Summary

TIN, London - 26 Dec: A Chinese- and a Muslim-owned shop in a northern Tibetan village were blown up in a nationalist protest earlier this year, according to a Tibetan from the area, where there have been several protests against Chinese and Muslim migrants since 1993. The current "Strike Hard" campaign against crime, which has so far led to at least 34 executions, is mainly targetted against bombings by pro-independence activists.

The explosion took place in the village of Tsenden in Sog county, 340 km north of Lhasa in Nagchu prefecture, in January this year. It has only now been reported by a Tibetan monk, who has claimed responsibility for the attack, describing it as a "contribution towards the restoration of our freedom".

"The suffering caused for Tibetans by reprisals for the bombing was greater than any damage it inflicted on the Chinese," the monk later admitted in an interview.

The Sog county explosion is the third bombing incident known to have taken place this year in Tibet, following at least four such incidents last year, and the only one for which anyone has admitted responsibility. Although the Chinese authorities in Tibet say they have "cracked" 30 cases of bombing this year and have seized over 2000 lbs of explosives since this summer, most of these cases would have been unrelated to political protests. Official claims that nationalist violence and bombings are widespread in Tibet have never been described in detail and appear to be exaggerated.

The monk's report, which describes increased military deployment in the Sog area and an increase in the number of Chinese officials, is supported by official accounts of the visit by Raidi, Tibet's most senior Tibetan party leader, to the Sog area from 11th-2Oth June this year, when he indicated that unrest was still prevalent in the region.

Details

"On the whole the situation in Sog county is stable, but some problems exist", Raidi told military and police leaders of the area, according to an unusually frank Tibet TV broadcast on 24th June. The Sog county authorities "should show concern for the building of military and armed police units and help them solve some existing practical difficulties ... and resolutely crack down on the sabotage activities of the separatists", he added.

Raidi confirmed that more Chinese officials have been sent to the area and called openly on Tibetan cadres to improve relations with the incoming Chinese. "Many cadres of the Han nationality have just arrived. They need some time before they are accustomed to the life, language and environment here. Cadres of the Tibetan nationality should take more initiative to show concern for them and give them more assistance... We must never give the separatists any opportunity they could seize", said Raidi, who was born in the Nagchu area.

Tibet "Strike Hard" Focus on Political Protest - The incident goes some way towards explaining why the Chinese authorities in Tibet have turned a China-wide drive against crime, known as the "Strike Hard" campaign, into a struggle against bombings allegedly by pro- independence groups. In inland China the Strike Hard campaign is directed at common crimes, such as murder, rape, and gun-running, and does not explicitly target political offenders.

"In this region there is a special need to place the struggle against splitting activities and sabotage by separatists in the first place", said the Tibet Daily in a front page article on 6th August. "In carrying out our strike-hard struggle, we always insist on giving priority to the anti-splittism struggle and take the task of cracking cases involving explosions committed by separatists as the most important part of the "strike-hard" work," Gyaltsen Norbu, TAR Governor, announced on Tibet TV on 14th August, according to the BBC Monitoring Service.

In the first month of the campaign the Tibet authorities seized 34 guns and 3,724 rounds of ammunition, according to the Procuratorial Daily in early June. By 20th July they had solved over 30 "bombing cases", and seized 925 kg (2,039 lb) of explosives, 2,008 detonators and 465 metres (1,525 ft) of fuse wire, according to the Tibet Daily, cited in a Reuters report on 15th September. Other reports indicate that these cases involved the recovery of road-blasting equipment or hunting weapons which had been stolen for non-political reasons.

Officials have said that there have been executions related to bombing incidents, but have given no details. "When reviewing cases that have been given verdicts, we have noticed that all the criminals who have received death sentences have been killers, robbers, bombing related culprits, major thieves or rapists," said Bai Zhao, president of the Tibet Regional Higher Court, according to the 17th June edition of Tibet Daily. "If we did not kill them, the people would be dissatisfied and angry", he said, adding that the authorities had met with "success in capturing terrorists" but giving no details.

"Strike Hard" in TAR: 34 Executions

In the first month of the campaign 187 people were arrested in Tibet, according to the Procuratorial Daily, and in October Radio Lhasa reported in Tibetan that 164 people had been detained during the campaign in the Chamdo prefectural area alone, according to the exile Tibetan Government. 29 of these people, including at least 18 Tibetans, have been officially listed as executed during the Strike Hard campaign in the Tibet Autonomous Region - 4 were announced in Lhasa on 11th May, 8 in Shigatse on 27th May, 4 in Nyingtri on 12th July, and 9 in Lhasa on 9th July, and 4 more in Lhasa on 6th August. In addition, five others, including one Tibetan, were executed in Tsethang on 11th September, according to unofficial sources.

