Security alert after Tibet protests

Hundreds of Tibetans demonstrated in a western China town on Friday, calling for freedom from Chinese rule in the latest act of protest apparently timed to send a signal to the Communist Party elite as it gathers in Beijing to induct a new leadership. The protesters, mostly high school students, marched through the town of Rongwo, shouting for independence and for the return from exile of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, according to residents, people visiting the town and Tibetan exiles. China has ramped up security in Tibetan areas, rights groups and residents said on Friday, after new self-immolation protests belied boasts of national unity at a key Communist Party congress in Beijing. Six such incidents since Wednesday - the eve of the gathering where the ruling party names its new leaders - capped a recent escalation that marks the worst outbreak of Tibetan discontent since massive anti-China rioting in 2008. Tibetan experts said the latest spate seemed timed to coincide with the congress and could prompt a further spiral of clampdowns and immolations, deepening the divide between Tibetans and authorities. Armed police in paramilitary vehicles stepped up patrols in Tongren in the northwestern province of Qinghai after “thousands of protesters” took to the streets on Thursday, the UK-based Free Tibet group said in a statement. “There are lots of police on the streets. They have increased their patrols and they stay out for 24 hours a day,” a shop owner in the town centre who refused to give her name told the reporter by phone. Police in Tongren refused to comment when contacted by the reporter. Tibetan anger at Beijing’s control has simmered for decades but burst out into violent riots against Chinese rule in the Tibet regional capital Lhasa and adjacent areas in March 2008. The protests left 20 people dead, according to the government, while exiled Tibetans put the figure at 203, and prompted a massive security clampdown across Tibetan areas of southwestern China that remains to this day. Tibetans’ continued frustration has since been displayed by the immolations, in which 69 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009, with 54 of them dying, according to the India-based Tibetan government in exile. The situation is now a “vicious cycle” likely to plague China’s stability-driven leaders indefinitely, despite Beijing’s efforts to win over Tibetans by pushing economic development, said Tsering Shakya, a Tibet expert at the University of British Columbia in Canada. “No matter how many Tibetans might protest, how many immolations might happen, the new Chinese leadership will not make any concession to the protesters,” he said. “They see that as a central issue of the authority of the Chinese government.” The spokesman for the Tibetan government in exile in India urged China to address Tibetan frustrations even while acknowledging that it would likely maintain its hard line and immolations would persist after this latest spike. “The immolations are intended at sending out a strong message to the new leadership taking part in the Congress,” said Lobsang Choedak, a view Shakya shared. An 18-year-old man burnt himself to death on Thursday outside a monastery in Huangnan prefecture in Qinghai province, where a 23-year-old woman also died after setting herself alight on Wednesday, the India-based exile government announced.