China tightening control in Tibet region, exiles say

Reports of stepped-up patrols and increased troop presence come amid a meeting of Tibetan exiles in India. The Dalai Lama's supporters seek a new approach toward Beijing.

By Mark Magnier

9:14 AM PST, November 20, 2008

Reporting from Dharmsala, India — China has further tightened control amid an expanded show of force in its ethnic Tibetan region in recent weeks, say exile groups, even as it was supposed to be negotiating in good faith with the Dalai Lama's envoys.

Although it is difficult to say conclusively that the two events are linked, reports of tighter control, stepped-up patrols and increased paramilitary presence in Lhasa, the regional capital, and along major transport arteries coincide with a key strategy meeting attended by exiles in northern India this week.

"We've monitored an even more intense crackdown in the past couple of weeks," Kate Saunders, communication director with the advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet, said today. "The Chinese authorities have clearly been very rattled by the fact they were taken unaware this spring and summer."

The group said an eyewitness report received Wednesday detailed three convoys of up to 15 Chinese military vehicles heading west of the town of Kangding in Sichuan province in recent days, an area of significant unrest, along with roadblocks, new bunker emplacements and armed forces around bridges and government buildings.

Reuters, citing sources, reported today that Bi Hua, a senior communist official handling Tibet policy in the United Front Work Department was recently removed from her office. No reason was given.

Chinese officials and envoys of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, recently wrapped up talks, the seventh inconclusive round in six years, following widespread unrest in the nation's ethnically Tibetan region in March. Beijing is bracing for the 50th anniversary of its March 1959 crackdown that saw the Dalai Lama flee to India, fearful or arrest.

More than 500 delegates from around the world have descended on Dharmsala, a mountain village near the Chinese border, home of the self-declared Tibetan government in exile, for six days of meetings ending Saturday.

After supporting the Dalai Lama's "middle way" approach for two decades, which acknowledges Beijing's right to sovereignty amid hope of securing greater autonomy over Tibetan religious and cultural affairs, a growing number of exiles have concluded this strategy is not working.

This week's meetings are designed to explore a new approach amid concern the 73-year- old Dalai Lama may not have too many years of good health left. Last month, he was hospitalized and had an operation to remove gallstones.

One of the biggest challenges for the exile community is communicating with the 6 million Tibetans in their homeland, given Chinese restrictions on information and travel. China seized control of Tibet in 1951, and since then, the central government has invested billions of dollars in roads, schools and other infrastructure, but has fallen short in winning over hearts and minds.

Tsering, a senior monk at the Kirti Jepa monastery in Dharmsala, said his religious order relies primarily on telephone calls or hand-delivered messages to communicate with two affiliated monasteries in the eastern part of China's ethnically Tibetan region, referred to as Amdo by exiles. That became necessary after Chinese authorities seized the monks' laptops in late March.

"I don't know about a new crackdown, but we heard the number of military has increased not only in Amdo but Lhasa [as a] show to the Tibetan people, with exercising in public places," said Tsering, speaking through an interpreter and occasionally toying with his cellphone.

The affiliated monasteries in China, the Aba Kirti monastery with about 2,700 monks and the Taktsang monastery with about 700, have come under increased pressure since riots broke out in mid-March, Tsering added, leafing through a Tibetan-language book of photos and personal accounts about the unrest.

"The situation is so critical for the people inside Tibet," he said. "We just wanted to make this book and show the world."

Dharmsala is a focal point for most of the estimated half-million exiles spread around the world. But the contrast is stark between this politically astute, cosmopolitan, often well-educated group and the largely rural, 40% illiterate Tibetans in the homeland.

Although the government in exile contends that its views are in line with those of Tibetans, which it says is evidenced by the results of a secret survey it conducted in China that show nearly 50% of Tibetans support the Dalai Lama's policies, the meetings are shaped by the exiles' perspectives.

"Many say 'the Tibetan youth wants this or that,' " said Andrew Fischer, a lecturer with the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands. "Give me a break. Who knows what the Tibetan youth wants when 95% of them are in Tibet."

Tsering fled across the Himalayas at 19 because he faced arrest for posting "Free Tibet" posters and organizing fellow monks to resist an indoctrination Chinese was waging.

A decade later, the senior monk dressed in maroon robes is responsible for communicating with the two monasteries in Tibet and with the outside world. Several of the estimated 1,000 monks who participated in the March protests have received jail terms ranging from four to nine years, with more sentences expected.

After the protests, China stepped up its "patriotic re-education" program at the monasteries. On May 23, a Communist Party work team asked monks at the Aba Kirti monastery to admit mistakes, renounce the Dalai Lama as a "splittist," state that Tibet is an inalienable part of China and acknowledge China's kindness.

Two monks stood up, Tsering said, openly refused and were arrested. Hundreds of other monks expressed support for the two, but the pair were taken away anyway. With more arrests imminent, the remaining monks fled the monasteries, heading into the mountains or to hide with relatives. Eventually, after authorities agreed to ease up on the "education" program, they returned.

Tsering said about 300 monks were beaten up by Chinese authorities at the Aba Kirti monastery during the March protests and several more during another confrontation with authorities in September. Unlike at other monasteries, however, none of the Kirti monks were killed, although two committed suicide in despair.

Tsering, who sports large hands and a round face, said China had in many ways won the standoff and it was time for a new approach, adding that there was little prospect that he would see his homeland again in his lifetime.

Magnier is a Times staff writer.