Information barely trickled out of the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other far-flung Tibetan communities, where foreign media were banned and thousands of troops dispatched to quell the most widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in nearly five decades.

The Chinese government was attempting to fill the vacuum with its own message. It disseminated footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and accusations of biased reporting by Western media via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which is blocked in China. The communist government's leading newspaper called to 'resolutely crush' the Tibetan demonstrations.

The media barrage underscored that the government campaign is moving into a new phase of damage control ahead of the much-anticipated Beijing Olympics in August.

While China's rigorous policing of the Internet is far from foolproof, its official Internet is pervasive and there is no easy access to an alternative in the country. The difficulty of confirming what is going on inside Tibet may also be hindering a stronger world reaction.

'They've successfully managed the messages available to the average Chinese citizen, and this has fuelled broad public support for a heavy-handed approach to controlling unrest,' said Mr David Bandurski, a Hong Kong University expert on Chinese media. 'There will be no nuances to Tibet coverage.'

CNN's bureau in Beijing has been deluged in recent days by harassing phone calls and faxes that accuse the organisation of unfair coverage. An e-mail to United Nations-based reporters purportedly from China's UN mission sent an Internet link to a 15-minute state television program showing Tibetans attacking Chinese in Lhasa.

China raised its death toll from the violence in Tibet by 5, to 22, with the Xinhua News Agency reporting that the charred remains of an 8-month-old boy and four adults were pulled from a garage burned down on Lhasa's last Sunday - two days after the city erupted in anti-Chinese rioting. The Dalai Lama's exiled government says 99 Tibetans have been killed, 80 in Lhasa, 19 in Gansu province.

In Chengdu, a sprawling Chinese city at the foot of western China's Tibetan highlands, members of the large Tibetan community complained they could not get telephone calls through to the upland town of Aba where police shot at demonstrators last Sunday.

Shops reopened in Lhasa and a few tourists arrived, nearly a week after most foreigners were told to leave, said residents reached by phone. But paramilitary police kept a heavy presence, 'patrolling the streets around the clock', said an employee of the Shambalhaa Hotel, who refused to give her name due to fear of reprisals from authorities.

Though the European Union and the United States have so far said they opposed boycotting the Beijing games over the crackdown, an EU politician said in remarks published on Saturday that European countries should not rule out threatening a boycott if violence continues.

A group of 29 well-known dissident writers, lawyers, political activists and other intellectuals decried China's approach to the unrest, supported the Dalai Lama's call for peace and urged the government to open up Tibet to UN officials and foreign media.

Their appeal, however, was likely to go unheeded by a government that has blacklisted many of the signers for their activism and is portraying its tough stance against Tibetans as correct.

Beijing has released tallies of statements of support from foreign governments - 100 of them, it said, from North Korea to Sudan and Tonga.

'It is a clear proof that the international community is on the side of China,' foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, according to Xinhua. -- AP