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星期四, 三月 20, 2008
True Stories
英国泰晤士报报道（Times,UK）：
From The Times
March 19, 2008
Tourists speak of shock and fear at Tibet riots
Mass rioting on the streets of Lhasa
Western tourists who fled Lhassa said that mobs of Tibetans turned on anyone and anything that looked Chinese
Tourists described their shock as they watched a mob of Tibetans beating Chinese passers-by
Jeremy Page in Kathmandu
Western tourists emerging from Tibet yesterday described their shock and fear as they watched a “howling” mob of Tibetans stoning and beating Chinese passers-by in two days of rioting in Lhasa last week.
They said that the crowd turned on anyone and anything that looked Chinese, knocking over motorcyclists, hitting them with metal rods and setting fire to their motorcycles.
Their testimony illustrated the ferocity of the riots, which have undermined not only China's claims to have brought peace and prosperity to Tibet but also the Dalai Lama's longstanding creed of non-violent resistance.
“It's hard to pick a side in what happened,” said John Kenwood, a 19-year-old backpacker from Canada who flew into Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, yesterday after spending ten days in Lhasa.
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“I agree that the Tibetans have their own culture, but I can't agree with what people did. After a while, it was not about Tibetan freedom any more.”
He said that he was walking along Beijing East Road in the Tibetan quarter in Lhasa when he saw four Chinese military trucks pull up at the intersection with an alley leading to the Ramoche temple.
Mr Kenwood said that he saw someone throw a large stone at one of the trucks, smashing its windscreen, and then about 30-40 paramilitary police armed with riot shields and batons jumping out of another truck.
They blocked off the entrance to the alleyway, but were soon surrounded by a large crowd of Tibetans who began pelting them with stones, he said. He also said that he saw three boxes of stones but it was not clear who had provided them.
After a few minutes two or three of the younger Tibetans rushed at the Chinese police and they fled down the alleyway towards the Ramoche temple, he said. The crowd followed but soon turned back and began attacking Chinese shops and passers-by on Beijing East Road.
He said that he saw at least five Chinese people being attacked by the crowd, including a motorcyclist in his 20s who he thought was beaten to death. “They got him in the head with a large piece of sidewalk,” he said. “He was down on the ground and he was not moving.”
Mr Kenwood added that he spent the weekend confined to the Yak Hotel on Beijing East Road, from where he heard gunfire and teargas canisters and saw armoured personnel carriers moving through the streets.
As he left Lhasa yesterday most schools, shops and other businesses had reopened and Tibetans and Chinese were moving around the city, he said. He added that there were very few young Tibetans on the streets after the midnight deadline on Monday for rioters to surrender.
“The Tibetans weren't smiling any more,” he said. “There were soldiers everywhere. I saw some older Tibetan ladies but there were fewer young guys wandering around.”
Claude Balsiger, a 25-year-old backpacker from Switzerland who arrived in Lhasa on March 8 and flew to Kathmandu yesterday gave a similar account of the violence. He described seeing the mob beating an old Chinese man on a bicycle. “They were howling like wolves,” he said. “That's the point when it went insane. They started attacking anything and anyone that looked Chinese.”
He also described seeing a Canadian tourist step in to rescue a young Chinese man being attacked by the crowd. “They were kicking him in the ribs and he was bleeding from the face,” he said. “But then a white man walked up ... helped him up from the ground. There was a crowd of Tibetans holding stones. He held the Chinese man close, waved his hand at the crowd and they let him lead the man to safety.”
Mr Balsiger said that Lhasa was very tense and locals were reporting as many as 100 people dead and 1,000 arrested as he left the city on Monday to spend the night at an airport hotel.
He said that there were military checkpoints every 10-15 metres, manned by young Chinese soldiers with bayonets fixed on their rifles. “They were really young and nervous. They always had their finger on the trigger - that's what made us really nervous.”
Stephen Thompson, 41, from New Zealand, said that he arrived at the Saikang Hotel just as the riot was starting and saw the mob smash the glass front of the building. “We didn't feel in danger but some people in the group were pretty emotional and one person was injured by a rock that hit them on the head,” he said.
Martin Camps, 55, from Germany, said that he had arrived with his wife on the train from Beijing on Friday, only to be told that he could not leave his hotel and that all attractions were shut. Hotel staff then told him to leave on Sunday, when he was driven to the airport hotel. “I think without China it would be much better there,” he said.
from:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3578941.ece
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英国每日电讯报报道（Telegraph,UK）：
Tibetans attacked Chinese, say Lhasa tourists
By Thomas BellLast Updated: 2:45am GMT 19/03/2008
Tourists arriving in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, from the closed city of Lhasa have told how they saw angry mobs of Tibetans attacking ethnic Chinese last Friday.
Claude Balsiger, 25, from Switzerland, said he saw the violence develop in Barkhor Square, near the Jokhang Temple.
"The young people were in action and the old people were supporting with screaming. Howling like wolves, that's how they supported them.
"Anything that looked Chinese was attacked. I saw at least seven to eight Chinese people attacked with stones and fists."
He saw one old Chinese man rescued from the mob by elderly Tibetan people, and believes the intervention of a Canadian tourist saved another life.
John Kenwood, a 19-year-old Canadian, believes he saw a man die. "They were knocking people off motorcycles," he said. "One man was hit several times in the head with a large piece of sidewalk." When his attackers left him he was not moving.
