China works to quell scrutiny over riots

CHENGDU, China -- With restive Tibetan areas swarming with troops and closed to scrutiny from the outside world, China's government turned up efforts Saturday to put its own version of the unrest before the international public.

Information barely trickled out of the Tibetan capital Lhasa and other Tibetan communities, where foreign media were banned and thousands of troops dispatched to quell the most widespread demonstrations against Chinese rule in nearly five decades.

The Chinese government was attempting to fill the vacuum with its own message. It disseminated footage of Tibetan protesters attacking Chinese and accusations of biased reporting by Western media via TV, the Internet, e-mail and YouTube, which is blocked in China.

The ruling Communist Party's flagship newspaper struck an uncompromising line.

"We must see through the secessionist forces' evil intentions, uphold the banner of maintaining social stability ... and resolutely crush the 'Tibet independence' forces' conspiracy," People's Daily said in an editorial.

The media barrage underscored that the government campaign is moving into a new phase of damage control ahead of the much-anticipated Beijing Olympics in August.

While China's rigorous policing of the Internet is far from foolproof, its official Internet is pervasive and there is no easy access to an alternative in the country. The difficulty of confirming what is going on inside Tibet may also be hindering a stronger world reaction.

"They've successfully managed the messages available to the average Chinese citizen, and this has fueled broad public support for a heavy-handed approach to controlling unrest," said David Bandurski, a Hong Kong University expert on Chinese media. "There will be no nuances to Tibet coverage."

China raised its death toll from the violence in Tibet by 5, to 22, with the Xinhua News Agency reporting that the charred remains of an 8-month-old boy and four adults were pulled from a garage burned down March 16 -- two days after the city erupted in anti-Chinese rioting. The Dalai Lama's exiled government says 99 Tibetans have been killed, 80 in Lhasa, 19 in Gansu province.

In Chengdu, a sprawling Chinese city at the foot of western China's Tibetan highlands, members of the large Tibetan community complained they could not get telephone calls through to the upland town of Aba where police shot at demonstrators March 16.

Shops reopened in Lhasa and a few tourists arrived, nearly a week after most foreigners were told to leave, said residents reached by phone. But paramilitary police kept a heavy presence, "patrolling the streets around the clock," said an employee of the Shambalhaa Hotel, who refused to give her name for fear of reprisals from authorities.

Though the European Union and the United States have so far said they opposed boycotting the Beijing games over the crackdown, an EU politician said in remarks published Saturday that European countries should not rule out threatening a boycott if violence continues.

"Beijing must decide itself, it should immediately negotiate with the Dalai Lama," European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering was quoted as saying by Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper Saturday. "If there continue to be no signals of compromise, I see boycott measures as justified."