The figures for executions in the Tibet Autonomous Region are low compared to the number of executions estimated for the Strike Hard drive in China - at least 2,200 - but suggest a rate of about one execution per 65,000 members of the population, eight times higher than the estimated rate in China as a whole.

Few details have been given of these cases, but most are non-political offences, with only six officially described as political offenders - a group in Shigatse who were given sentences of five years or less in late May.

The Strike Hard campaign, launched in China on 15th April as a three month nation-wide attack on crime, began in Lhasa with a public meeting on 9th May. "Beginning now, we should use the next three months to carry out the struggle to crack down on separatists' sabotage activities and on serious criminals throughout the city", said Lobsang Dondrup, secretary of the Lhasa Party Committee, according to the Tibet Daily the next day. The campaign was originally due to end in early August but at a meeting in Lhasa on 29th October Li Xianwen, the deputy head of the Tibet regional police, announced that the "struggle" would continue across the country until at least the end of New Year Festivities in 1997, which conclude in Tibet in mid February. On 18th December China's chief judge, Ren Jianxin, indicated that because of its success the national campaign may continue all next year.

The national campaign was originally planned to have four waves or stages, each lasting 2-3 weeks, with the third wave scheduled to take place in China from 27th May to 23rd June, according to the Hong Kong paper Cheng Ming. In Tibet the third wave was launched only in August. It aimed at "the continuation and deepening of the previous two campaigns", apparently with the intention of further increasing the targeting of political offenders. "In the third wave of the "strike hard" campaign, we should focus our attention on key targets and crack down on separatists and serious criminals", according to a front page article in Tibet Daily on 17th August.

The campaign is based on the principle of "quicker and harsher" - rapid prosecution procedures and harsher sentences. In June Bai Zhao, Tibet's chief Judge, ordered officials to speed up trials by following the "basic principle" of "not getting bogged down in minor details" and praised a case in Shigatse where criminals were interrogated throughout the night by judges so that they could be executed within 10 days of their first trial.

Reasons for Bombing

The bomb in Sog county last January slightly damaged two shops but caused no injuries, according to the monk, who provided TIN with full details of his name and personal history. The monk comes from Tsenden, a village on the outskirts of the town of Sog Dzong, the administrative seat of Sog county.

The explosion, which was set off at 4.30 in the morning of 13th January, was a protest against China's rejection of the child popularly recognised as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama and other religious policies, which in the Sog area apparently included burning pictures of the exiled Dalai Lama, according to the bomber.

"The Chinese, who do not have any faith in Karma [the laws of cause and effect, or morality], are burning the portraits of the Dalai Lama," said the monk in a written statement confessing to the crime. "They are forcing us to accept the Panchen Lama who has been selected by them. If we accept some other reincarnation, the Chinese threaten us with arrest," added the monk, who is in his 20s. The monk was also protesting against new regulations reducing the number of monks and nuns, and against the presence of Chinese informers within his monastery. "Chinese spies are running around in our monastery day and night", he writes.

In his confession he complains about increased military deployment in the area, and about environmental damage allegedly caused by Chinese migrants. "The Chinese who had been living there since a long time say that they are the protectors of the environment. In reality they are cutting down trees, destroying the forest and killing the wild life," he alleges. "Basically," the monk told TIN, "I did it out of desperation".

The attack was also motivated by racial animosity towards Hui or Chinese Muslims and one of the two shops attacked by the bombers was owned by a Hui trader. "The third reason why I bombed the shop was because a Hui man had insulted the Tibetans", said the monk. Hui migrants have recently taken advantage of China's economic relaxation to operate as migrant traders in nomadic areas of northern Tibet, including Sog county, which is close to the border of Qinghai province. Previous accounts received from Tibetans in Lhasa and Sog county have accused Hui migrants of attempting to poison Tibetans by polluting food supplies with urine, of stealing blood from animals and people, of using counterfeit money, and of attempting to buy lice and body dirt from Tibetans. In February 1995 a large crowd ransacked a Hui restaurant in Lhasa after a customer said he had found a human finger in his food.

The Sog county bombing appears to have been a personal initiative by the monk, who built the bomb from explosives used for road-construction. He had learnt how to make the device when he had been sent to work on stone-breaking as part of local communal labour projects.

After the incident about 30 local Tibetans suspected of being anti-Chinese, including the monk, had been questioned by police, who announced that the perpetrators would be executed if identified. The monk was able to escape shortly afterwards when Chinese officials left their posts in Sog county to return home for the Chinese New Year, but says that many people were detained for a short period when it was discovered that he had fled.

