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China admits shooting Tibetans
21/03/2008 09:36 - (SA)
Beijing - China admitted for the first time that security forces shot at Tibetan protesters, as the military pushed ahead on Friday with a crackdown on volatile areas amid fears of mass arrests.
The admission comes with Beijing's Communist rulers trying to put the country's best face forward in the run-up to the Olympic Games in August, amid scattered criticism but no serious threats of a boycott to the showpiece event.
But after days of saying that no lethal force was used in quashing the biggest protest against Chinese rule in Tibet in nearly 20 years, state media said late on Thursday that police had shot four people in "self-defence".
Tibetan activist groups had previously reported eight people had been confirmed killed in the incident, and possibly 30, and released photos they said were of the bodies of eight victims.
China has repeatedly insisted that the only people to have died in the protests were 13 "innocent civilians" killed by Tibetan rioters last Friday in Tibet's capital, Lhasa.
Tibet's government-in-exile based in India said this week it had confirmed 99 deaths in the Chinese crackdown, but that it was struggling to get more information.
Uprising against Chinese rule
The protests began last week to mark the anniversary of a 1959 uprising against China's rule of the vast Himalayan region, amid widespread anger over what they say has been brutal and repressive Chinese policies.
Communist China annexed Tibet in 1951, after sending in troops to "liberate" the devoutly Buddhist region a year earlier.
The latest unrest has come at a sensitive time for China's rulers, with the Beijing Olympics fewer than five months away, and they have made huge efforts to stop the world from getting an independent view of their crackdown.
China has sealed off Tibet from foreign reporters and tourists, while releasing images and television footage of violent Tibetans.
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