Is This also Chinese Propaganda? EYE-WITNESSES of VIOLENT RIOT in Tibet

Well, truely unbiased reporting by Western media.

Another foreign journalist, James Miles of The Economist, as eyewitness for the Lahsa riot, the transcript:

edition.cnn.com...

This interview is in line with Chinese sources reports of what really happened in Lahsa. I will keep on restraining myself of posting Chinese sources reports of Chinese eyewitnesses accounts, unless someone in here is interested to listen to the other side of the stories too.

This is the first time that I've ever got official approval to go to Tibet. And it's remarkable I think that they decided to let me stay there and probably they felt that it was a bit of a gamble. But as the protests went on I think they also probably felt that having me there would help to get across the scale of the ethnically-targeted violence that the Chinese themselves have also been trying to highlight.

- He was the only foreign journalist who got a 8 day permit in Lahsa and authorities had let him stay there. I still regret that they did not let everyone stay, the reports would be more extensive then.

What I saw was calculated targeted violence against an ethnic group, or I should say two ethnic groups, primarily ethnic Han Chinese living in Lhasa, but also members of the Muslim Hui minority in Lhasa.

- calculated targeted violence against Hans and Huis, because they run businesses better? and are the main business competitors of these Tibetans' run shops?

Of course many ethnic Han Chinese and Huis fled as soon as this broke out. But those who were caught in the early stages of it were themselves targeted. Stones thrown at them. At one point, I saw them throwing stones at a boy of maybe around 10 years old perhaps cycling along the street. I in fact walked out in front of them and said stop. It was a remarkable explosion of simmering ethnic grievances in the city.

- These rioters lost their mind, even targetting at KIDS. I can not imagine what would have happened if this journalist did not stop them.

I saw them carrying traditional Tibetan swords, I didn't actually see them getting them out and intimidating people with them. But clearly the purpose of carrying them was to scare people. And speaking later to ethnic Han Chinese, that was one point that they frequently drew attention to. That these people were armed and very intimidating.

- Other sources clearly speak that swords and knifes WERE USED. And this is definitely in line with other eyewitnesses.

In fact what we saw, and I was watching it at the earliest stages, was complete inaction on the part of the authorities. It seemed as if they were paralyzed by indecision over how to handle this.

- This is something new and surprised me.

And I suspect again the Olympics were a factor there. That they were very worried that if they did move in decisively at that early stage of the unrest that bloodshed would ensue in their efforts to control it. And what they did instead was let the rioting run its course and it didn't really finish as far as I saw until the middle of the day on the following day on the Saturday, March the 15th. So in effect what they did was sacrifice the livelihoods of many, many ethnic Han Chinese in the city for the sake of letting the rioters vent their anger. And then being able to move in gradually with troops with rifles that they occasionally let off with single shots, apparently warning shots, in order to scare everybody back into their homes and put an end to this.

- Although surprised, but maybe this was the best way to avoid a violent crack-down and only trying to save lives. This "human" strategy unfortunately means innocent civilians were killed by the hands of out-of-mind rioters.

What I did not hear was repeated bursts of machine gun fire, I didn't have that same sense of an all out onslaught of massive firepower that I sensed here in Beijing when I was covering the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in June, 1989. This was a very different kind of operation, a more calculated one, and I think the effort of the authorities this time was to let people let off steam before establishing a very strong presence with troops, with guns, every few yards, all across the Tibetan quarter. It was only when they felt safe I think that there would not be massive bloodshed, that they actually moved in with that decisive force.

- Again, in line with the official stories and Chinese sources reporting. So is this journalist being brainwashed and paid? A little bit faith here people!

Ethnic Chinese in Lhasa are now very worried people. Some who had been there for many, many years expressed to me their utter astonishment that this had happened. They had no sense of great ethnic tension being a part of life in Lhasa. Now numerous Hans that I spoke to say that they are so afraid they may leave the city, which may have very damaging consequences for Lhasa's economy, Tibet's economy.

It will come around, it is a huge setback in the developments of a better situation in Tibet province. But with the right faith and spirit I am sure the authorities will move on.

Now, happy hunting terrorists festive starts.