After the bombing, grain sales were suspended in a nearby area, allegedly as a reprisal for the explosion, according to the monk. "Since 1993 the Chinese have gradually been reducing the sale of grain but after the incident they stopped selling grain," the monk said. "People had to go to Nagchu [about 200 km west of Sog Dzong] to buy grain and only those with sufficient means could make it there. The others had to go hungry."

The use of violence appears to contradict recommendations by the exile Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, who has said he would resign if his followers give up pacifism. The monk, who comes from a monastery that is supporting the Dalai Lama in a current sectarian dispute over the worship of a deity called Shugden, expressed strong support for the exiled leader. 80% of Tibetans in his area were "very patriotic" and many had approved of the bombing, he claimed.

There has been recurrent unrest in Sog county over the last three years, with local people involved in incidents of stoning Chinese shops and putting up wall posters calling for Tibetan independence. In July 1993 unrest erupted in the town Sog Dzong after the authorities refused to prosecute ten Chinese who had been detained and handed over to the local court by Tibetans from Trido and Yang-nge villages, who had apparently accused the Chinese of poaching or damaging cattle. In Yagla, a group of villages 85 km south east of Sog Dzong, all the Chinese migrants were evicted from the area by locals.

Eighteen Chinese-owned shops were damaged by protestors in Sog Dzong during the 1993 protests, described by the official paper Tibet Daily 18 months later as a "serious incident of violence" carried out by "national separatists". Between 50 and 60 Tibetans were detained for the involvement in 1993 incidents or for putting up pro-independence posters.

Three of the detainees are widely reported to have been tortured in custody

A 20-year old Tibetan called Nyiga, sentenced to 2 years from 1993, described as "severely tortured"; Tashi Norden, arrested in 1993 for having a video of the Dalai Lama and said to have been blinded in one eye after two months in Nagchu prison in 1993; and Kunchog Tenzin, a teacher arrested in February 1995, said to be disfigured after imprisonment in Nagchu.

After the 1993 incidents a military camp was established in 1994 outside the town of Sog Dzong, reportedly housing several hundred soldiers, and a number of Tibetan officials in the region were replaced by Chinese, as indicated by Raidi's speech during his visit in June. About a year after the 1993 incidents many of the Hui and Chinese traders returned to their area, reportedly as a result of the authorities opening the new military camp and undertaking to provide extra protection for them. Sog county has a long history of anti-Chinese resistance, and there were guerilla groups operating there until at least 1968. In 1982 one local source reported that there were no surviving males over the age of 50 in the area, but this could not be confirmed.

Previous Bombs and "Sabotage"

The other two explosions known to have taken place this year were on 18th January, when the Lhasa house of a pro-Chinese lama called Sengchen was damaged, and on 18th March when a bomb exploded outside the main gates of the regional Party Headquarters in Lhasa. The first of the current series of political bombings was in June 1995, in the run-up to official celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the TAR, but the Tibet authorities did not admit to any explosions in Tibet until the Strike Hard campaign began.

"The Dalai clique, following the failure of a series of plots to separate the motherland, is at an impasse, has frantically pounced on us again, and has continually carried out violent and terrorist activities. Since the beginning of last year it has created many incidents of explosions, and other incidents one after another', said the Tibet Daily on 11th May, the first known press reference to bombings.

In September 1995 a New Zealand tourist in Lhasa was accused of "premeditatingly spreading a lie" and "undermining state security" for alleging in a fax to his home that a bomb had gone off in Lhasa. "These people's tricks, however, are none too clever. Slander and distortion can only fool people for a time", Xinhua said of the incident. "Spreading political rumours has been one of the Dalai's Important magic weapons he cannot live without for a moment," commented the agency on 1st April 1996.

In the last year Tibetan nationalists have been frequently accused by the Chinese press of sabotage, but the term is defined widely in China and now officially includes "making up a story, distorting facts, publishing or disseminating writings or speeches, or producing and disseminating audio and video products ... creating ethnic disputes, or instigating ethnic separation", according to the implementation regulations of China's State Security Law. The law was passed in 1993 apparently to allow political cases to be dealt with under criminal legislation rather than counter-revolutionary laws, which have attracted widespread criticism.

When referring to violent incidents of political disruption, the official press in Tibet now uses terms such as "active sabotage activities created by separatists", a category which includes "bombings, murder, beating people, smashing property, and looting and arson", according to the Tibet Daily on 17th June, and elsewhere refers to assassinations.