Police break up Lhasa monks’ protest

Press, 8 October 1987, Page 6

Police break up Lhasa monks’ protest

NZPA-Reuter Lhasa Chinese military police broke up a demonstration by about 80 Buddhist monks in Tibet on Tuesday, kicking and clubbing some of them before taking them away under armed guard, foreign witnesses said. The monks, from Drepung monastery outside Lhasa, had marched into the capital to protest at the detention of other monks two days earlier in demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet.

Some of the protesters reached the Tibetan regional government headquarters before about 300 police moved in, clubbing them with rifle butts, lashing out with straps and kicking them, the foreign witnesses said. It was not clear whether the monks resisted.

Two unidentified westerners were with Tibetan detainees driven away in police trucks towards a Lhasa prison, two French tourists said. .After three outbreaks of violence in 10 days, the streets of Lhasa appeared calm on Wednesday, the thirty-seventh anniversary of China's armed entry

into Tibet. Between six and 19 people, some of them monks, were killed and many wounded in five hours of riots on October 1, China’s national day. Witnesses said police fired on a crowd which attacked and burned down their police station. Some pro-independence Tibetans expected more protests yesterday, but others thought strong security measures would deter open dissent. Chinese travel officials said on Tuesday that Tibet’s border with Nepal was closed to incoming travellers.

Separatists said the closing was meant to prevent Tibetans from India and Nepal coming to Lhasa for demonstrations.

Foreigners were no longer being sold air tickets for Tibet at Chengdu, the main entry point for Lhasa in the neighbouring Chinese province of Sichuan, Chinese officials said.

Armed police, some in helmets, guarded the regional government headquarters on Wednesday as part of strict security against any further separatist incidents.