[edit on 22/3/08 by IchiNiSan]

reply to post by IchiNiSan


the atmosphere in this post is a little bit cold..LOL, this implies that those hypocrites really dont want to face such an embarassing circumstance..who they defend are just something like terrorist or mobs in the eyes of foreigners with concience... the mobs really did a so ugly job that makes these accessary feel hard to defend and hoax further.

Originally posted by wwssii
reply to post by HowlrunnerIV

 

obviously you have a better knowldge of english than me. LOL.
so, now, please tell me what is the reason for the rioters to protest in such a barbarian way in your great opinion.

Utter disenfranchisement in their own lands? Maybe?

I'm going to go back to the British/India/Ghandi example and ask why Indians protested against the British occupation of their country (several countries, in fact).

The next question is, if Ghandi was calling for non-violent non-cooperation, why did protests sometimes turn into violent riots? Was it because Indian gangsters made it happen?

Here's another hint. Start leaving the hypebole out of your questions and your thoughts. "barbarian" ? That automatically tells all of us that you have no objectivity in this. Which just makes the accusation you hurl at westerners all the more laughable.

You see, words such as "gangsters" fit into a pattern of Communist language that the West has been observing for almost a century. No matter where the communist government is, they all follow the same pattern in their language. At its crudest are terms such as "capitalist running dogs of the west". What it does is make national governments look like primary school children to Westerners.

U.S. Brigandish Pressure upon S. Korea under Fire

www.kcna.co.jp...

and, yes, I realise that Pyonyang is the most extreme example.

"Gangsters" ? Okay, remember the "Battle of Seattle" the riots that broke out around the WTO meeting? Remember how they happened? A small core of self-described "anarchists" wearing face masks travelled to Seattle and joined the protests for the sole reason of turning them into riots and causing damage to public property. (I'm not going to explore some of the conspiracy theories surrounding this).

The western media and the US and Washington state governments did not describe them as "gangsters", nor did they describe them as "anarchists", which is what the "anarchists" wanted. They were described variously as "unemployed youths", "criminals", "trouble-makers", "fringe-elements", "extremist activists" etc and the news reports all carried stories about this group. It may appear that "gangsters" fits into that list of descriptions, but I can assure you it does not.

and answer this question i posted above "there are more than four millions of tibetans, why are there only hundreds of them taking to the street?"

Well, you see, I would assume that in a society as heavily policed as China's where public anti-government protests are banned, it takes quite some effort to get a protest going. I would then assume that in Tibet, where the CCP has serious prestige on the line, it is even more difficult than usual.

There were also hundreds of millions of Indians, but they weren't all taking to the streets against the Viceroy.

There were more than 10 million Australians, but only thousands of them took to the streets to protest against the Vietnam War.

Now, you're beginning to run into a series of contradictions in your argument.

You want us to believe what a danger these protestors were and that the massive police and military build-up was justified.

Then you want to dismiss the protestors as nothing more than an extreme fringe group who represent no-one and are too small to worry about.

reply to post by HowlrunnerIV


you talked too much to derail my question...simple question need plain anwser. the answer is 99% Tibetans are not for the serparitists.. they are barbarian, not peaceful.. peaceful protest can get no enough attention to petition compassion from all of you hypocritical media and human rights fighters.. not enough to boycott olympic to press beijing.

be not sensitive too much to my english words, i am not native-english, so the words maybe not so precise.

reply to post by wwssii


I am aware of your potential language difficulties and that is why I wrote what I wrote.

However, there is no difficulty that excuses you for stating that 99% of Tibetans don't support separatists as the reason for their being only 400 protestors.

You personally have no proof to back up that claim. You have provided no proof, you have instead made your own conclusion.

In 1916 there were less than 2,000 Irishmen in the Easter Uprising, does that mean that 99% of the Irish were against separatism from Great Britian?

reply to post by HowlrunnerIV


99% titbetans never have such idea of independence from China.. if they have, tibet wasnt, isnt, and will not have a peaceful situation.

Dalai is not the only leader in tibet. separatist only leads bigger turbulence in tibet. Tibetan have steped into the modern society. religion is not the the whole world of them. they want development either... stoping sepraritism tally with all the tibetans goodwill.

