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SECURITY CLAMPDOWN: Chinese soldiers sitting on top of armoured personnel carriers as they guard the streets of Lhasa yesterday. The Chinese government has sent in at least 200 military vehicles, each carrying 40 to 60 armed soldiers, to the Tibetan capital and vows to wage ?war? to maintain stability and fight separatism. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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BEIJING - CHINA yesterday vowed to wage a 'people's war' against rioters in Tibet as similar unrest spread to three neighbouring provinces with large Tibetan populations.
Media reports and eyewitness accounts said security forces stormed a monastery in south-western Sichuan province's Aba county yesterday morning after thousands of monks there chanted slogans calling for independence from Chinese rule.
About 200 protesters retaliated by hurling petrol bombs and rocks at government buildings and police stations.
Tibetan monks in neighbouring Qinghai province's Tongren county also attempted to march to the local government's office yesterday, but were stopped by the police, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.
Earlier on Saturday, police had to use tear gas to break up a protest march by hundreds of monks and local Tibetans in Xiahe, in north-western Gansu province.
Pro-Tibet protests outside several Chinese missions overseas are turning the issue from a domestic challenge to Beijing's authority into a potential diplomatic hot potato.
The reasons behind the escalation of the confrontation remain a mystery.
Experts such as Professor Tsering Shakya told The Straits Times that it could have been sparked by resentment against an aggressive security and propaganda campaign by the Chinese authorities in Tibet recently.
Beijing, however, blamed the 'organised and premeditated' violence on the associates of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
The facts, for now, showed that several hundred monks began holding marches in Lhasa, capital city of Tibet, last Monday to mark the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule in the region.
Chinese police were said to have broken up subsequent demonstrations.
But last Friday, monks and ethnic Tibetans rampaged through Lhasa by burning markets, destroying shops and overturning cars. At least 10 people were killed, Beijing said.
Mr Thubten Samphel, spokesman for the government in exile, said multiple sources inside Tibet had counted at least 80 deaths.
Lhasa remained tense but 'calm' yesterday amid a heavy security lockdown.
But observers said this could be the calm before the storm following remarks by Chinese officials in the Tibetan Daily yesterday that they would wage a 'people's war' to maintain stability and fight separatism.
Beijing has been amassing massive security resources in Lhasa ahead of an ultimatum for protesters to surrender by midnight today.
At least 200 military vehicles, each carrying 40 to 60 armed soldiers, arrived in Lhasa yesterday.
'China currently has a massive security regime in place for the Olympics and is well prepared to thwart any potential uprisings,' the Stratfor intelligence agency said in a report.
'Moreover, Tibet is in a geographically isolated location where media and society are fully infiltrated and controlled by the Beijing government.
'These conditions make it unlikely that Tibetan demonstrations will have much reach beyond the monasteries to galvanise the country's other ethnic minorities in opposing Chinese rule.'
China yesterday also blocked access to popular US video website YouTube after dozens of videos of recent protests in Tibet appeared on it.
chinhon@sph.com.sg
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