Tibet riot - more eyewitness accounts

Citizen journalists site Global Voices Online is keeping track of articles written by bloggers in Tibet about the riot... very worth reading when the mainstream media are all standing on one side.

• So far, dozens riot cops were injured and a few were killed....One fire truck has been blown up.....Countless civilian cars have been blown up, and dozens of shops have been torched.....Over a hundred Sichuanese have been killed.......Jokhang Temple and Ramoche Temple have both already been burnt down! .... A friend just called to say: all small and large hospitals in Lhasa are already full with patients! ....... (last night, several hundred Sichuanese got beaten in front of Jokhang Temple, 13 died at the scene, and 80 more were seriously hurt)

• There are rioters everywhere, the kind of scene I'd never seen before back inland. To say this is terror doesn't even cover it. People killed, fires lit, rocks thrown….it's all black outside, smoke everywhere.The PAP are out in force..there's not a person to be seen on the main streets, shops are all shuttered up, and the streets are full of rioters throwing rocks…

• Lhasa is rioting…school was closed…spoiled my birthday…fighting in the city is brutal! Army cars keep going by, hand grenades keep getting thrown around, the area all around Jokhang is being blasted, pedestrian streets have been closed by the PAP, Wenzhou Trade St. has been closed too, it seems the gas stations have been blown up…old as I am I've never seen anything like this…the Dalai is really fucking something! I hope he hurries and blows our campus up too! I'll transfer to Renmin U!
  

• Lhasa today doesn't have the sanctity I thought it would; the Lhasa people once always revered has become a fountainhead of tyranny. I'm quite bummed to be staying on the island today; a good number of clothing shops in Lhasa have been burnt down, and everyone here on the island isn't allowed to leave. The lamaists have been fighting with police, don't know if any have been killed. To be honest, as old as I am I have never seen so many armored vehicles before, so many tanks and so much military. What I can't figure out is just what all this that I'm seeing is for. People are even saying they're killing us Han Chinese? All the shops on the island and in Lhasa are closed or are going to go bankrupt, because those shops were opened by Han, us…

• I often see the news about the war in Iraq, or attacks happening somewhere, and at the time I just sigh inside, reminded how lucky I am to be Chinese, where here it's at least peaceful, at least there are no battles, and people don't have to live their lives in fear of battle! But the riots which took place in Tibet today just make me see very clearly that in fact some people don't want our China to be a calm and peaceful place! I wonder, when people in other countries see the news about our battles here in China, will they feel the same thing that I did when I saw the news on Iraq?
  

• When those insane dalais gathered in the street today and surrounded and viciously beat those Han Chinese, while they used lighters to light fire to shop after shop, while they threw molotovs at cars parked on the sides of the road, I really felt afraid, and that this is inconceivable. What you are destroying is the very place that you live in. Aren't you followers of the Living Buddha? You think this is something your Living Buddha instructed you to do, to destroy the very place that you live in? I think that most of these people haven't thought about this, and that most of them have been deceived by the words of certain people who would see the motherland split! But if you just think about it, just who was it that made Tibet the developed place it is today? Who set up the bridge between Tibet and the whole world? And who is it that sends qualified people each year from every sector to educate the children of Tibet with knowledge and culture? AND who is it that sends aid from every developed city in the motherland each year to assist Tibet? I think you seem to have forgotten all this……
  

• Lhasa situation unclear. Still no news from friend's younger brother in Lhasa on tour. This morning the BBC asked an expert on the Tibet problem to analyze this disturbance, he doesn't believe its a plot by the Dalai Lama; moreover, unlike the riots 20 years ago, for the first time Han and Hui people have been attacked. He criticized Beijing for poor negotiation tactics: for too long, simply waiting for the Dalai Lama to die. But now besides the religious problem, there emerges new problems related to ethnicity and development.
  

• From the Tibetan Front (a touring friend in Lhasa) comes this report: today in Lhasa huge riots I just fled the guesthouse We're hiding out with a Tibetan family He says in all his years he's never seen anything this serious - killings, burning cars...
  