Is this foreign propoganda?

The Tibetan government-in-exile says that 130 people died in and around the Himalayan region during clashes that began on 10 March.

Officials in Beijing have previously put the death toll at 19.

Neither of the figures can be independently verified.

Foreign journalists remain banned from Tibet.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Eyewitnesses to recount that day

www.washingtonpost.com...

Eyewitnesses Recount Terrifying Day in Tibet
How a Protest Became a Rampage

BEIJING, March 26 -- In the moment, Canadian backpacker John Kenwood recalled, he was "young and stupid, and it was all adrenaline." He was running, one in a mob of 200 or so, screaming "Free Tibet!" and chasing riot police down a narrow street in downtown Lhasa in the early afternoon of March 14.

It was a heady feeling, being part of a howling pack that had forced police to turn tail and run, some dropping their shields as they fled a barrage of rocks. Then the Tibetans in the crowd slowed and began turning back, grinning and patting one another on the back.

The ebullient mood did not last long. The pack broke into smaller groups, gathering rocks and pulling out knives, looking for the next target.

"There was no more crowd to be part of. It looked like they were turning on everybody," said Kenwood, 19, describing the scene to reporters last week when he arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, after 10 days in the Tibetan capital. "It wasn't about Tibet freedom anymore."

What he witnessed next was a violent rampage unlike any in decades in Lhasa, a city where Tibetan Buddhism's most revered temples sit among office buildings and concrete markets built by Chinese bent on developing the remote Himalayan region. Hundreds of mostly young Tibetans broke up into roaming gangs and attacked Chinese passersby and vandalized shops, killing 19 people and injuring more than 600 over two days.

During the riots, looters set fire to a clothing store, burning to death five young employees who were huddled on the second floor. Most police officers kept their distance while the center of Lhasa descended into chaos.

Nearly two weeks later, there are still more questions than answers about what sparked the violence. But several witness accounts suggest that what began as a small protest by Buddhist monks on the morning of Friday, March 14, turned quickly into ethnically charged rioting, possibly fueled by rumors that monks had been roughed up by police. Some outside experts cite another factor behind the uprising: Tibetans' awareness that the world is following news of their cause more closely as China prepares to host the Olympics in August.

Police and paramilitary troops have blanketed Lhasa, looking for ringleaders. Hundreds of Tibetans have been arrested or turned themselves in to police in a bid for leniency. There are rumors that outsiders orchestrated the attacks, echoing the official Chinese government claim that the Dalai Lama, the exiled Buddhist leader, is to blame. For his part, the Dalai Lama has condemned the violence and said repressive Chinese policies fueled the explosion.

Whatever the reasons, the people of Lhasa have been left to deal with the repercussions.

(Click on link for this 2 pages article)

New Western Propoganda.

"Major western news outlet obviously manufactures stories abut China."

Video report: "China Celebrates Its Status as World's Number One Air Polluter."

www.theonion.com...

How dare they propogate such lies about the People's Republic of China? Why are politicians not speaking out about this?
Obvious anti-China bias.

reply to post by HowlrunnerIV


/off topic (pollution is hardly related to violence conducted by rioters (aka terrorists)

It's a quite good parady

Trust on me, the pollution here really sucks. And did you know that the local government in certain densed factory counties are imposing a forceful power outage a number of times a week to minimize the elctricity usage. In DongGuan (one of the first developed county with the most factories) for example have power outages for 3 days a week. Factories who want to keep their machines running need to buy power generators, and therefore increase their costs IF they want to continue polluting the air.
In GuangDong province (at least, not sure about rest of China), the local government imposed a new law that Supermarkets are NOT allowed to give (free) plastic bags. Consumers are forced to bring their own bags, any supermarket found breaking the law will be fined 50,000 RMB. Hopefully this no-Plastic bags policy will be expanded towards ALL the other retail industries.

