Tibet unrest deepens, with violence and rioting

Tibetans threw stones at Chinese troops and set fire to buildings Friday.

from the March 15, 2008 edition

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Ken later wrote on his blog: "We also saw a monk (or at least someone dressed like one) direct an attack on a store or restaurant with a small Chinese flag flying from it."

Reaching a hotel after witnessing these attacks, they were moved out of rooms facing the street to safer quarters at the back. They went on the roof to see fires and plumes of smoke around Lhasa, normally known as the sunniest city in China. Hotel staff later closed off the roof, and stopped taking calls from overseas.

"We are locked off in the hotel," said Paul via cellphone. "There are rumors that 13 arrested monks have been killed."

He stayed inside his hotel Friday night with the group, but reported that he heard gunfire and explosions into Saturday morning.

With nowhere to go, Ken tried to upload photos on his blog. "A Chinese guy came into the Internet cafe at the hotel. He wasn't in uniform, but it was clear that he was an undercover police agent. He turned off the computers and gave me a real dirty look, like he knew what we were doing."

Paul went into the reception at the front of the hotel to get a look out the window at the street. "The riot is still going on out there. It's getting worse and worse.

According to Ken, PLA troops moved in around 8:30 p.m., "with huge armored transport trucks and put out some of the fires. A new fire, however, which is taller than any building around, has just been started recently."

Paul described the vehicles as having "big fat tear-gas guns and big fat cameras on it, versus Tibetans with machetes and sticks."

With military vehicles now in the streets, Paul went to the roof and saw fires burning in the north of the city. "Tibetans are huddled around on roofs across the city, for safety and to watch what is happening below."

Later, a European traveler joined the group holed up in the hotel room. He claimed to have seen two dead Tibetans and said that he saw Tibetans attack Muslims and Chinese randomly. "They were aiming to kill Muslims and Chinese for a free Tibet," he said.

When pressed for details, he said he saw the bodies at 7 p.m., covered with sheets, opposite a small hospital in the old section of Lhasa, in the Muslim quarter east of the hotel. He assumed they were Tibetans because they were being carried away by Tibetans into a four-wheel-drive vehicle. They brought one body into a hospital.

The European traveler said he was hiding out with a Tibetan family but eventually got kicked out when he disagreed with their sentiment that all Chinese and Muslims should be removed from Tibet. A monk who was with the family asked him to leave, to avoid confrontation

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