CHINA:Buddhist monks, though fearful of talking to reporters, take opportunity to tell of their joy over US award for their spiritual leader, writes Clifford Coonanin Xiahe
Tensions are running high in this remote monastery town of Xiahe in China's Gansu province following a clash last month between police and Tibetan Buddhist monks loyal to their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
The skirmish took place after hundreds of monks ran out into the streets on October 17th to celebrate the Dalai Lama receiving the Congressional Gold Medal, the US's highest civilian honour, personally from President George Bush.
"In our hearts we were so happy, we just went out into the streets to celebrate. We saw it on TV, the government didn't know. We were very, very happy," said one crimson-robed, shaven-headed young monk, clearly nervous of being discovered as he spoke to the foreign journalist.
Eyewitnesses in the town, which is located in the predominantly Tibetan Amdo region, said the monks met stiff resistance from truck-loads of police and paramilitary police, and firefighters.
"It's been a bit tense here lately. On the night the police and paramilitaries came, though they weren't armed. The firefighters came with hoses and turned them on the monks. The monks threw stones at the police and there was a clash," said one local Tibetan who watched the events as they unfolded that night. Calls to the police and local security officials were unanswered.
The Chinese see the Dalai Lama (72) as a dangerous separatist and accuse him of continuing to spark independence movements among the 2.7 million Tibetans living in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and refuse to allow him back inside its borders.
There were crackdowns in many religious areas following the award of the medal. In Lhasa, one of the Tibetan capital's major monasteries, Drepung, was sealed off by police after monks celebrated the award with fireworks and prayers.
The monks in Labrang were clearly afraid to talk but took whatever opportunities they could to get their message across, particularly their joy at winning the US award.
Labrang was built in 1709 by E'angzongzhe, the first-generation Living Buddha and it houses a number of important institutes of teaching. It is encircled by hundreds of prayer wheels and many pilgrims walk the streets.
It used to house 4,000 monks but many were killed or jailed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and there are probably around 1,200 left on the site.
Following one religious rite, where throat-singing monks intoned deep-voiced sutras, all the monks rush into a courtyard, a number of youthful monks pulled at my coat sleeve and said "Dalai Lama, Dalai Lama" and gave the international thumbs-up sign. Down one of the alleyways threading through the monastery, another monk pulled me aside to tell of his love for the Dalai Lama in broken Chinese, saying the police had come but they had celebrated anyway. "We cannot talk about our situation here," said one of his friends.
China was livid about the award, warning that Washington had "gravely undermined" relations between the two countries.
The monks and local Tibetans heard the Dalai Lama had won the award through the internet, through Voice of America's Tibetan-language channel on radios and on satellite TV. The situation in Xiahe remained risky yesterday for anyone seen talking to foreign reporters and no one was willing to give their name for fear of retribution.
A remote, beautiful place perched on the edge of the Tibetan plateau beneath towering peaks, the Labrang monastery is a hugely important site to the branch of Tibetan Buddhism known as the Yellow Hat Sect. There are 62 living reincarnations here, and it is considered the most significant Tibetan site outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
The town of Xiahe is divided in two, on one side the Tibetans who make up 50 per cent of the population and on the other, Chinese of the Han ethnic group that dominates China (40 per cent), and Hui Muslims (10 per cent). The tensions between people are not visible, but they are here.
"I heard the Dalai Lama got an award and local Tibetans got together to stir up trouble, up near the temple. They lit fireworks and the Tibetans threw stones and smashed a police car. There were thousands of Tibetans and the mess lasted until 2am," said one Han Chinese supermarket owner, surnamed Zhang (29) from Gansu Tianshui City.
"Two trucks of armed policemen came, about 200 of them. Five armed policemen were physically hurt by Tibetans and three Tibetan leaders were arrested and taken away, but I heard they were released the next day," said Mr Zhang.
"The police didn't fire any bullets because I heard they got the order not to shoot," he said.
The Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule, nine years after communist troops entered the remote Himalayan country.
There are six million Tibetans in China, 2.7 million of them in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, while 111,000 live in exile.
Beijing sees itself as a liberating force that freed Tibetans of the backward yoke of a theocracy, bringing prosperity and doing much to open up the famously secretive region to modern ways. Many Chinese consider the Tibetans ungrateful for all Beijing has done for them.
Mr Zhang, for example, complained that the Tibetans were forever breaking streetlights. He said he was disappointed by the way the Han Chinese were treated by Tibetans.