To What End

If these reports are accurate, the Chinese government has been staging riots in an attempt to discredit the Tibetan monks who are protesting the Chinese government. The report includes a photograph of Chinese soldiers being provided with robes worn by monks.

Britain's GCHQ, the government communications agency that electronically monitors half the world from space, has confirmed the claim by the Dalai Lama that agents of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the PLA, posing as monks, triggered the riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured.

GCHQ analysts believe the decision was deliberately calculated by the Beijing leadership to provide an excuse to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region, which is already attracting unwelcome world attention in the run-up to the Olympic Games this summer.

For weeks there has been growing resentment in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, against minor actions taken by the Chinese authorities.

Increasingly, monks have led acts of civil disobedience, demanding the right to perform traditional incense burning rituals. With their demands go cries for the return of the Dalai Lama, the 14th to hold the high spiritual office.

Committed to teaching the tenets of his moral authority---peace and compassion---the Dalai Lama was 14 when the PLA invaded Tibet in 1950 and he was forced to flee to India from where he has run a relentless campaign against the harshness of Chinese rule.

The Dali Lama has been claiming that the Chinese government has been stoking the rioting and violent demonstrations, and I wouldn't put it past the Chinese government to stage riots even on the eve of the Beijing Olympics to discredit the Dali Lama. (HT: kiwiviv at LGF)