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Tibet protest crackdown claims up to 100 lives
Along with still smouldering shops they had been set alight by protestors on Friday night - a clear sign of the scale of the violence of the demonstrations, as well as the anger of Tibetans who are demanding an end to Chinese rule.
The normally picture-postcard setting of the Tibetan capital had been transformed into something akin to a war zone. And like all war zones, there were reports that some, perhaps many, were dead. Two separate witnesses said more than 100 Tibetans had been killed.
Plumes of smoke rose above Lhasa's buildings yesterday, as eyewitnesses reported that soldiers from the Chinese army, the PLA, had replaced police on the streets. The troops had formed a cordon around the Barkhor neighbourhood, the historic old quarter of Lhasa and the site of the protests, to prevent people from entering or leaving the area. Tanks and armoured vehicles, sporadically firing tear gas, rumbled down streets normally packed with visiting Tibet pilgrims.
But while Lhasa was quieter than it had been the previous day, when thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, PLA soldiers armed with automatic weaopons moved into the Barkhor district during the afternoon and early evening, and gunfire could be heard. Earlier in the day, groups of protestors darted in and out of the warren of alleyways that run through the Barkhor district, setting fire to shops, businesses and cars owned by Han Chinese, the ethnic majority group in China, and burning Chinese flags.
Goods from the shops were burnt on the streets and protestors hurled the tear gas canisters being fired at them onto the bonfires, resulting in a series of explosions that echoed throughout the surrounding streets. By lunchtime, virtually every Han Chinese-owned shop or business in the area had been burnt down. "Pretty much everything that can be destroyed has been destroyed," an eyewitness told The Sunday Telegraph.
Many Tibetans are too scared of the authorities to speak out. "My brother wouldn't talk about what's going on when I spoke to him," one Tibetan living in Shanghai whose elder brother is a lama, or monk, at a Tibet monastery told The Sunday Telegraph. "It's not safe to say too much on the phone." Their fears are justified. The last major protests in Tibet took place in 1989, when China's current President Hu Jintao was in charge of the region. He ordered a harsh crackdown that established him as a rising star in the Chinese leadership hierachy, but is believed to have resulted in hundreds of deaths.
The present protests started peacefully on Monday, when 300 monks from the Drepung Monastery outside Lhasa attempted to march to the capital to mark the anniversary of the Chinese invasion of Tibet on March 10, 1950, as well as the failed March 1959 uprising that forced the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in neighbouring India. Demonstrations mushroomed into the biggest protests since 1989, but it was only on Friday that they turned violent.
Scores of people clashed with police outside the Ramoche Monastery in Lhasa, after two monks were allegedly beaten by the police. Bricks and stones, as well as knives, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, were used against the police by the demonstrators. At the same time, a crowd in its thousands had gathered outside the Jokhang Temple.
It was there that the police apparently unleashed a hail of fire on the protestors, according to a Tibetan witness. "I personally saw more than a hundred Tibetans killed when the Chinese fired at the crowd. Many of those killed were young Tibetans, both boys and girls," he said. His report, in an interview with Radio Free Asia, is unconfirmed, but the Tibet government in exile also reported a rising death toll.
謝長廷說，"當我們看到西藏發生的一切，就不由聯想到台灣自己的命運。"
中國以坦克車對抗西藏人民，舉世震驚
中共一九五一年與西藏簽訂十七條和平協定，但一九五九年三月十日出兵血洗西藏，藏人死傷慘重，達賴喇嘛與眾多藏人被迫流亡印度，也就是舉世皆知的「三一○西藏抗暴日」。
三年前的三月十四日，中國制定「反分裂國家法」，歐美國家競相譴責，台灣人民也發起「反侵略日」運動時，連、宋卻到中國與胡錦濤握手簽署公報，如今國民黨總統候選人又指稱，選後將以不統、不獨與不武為訴求，與中國簽訂「兩岸和平協定」。
中國即將承辦代表和平的奧運會，卻毫無顧忌地將戰車開上西藏街頭，歷史殷鑑不遠，台灣人民千萬不要被美麗的謊言矇諞了，否則台灣就會成為中國的一省。
中國以武力血腥鎮壓西藏抗爭活動，政府強烈譴責。陸委會指出，中國以軍警、坦克對付和平示威的西藏人民，造成嚴重衝突與傷亡，其訴諸暴力對抗人民的自由意志，再次印證中國惡劣的人權紀錄，中國強硬蠻橫行徑只讓台灣人民真正認清，北京專制政權絕對不會以「和平」方式處理兩岸問題。
台灣外交部強烈譴責中國當局違反民主人權的蠻橫舉措，呼籲國際社會愛好和平的國家共同關注西藏情勢，以期中國理性自制，停止使用武力。蒙藏委員會譴責中國殘酷鎮壓西藏、殺害無辜西藏人民，作為令人髮指，全球應同聲譴責。中國前科累累，如果和中國簽訂和平協定，台灣將是下一個西藏。 台灣人民「不要再天真了」
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部落格