• Is the underdog always right? While at university in Nanchang, local people said that a local high school has Tibetan students who regularly beat up Han students, parents complain, school administrators said they're pouring gas on the fire because from teachers to the school to the education bureau to local leadership the watchword is "accomodation".
  

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An eyewitness account (by a white tourist) sent to The Guardian:

"Oh my God. Oh no. That's crazy. One hundred people are trying to stone one man. A man was trying to cross the street with his motorcycle - they were trying to stone him but it's so crowded I can't see whether they got him or not.

"We came out for a walk about at about five today. I knew something was happening because there were a lot of people on the street. We were on Sera Street, which goes to the [Klukang] monastery. It sounds like the noise came from there; it sounds like at first they had been fighting in the temple.

"We saw people running and people in this hotel told us to get in quickly as the crowd was coming. They seem OK here, maybe the owner is Tibetan. All the other hotels have smashed windows.

"The residents are very angry. They are throwing stones at anyone who is Han [Chinese] or from other minorities like the Hui, who are Muslims. It seems like it's ethnic - like they want to kill anyone not Tibetan.

"I would say it's a riot here but I think in the centre it's worse. There's a lot of smoke - we can see it where there have been burnings. I heard people saying the authorities were firing, using guns. We don't know.

Here we have seen people trying to stone anyone they can - Han and other minorities, not foreigners. The Tibetans had stones and knives. I saw Chinese people running away - there was nothing they could do.

"We don't see any police around here. Maybe they're all in the centre and are too busy. It's very violent.

"Oh my God. Someone has a gun in front of me. There's a group of about 20 people - two of them have handguns. They are walking the street.They're shooting. They didn't have uniforms, but the way they were in a group I thought maybe they were police. They went down the street and the first one fired, that's for sure - I think the others did; there was so much noise I can't be sure. Then some of the citizens threw stones, but not at them - in the other direction. So I don't know if they were police or maybe Tibetans.

"I have just been out to get my things. We are staying at the hotel tonight. There are still people on the streets but only Tibetans - if they see anyone

Chinese they throw stones.

"Three times people raised their arms and then when they saw I was white they stopped it. The thing that surprised me most was that I saw no police or soldiers.

"I saw three people assaulting a man - I was 50 metres away, but I think he was Chinese. They kicked him and then one man had a knife and used it. He was lying on the floor and the man put the knife in his back, like he wanted to see he was dead.

"I had to get away, there were people throwing stones.

"When I came back he was gone - I don't know if he's dead. Then I saw people who had obviously been beaten or stoned. There wasn't blood on them but they were so shocked.

"This area used to be a place where Tibetans and the Chinese were friendly.

"I think this is going to get worse. One person told me 300 people have died in the city centre [the Guardian has no information to substantiate this claim]. I just don't know."

See also:Western Tibetophilla = escaping disgust with modernity
Mainstream media bias against China is live and thriving: US tourist
'There're no innocent Chinese bystanders': pro-Tibet blogger
On Sinophobia
Biased media reports 'unite all Chinese'
Evidence of Western media bias
Tourist video of Lhasa riot shows mob violence
'Chinese authorities exercise great restraint': CTV
Accounts from Lhasa and beyond
'Howling' mob attack anything, anyone looks Chinese: Western tourists
Hong Kong reporters, foreigners expelled from Lhasa (footage)
Tibet riot - BBC
Tibet riot photos taken by eyewitnesses
'They don't even let go women and children'
Tibet riot - great INDEPENDENT accounts
Rioter to Dalai Lama: 'Please don't ask us to stop'
Han Chinese not humans?
Latest AP photos of the Lhasa riot
Beijing, Dharamasala both use heavy propaganda machines
Tibet riot - more eyewitness accounts
'They stopped throwing stones at the boy when I rushed forward'
Tibet riot - the other side of the story