Mr Kenwood also saw boxes of stones being supplied to Tibetan throwers.
"To me it was like it was planned," he said. Both men said a rumour spread that a group of monks arrested on Monday had been killed by the Chinese, and that this inflamed emotions.
By the end of the day "huge fires were rising above the buildings all over Lhasa and black smoke was everywhere," said Mr Kenwood. "I never saw any monks take part in the violence."
Over the weekend tanks and troops poured into the city. Tourists were confined to their hotels, but they heard shooting, explosions and the use of tear gas.
On the streets yesterday sweepers were cleaning up the debris. "Ironically, they were wearing Beijing 2008 hats," said Mr Kenwood.
from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/18/wtibet718.xml
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加拿大多伦多星报报道(thestar, CA)：
Canadians caught in Tibet's violence
Mar 17, 2008 04:30 AMBill Schiller
Asia Bureau
BEIJING–For 19-year-old John Kenwood of Victoria B.C., his worst Lhasa moment was witnessing a Chinese motorcyclist being pummelled unconscious by a mob hurling chunks of pavement as big as bricks.
"He may have died," Kenwood said last night. "I can't be certain."
For Vancouver-born Alex Sinclair, 40, it was the agonizing time he spent cowering in a stairwell in the post office of Tibet's capital as machine-gun fire exploded all around him. "I honestly feared for my life," he said.
But Susan Wetmore of London, Ont., wasn't prepared to specify her worst moment last night.
Not yet.
"Let's just say we're struggling with what we've seen," the 59-year-old consultant confided. "Some of it was pretty ugly . . . pretty ugly."
Wetmore is one of eight Canadians who have been caught up in the worst violence in Tibet in 20 years. She fears there's more to come.
"There's been a lot of killing here already," Wetmore said in an interview yesterday. "I think there's going to be a lot more.
"The safest place for me – is to be out of here."
With Chinese troops pouring into the Tibetan capital yesterday, and an ultimatum for instigators of last week's riots to surrender to Chinese authorities by midnight today, those staying behind are bracing for the worst.
At least four eyewitnesses told the Star they had seen a convoy of between 70 and 100 vehicles, including tanks, carrying between 2,000 and 3,000 Chinese troops.
Last night, Wetmore said she was thankful she had a Chinese driver "who literally risked his life" to get her to Lhasa's Gonggar airport.
"We had to cross 10 police checkpoints and at every one I had to show a letter, explaining my circumstances, that had been translated by my guide.
"Without that, I never would have got here."
Wetmore is no novice traveller. A consultant with a Toronto-based non-profit organization that provides volunteer consulting to developing countries, she's been to hot spots before.
But never for a vacation.
The trip to Tibet was her gift to herself in advance of her 60th birthday. "This wasn't quite the trip I'd planned," she said.
Meanwhile, Kenwood said yesterday that Lhasa's main street, Beijing Lu, was still strewn with garbage and the burned-out hulks of torched vehicles.
"It's a ghost town. Every third, fourth or fifth shop has been burned to a crisp. I'm sure lots of people lost their lives in those fires," he said.
Riots broke out Friday after a week of demonstrations that marked the 49th anniversary of Tibet's failed uprising against Chinese rule. China's military took over Tibet in 1951.
Kenwood recalls seeing four or five military trucks driving by on Lhasa's main street Friday when someone emerged from the crowd brandishing a piece of pavement, and hurled it through the front windshield of the first vehicle.
The soldiers formed "a kind of Roman-legion style barricade with their shields," he said, and immediately the Tibetans began breaking up the sidewalks and throwing chunks at the soldiers, screaming "Free Tibet!"
Later, the real mayhem began when buses and motorcyclists were stopped and anything that had Chinese markings was targeted to be burned, smashed or looted.
Then the worst happened: a Chinese man on a smart-looking motorcycle was forced by stone throwers to come to a halt.
"He didn't seem to understand what was going on," said Kenwood. "He was wearing a gold helmet and he got off his bike and raised his arms. He didn't know what to do."
A mob of perhaps 15 men carrying what appeared to be two-metre long, silver poles began beating him. When he went down, they continued to beat and kick him.
"Then they took off his golden helmet and beat him with it.
"I can't confirm that he was dead," said Kenwood who is taking a year off school before going to university. "But I think he was. There was blood everywhere. His face was unrecognizable."
Sinclair, a university college lecturer now living in Britain, said he feels both sides had been preparing for the confrontation.
He noted that on Thursday, Chinese police boarded a bus he was on en route to Samye Monastery.
"They didn't look at passports," he said. "They were just taking monks and nuns off – not civilians, not foreigners. Looking back, that suggests to me that the Chinese authorities knew there was going to be some kind of uprising."
When rioting did erupt, Sinclair sought refuge in Lhasa's post office, squeezing into their courtyard moments before they closed the gate.
Although they experienced understandable fear throughout the ordeal, Wetmore, Kenwood and Sinclair all spoke of how well they had been treated by Chinese authorities and Tibetan hosts.
"We've seen some pretty amazing stuff," said Wetmore, "some pretty sad and very frightening stuff.
"But we've also been treated very, very well and been looked after."
from: http://www.thestar.com/article/346763
03:15 发表在 Lhasa | 查看全文 | 评论 (0)