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TIN News Update / 0100hrs 24 May, 1996 / total no of pages:3 ISSN 1355-3313

The violent unrest in a Tibetan monastery two weeks ago began when Chinese officials refused to listen to complaints by a group of protesting monks, according to the only foreigner to have witnessed the incident.

Police in Lhasa later conducted a sweep of French tourists in the city in an attempt to catch the foreigner, apparently in an attempt to stop him carrying photographs of the incident out of the country.

The tourist, who returned to Europe earlier this week without being caught by police, says that the unrest began on 6th May when Chinese officials at the monastery of Ganden, 40 km east of Lhasa, refused to talk with a group of young monks who were complaining about an order banning Dalai Lama pictures from being displayed in the monastery. One of the officials was then badly beaten in a 5 minute burst of violence until older monks intervened and gave him first aid.

After the incident senior monks immediately took steps to evacuate all children from the monastery, which houses between 500 and 700 monks, and told the tourist to leave immediately, apparently expecting serious repercussions as soon as security forces were informed of the protest.

"A monk said I had to go away. He was extremely worried. My impression was that he was more worried than the others, because he was a senior monk and I think he expected to be targetted," said the tourist, who asked not to be named. "He told me they were trying to get all the children out of the monastery. That's what they were working on when I left," said the tourist, referring to the many children from local villages who attend the monastery.

Police are believed to have arrived at the isolated monastery a few hours later and are known from other reports to have left at least three monks wounded from gunfire, one of them seriously, and another one in a critical condition after being beaten at the base of the skull. Chinese officials have confirmed that there was an incident at the monastery, which is now almost deserted. and said yesterday that it would be closed for at least two to three months.

"When I arrived I was with a Tibetan family who were on pilgrimage, and I spent an hour and a half going round the different chapels with them," said the 32 year old tourist, who works as a travel photographer and specialises in landscape photography. "Then I met a monk who told me through them that the Chinese authorities had held a meeting there that morning with the senior monks. The officials had told them that they had to get rid of all the pictures of the Dalai Lama. He said it had to be implemented that day."

"I was surprised, because although I had visited the Potala Palace where you can't see even one picture of the Dalai Lama, in Ganden I had seen at least one picture in every chapel, and in the monks' rooms there were many," said the tourist, who had arrived in Tibet three days earlier on his first visit to the region.

"The monk said he didn't know what he was going to do with the pictures but that he did not want the Chinese to get them. He seemed to be sad rather than worried.

"I assumed they would not withdraw the pictures. I didn't expect anything to happen. The place looked completely peaceful, and in fact one of the monks urged me to stay overnight because it is so much more beautiful in the evening," said the tourist, who was the only outsider to remain at the monastery that afternoon.

The majority of monks did not learn of the ban until about 4.30pm that afternoon, during the daily debating practice.

"I had been taking photographs of the debating, and then suddenly they all got together and started to get very angry. Then they all ran from there to the Chinese building," said the tourist, referring to a large building within the monastery which houses the resident Chinese officials and police who monitor the monks. "First of all a group of the monks tried to talk to the officials but they were just sitting on a small wall, smiling and not even talking back to them."

The account matches reports from the exile Tibetan government that Chinese officials have been careful to avoid openly declaring the ban themselves, preferring to get Tibetans to persuade other Tibetans to carry out the order.

"Then the whole thing stirred up and the monks started to dance. They were not being violent, they were going round the courtyard, and they were singing as well," said the tourist, who was encouraged by other monks to take photographs. "It was only after about ten minutes that they started to yell and to gather stones and to throw them at the officials."

Four of the five officials, who were all in civilian clothes, then ran away from the monastery, but one was hit by a stone and took shelter in a nearby room. A few monks went into the officials' quarters and took out a stove, which they broke up in the courtyard, and threw blankets and other items onto the ground. They then broke into the room where the official was hiding, and pulled him into the courtyard.

"They broke the door down and really hit him, they were holding him and hitting him from very close. There was blood all over him, he was badly beaten." said the tourist, who estimated that the beating lasted less than five minutes before older monks intervened. "Then the older monks took him away and looked after him and nursed him. They took him into one of the chapels. Later I went to see how he was and there were three older monks looking after him. He seemed to be alright, because he was walking, but he was crying."

The attack on the official, who is described in other reports as a Tibetan from the Nationality and Religious Affairs Committee named Lobsang, was carried out by a small group of younger monks, although the event was watched by over 100 others. "All the youngsters I could see who had taken part looked very happy, standing around in small groups, some of them singing, some making anti-Chinese remarks in English," said the tourist. The whole sequence of events had lasted about 20 minutes.

The tourist was then advised by older monks to leave the monastery immediately "because things are going to happen". They seemed "extremely concerned", he said.

- French Tourists on Identity Parade -

The photographer was able to get a lift back to his hotel in Lhasa with tourists in a passing minibus, but says he believes that a Chinese tour guide in the bus later informed police that he had photographs of the protest. Later that night the police, believing the photographer was French, went to the hotel, known as the Snowlands, and rounded up likely suspects for an identity parade.

"Everybody in my hotel was searched and asked questions," the photographer says. "All the French had a fairly bad time and were asked whether they had been in Ganden. Four of them were put against a wall and this Chinese guide went along to try to identify them. One of them told me they had to swop clothes to try to have the right colour clothes on, and this took more than an hour," he said. Other French people in Lhasa had their belongings searched by police, apparently looking for films, and one French tourist reported being briefly detained and searched 5 days later at a mobile road check near the town of Gyantse by police who were looking for a Frenchman.

He was released only when he proved that he had arrived in Tibet after 6th May.

The police made several visits to hotels in Lhasa and Shigatse where the photographer was staying, but he avoided detection by staying out late and by not sleeping in the room where he was registered. "I did not want the Chinese to be able to trace the photographs," says the tourist. "That is my main fear, because I have pictures where I think you can recognise people throwing stones. I think what they want is to identify those people."

Officials in Lhasa yesterday confirmed that many of the 600 or more monks at Ganden had left the monastery, but did not say if they had gone voluntarily.

"The work team is now educating the monks in the monastery," an official from the Tibet Religious Affairs Bureau told Reuters in Beijing. "These lamas are young, they come from remote areas and are less educated, so the work team must teach them", he said. Since Monday the news agency and the BBC have both reported statements by officials confirming that house to house searches or "spot checks in workers' homes" have been carried out in some parts of Lhasa to make sure that Dalai Lama photographs are no longer on display. The ban applies to any likeness of the Dalai Lama, including pictures on watches or pens, and was formally passed by the Lhasa People's Congress last week, according to a BBC report.