Actually pollution is a huge threat to a sustainable growth of the Chinese economy and the road to become a developed country. The central government is fully aware of it, despite what the satire parody might want make one to believe. Since this is a topic which is quite dear to me, and I don't see why an anti-China crusader will not trust Chinese sources on this so here, a English-written news article from a Chinese website (Yes, I am still not posting eyewitnesses accounts and records which are only reported in the Chinese media, because it will be labelled propaganda anyhow):

english.cri.cn...@99085.htm

Zhu said implementing the central government's guidelines would also be a challenge for local officials who are accustomed to being judged on growth above all else and are fearful of the economic impact of tighter environmental controls.

"Local environmental NGOs do not dare criticise local governments for their unscientific decisions," Zhu said. "Some local governments are reluctant to implement or are even working against environmental laws."

He also listed seven tasks as the major environmental protection work in the coming five years. The most important task is water pollution control, with focus on drinking water security. The second is to step up urban environmental protection, especially the pollutants control in cities.

Money and corruption are one big obstacle for some of the local governments to take this serious, therefore:

(old article, but if you have the chance to open a newspaper in China, you will read more about corruption and environment protection etc)
www.crinordic.com...@120179.htm


I could not find another article back from last year. But the local officials in Xiamen had already approved a multi-billion investment to setup a Chemical plant in Xiamen. But because of the local protests by civilians eventually the local government need to back off and have withdrawn the license for the company to build that plant. For the investors it sucks, they already spent millions in preparation and ground etc. Believe it or not, civilians are allowed to protest!)


Factories should actually use more environmental friendly material. But it does not really help when the price of environmental friendly and "normal" standards re like 20-30% price difference. A factory normally let the customer decide what they want. The EU & Japan imposed laws that all imported products need to reach this "environmental friendly"-standard, ironically the FDA (of USA) did not do that yet, there is a standard for any kind of products, but usually just a little bit better than the very basic raw material standard level. Eventually for this Chinese factory it is up to the customer (importers from outside or distributors from inside) what they want. Unfortunately in China we are more price-oriented, so you will usually see more crappy stuff, or B to down-graded products being sold at the retail shelves. That's why whenever possible I will only buy "imported products (which are made-in-China) or products which are supposed to be exported. If possible the European or Japanese brands, because these are usually of the highest level of quality, the price difference justifies it. Most of the Fortune 500 and big American brands do have an intensive factory audit before anything is allowed to be produced by a qualified factory and products of this factory are being imported into USA, including sustainability surveys etc etc. Yet, eventually very often the buyer to improve his performance (which is often based on the margin rate etc etc), then he would be satisified with the very very basic requirements imposed by FDA. Quality inspectors sent to the factories would simply need to follow this buyer's minimum criteria and the goods can be shipped. China has a big challenge to go with imposing new rules and regulations to control the products being produced, and at the same time maintaining the competitiveness. We should for example conduct more studies of certain raw material, and introduce a standard in the WTO so all members would be in the same line of only using environmental friendly raw material and the like.

I have NO clue why I rambled to talk about the quality of products manufactured here

Anyhow, yeah, keep on believing that we are agents spreading propaganda here and that China won't allow her citizens to give critizes. We are welcome to give constructive criticism anything!

[edit on 29/3/08 by IchiNiSan]

[edit on 29/3/08 by IchiNiSan]

Blogger and eyewitness of what happened, and how his pictures were being used for a bias reporting.

kadfly.blogspot.com...

my photo of the Chinese soldiers in the shield formation and the Tibetan man burning the Chinese flag might be very powerful, but do they really tell the story of what happened that day any better than a bus of civilians being stoned and a man lying on the pavement after having been brutally attacked? No, but these other photos would have taken too much effort to explain to an audience that has become used to the narrative of a bad China and a good Tibet.

And on the subject of the shield formation photo that made it to the front page of the New York Times:
I don't think any news outlet that has used it has also reported that moments after the photo was taken, Tibetans charged and the line broke, with the soldiers dropping their shields and helmets. A few minutes later when I was taking pictures of their gear and was prepared to follow the crowd that had broken through towards Ramoqe Monastery, a Tibetan woman on her way back told me not to go as someone had been stoned to death there.

--> picture which was referred to[/] -->




[edit on 30/3/08 by IchiNiSan]