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)

China Accuses Dali Lama Of Taking Olympics Hostage

Things you can't make up:

China accused the Dalai Lama on Sunday of using unrest in Tibet to back demands for Tibetan independence ahead of the August Olympic Games in Beijing.

The verbal attack on the exiled Tibetan leader, accused on Saturday of colluding with Muslim Uighur separatists in China's western Xinjiang region, was part of an intense propaganda and security drive to stifle anti-Chinese unrest before the Games.

Unrest in Tibet began when Buddhist monks demonstrated in the capital, Lhasa, on March 10, the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule, and on subsequent days.

Five days later anti-Chinese rioting shook the city. Chinese authorities said one policeman and 18 civilians were killed.

Anti-government protests then flared in nearby provinces with large ethnic Tibetan populations, leading to violence in which several people were killed and many injured.

In Sichuan, Gansu and other troubled provinces troops continued conspicuously patrolling the streets of Tibetan towns, and kept schools and Buddhist monasteries under tight guard.

Pro Tibetan groups claim that at least 100 people have been killed by the Chinese security forces that have attempted to quash the demonstrations and rioting.

However, for the Chinese to say that the Dali Lama was taking the Olympics hostage is nonsensical. The Chinese anti-Democratic and anti-human rights policies are holding the Chinese people hostage, along with the Tibetans. They're the ones who are not permitting self-determination. The Dali Lama has been calling for peace and nonviolent demonstrations with a move towards autonomous governance, not independence.

The Chinese need a scapegoat for the situation in Tibet, and they are foolish to think that the world is going to somehow blame the Dali Lama for the problems.