A senior Chinese official yesterday accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding assassinations and explosions in Tibet and confirmed a bomb blast in the capital Lhasa.
The accusations, reported in the official newspaper China Daily, may have been timed to counter human rights and pro-Tibet protests that have marked Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to Britain. They also come a day after British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Jiang that Beijing should open a dialogue with the exiled Tibetan leader.
China has long charged the Dalai Lama, the region's exiled spiritual leader, of backing separatism in his Tibetan homeland, but it had not previously accused the 1989 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize of outright terrorism.
Xu Mingyang, an executive vice chairman of the Chinese administration in Tibet, said, ``The Dalai Lama has masterminded a series of separatist activities including a so-called peaceful march in foreign territory and several explosions and assassinations in Tibet.''
The newspaper did not say whether Xu -- who spoke to foreign reporters granted permission to visit the region on Thursday -- was citing specific attacks.
But there are occasional reports of bombings in Tibet, usually suspected to have been triggered by militant Tibetans, despite appeals for nonviolence by the Dalai Lama.
In a rare official admission of trouble in Tibet, the China Daily said Xu responded to questions about ``an abortive explosion'' in August, outside the Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
Xu denied that the would-be bomber, identified in the China Daily as a farmer from Lhasa's suburbs, was later killed in prison, saying he ``is still alive and has confessed to all his criminal activities.''
The China Daily article said the protester tried to detonate explosives strapped to his body, but did not give further details.
A human rights group said last week that a Tibetan carpenter lowered China's flag in front of the Potala Palace, in August, as a protest against Chinese rule, but later died in hospital due to the beating he was given by police.
Xu also claimed that ``the Dalai Lama has never shown sincerity'' in negotiations with Beijing, the China Daily reported.
Xu added, however, that Beijing was ready to talk if the Dalai Lama renounced Tibetan independence, publicly acknowledged that Tibet and Taiwan are parts of China and stopped ``all activities aimed at splitting the mother-land.''
The Dalai Lama has condemned violent tactics to protest Chinese rule and has said he seeks autonomy for Tibet, not independence.
Chinese soldiers seized Tibet in 1950, the year after the Communists took power in China. After an abortive uprising in 1959, the Dalai Lama led more than 100,000 Tibetans into exile.
In Britain, human rights campaigners and protesters waving Tibetan flags and shouting ``Free Tibet'' have dogged Jiang since his arrival, on the first visit to the country by a Chinese head of state.
On Thursday, an aide to Jiang dismissed the protesters as imperialists who did not understand the history of relations between China and Tibet.
``We would hope that those people would be able to have more knowledge about the real situation in Tibet,'' said Zhu Bangzao, a spokesman accompanying the Chinese president.
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