Security in Tibetan regions beefed up on eve of revolt anniversary+

JIANZHA, China, March 9 Kyodo -
Chinese authorities have beefed up security in Tibetan regions in the country's
west as China gears up for the 50th anniversary Tuesday of the Tibetan uprising
that led to the exile of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.

There are reports that residents have been detained as Chinese authorities
appear to be going all out in an attempt to stamp out a repeat of the extensive
riots that erupted last March in Tibet and other western regions with
significant Tibetan populations.
''There is no reason. Just leave immediately,'' Chinese security personnel
yelled as a group of foreign reporters stopped at a police checkpoint on Sunday
at a main road in Jianzha County, more than 50 kilometers away from Tongren,
one of the scenes of Tibetan riots last year in Qinghai Province.
Security personnel wielding firearms checked all vehicles traveling on the
road, and vehicles were told to turn back as soon as the people inside were
found to be carrying foreigner identification papers.
A Tibetan monk without identification papers was ordered out of a public bus
heading toward Tongren.
Police officers intervened immediately as reporters tried to speak to the monk
and held the reporters at bay, saying ''Don't talk to the monk. You have no
right to talk to him.''
According to a Tibetan monk who spoke to Kyodo News in Jianzha County, security
personnel were patrolling the streets of Tibetan communities in Gansu, Sichuan
and other regions where riots broke out last March.
In some major thoroughfares in Qinghai, huge banners bearing the appeal,
''Uphold ethnic unity,'' were seen here and there, and trucks were seen
carrying armed security personnel holding police shields.
In the provincial capital of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, some roads leading to
Tibetan communities have been blocked, and armed police officers in formation
were patrolling the streets, holding police clubs on their hands and police
dogs on the leash.
A 33-year-old woman from Ganzi Tibetan autonomous region in western Sichuan
spoke to Kyodo News and looked scared. ''A number of people in the place where
I live have been detained, and the situation is very tense there,'' she said.
''The security authorities are obviously overdoing things. How can people (Han
Chinese and Tibetans) live together in harmony in a situation like this,'' said
a 25-year-old Tibetan man who was selling Tibetan sutras on the street.
In Beijing, a senior police officer was quoted by state media on Monday as
saying that the Chinese government has tightened its border control in Tibet.
''We have made due deployment and tightened controls at border ports and key
areas and passages along the border in Tibet,'' said Fu Hongyu, political
commissar of the Public Security Ministry's Border Control Department and a
deputy to the National People's Congress, China's legislative body.
''We will firmly crack down on criminal activities in Tibet's border area that
pose a threat to China's sovereignty and government,'' Fu was quoted by Xinhua
News Agency as saying.
==Kyodo