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PLA troops converge on Lhasa

Chinese paramilitary police unload equipment on the outskirts of Hutiaoxia, southeast of Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Thousands of soldiers were seen in Lhasa yesterday amid reports of a huge military build-up, as the Dalai Lama expressed fears China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters had caused many casualties.

Long military convoys were on the move in Tibet while troops also poured into nearby provinces, after a week of violent unrest against China's rule of the Himalayan region, witnesses, activist groups and media reports said.

"We saw a big convoy of military vehicles with troops in the back," German journalist Georg Blume said from Lhasa early yesterday.

"One convoy was about 2km long and contained about 200 trucks. Each had 30 soldiers on board so that's about 6,000 military personnel in one convoy," he said.

Blume, who works for the German newspaper Die Zeit, and another witness in Lhasa said they had seen security forces going from house to house.

"There are lots of security forces on the streets. We can see Chinese security going door-to-door. It's very tense," an independent source in the city, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, told AFP by telephone.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday he planned to meet with the Dalai Lama, triggering a swift response from Beijing.

Australia added to the pressure yesterday, with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith expressing concern over the violence and calling on China to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to Tibet and other hotspot areas.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said his government was considering whether to send a delegation to the ceremony to start the Olympic Games.

China has banned foreign journalists from Lhasa and tried to block them from the nearby western provinces of China, where a spate of violent protests have taken place over the past week.

More than 400 vehicles were seen heading to Tibet through mountain passes in western China, a BBC reporter said, without specifying his location because of Chinese restrictions.

Large troop movements also took place in Sichuan Province, which borders the Tibetan Autonomous Region and has several mainly Tibetan areas, a foreign reporter said.

Authorities have arrested 24 people linked to the "grave crimes" in Lhasa, while 170 people have surrendered to police, Xinhua news agency reported.

Activist groups say hundreds of Tibetans have been arrested.

The prosecutor's office in Lhasa said the suspects faced charges of "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in riots on Friday, the Tibet Daily reported yesterday.

The Dalai Lama said yesterday he was willing to meet Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

But Tibet's exiled leader said he would not travel to Beijing for talks unless there was "a real concrete development" in relations between Beijing and Tibet.

Chinese officials said they would talk with the Dalai Lama if he "stopped separatist activities" and recognized Tibet and Taiwan as parts of China.

Also yesterday, activists released a letter to the Coca-Cola Co, one of three sponsors of the Olympic torch relay, from a coalition of 153 Tibet groups asking it to press the International Olympic Committee to move the relay out of ethnic Tibetan areas. The letter also called on Coke to end its relay sponsorship.

Also See: The West and Beijing must share shame over the Tibet crisis
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