had been killed in Luhuo and four protesters were hospitalized with injuries, while five police officers were injured.
The accounts from both sides suggested that the violence in the area was the worst since a series of large-scale protests that rocked Tibetan-populated regions of China in early 2008, just five months before the Beijing Olympic Games.
Free Tibet and another overseas Tibetan advocacy group, the International Campaign for Tibet, as well as the Tibetan exile government in India all said on Monday evening that security forces had opened fire on protesters in Luhuo, known in Tibetan as Draggo. Free Tibet said that two protesters had been killed and 31 wounded by gunfire, while the International Campaign for Tibet said that 3 protesters had been killed and 49 injured, nine of them with gunshot wounds.
The exile government said that at least one person had been killed, and possibly six.
The Xinhua report made no mention of gunfire. The Foreign Ministry was closed on Tuesday in observance of the second day of Chinese New Year.
Free Tibet had said that the protest might have started with demands for religious freedom, or with a refusal to observe Chinese New Year, which comes a month before the time when Tibetans traditionally mark a new year. “There had been some stones thrown, but we’re uncertain about the sequence of events, whether that was after the security forces opened fire,” Ms. Brigden said.
She said that she had not heard any reports from the Tibetan side of knives wielded against the Chinese security forces, adding that, “I would suggest that is untrue.”
Citing a Tibetan monk in India, Radio Free Asia said that thousands of Tibetans had participated in the protest on Monday and that they had destroyed “Chinese shops and other Chinese facilities in the area.”
Free Tibet also said in a separate statement that tear gas had been used on Monday against protesters in Aba, another ethnic Tibetan community located 100 miles northeast of Luhuo in western Sichuan.
Mr. Hong was quoted by Xinhua as denouncing the Tibetan groups outside China, saying that, “Overseas forces of ‘Tibet independence’ have always fabricated rumors and distorted the truth to discredit the Chinese government with issues involving Tibet.”
Keith Bradsher reported from Hong Kong, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
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