Last update - 00:00 17/03/2008
Foreign Ministry warns Israeli tourists to avoid Tibet
By Reuters
The Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a warning that Israeli nationals should postpone non-essential travel to Tibet and that those already there should avoid areas marked by rioting, as well as unnecessary movement in Lhasa and throughout the region, until the situation stabilizes.
The statement said Israel is monitoring developments in Tibet with concern and hopes for a restoration of calm in the area as soon as possible.
China said on Monday it had shown massive restraint in the face of violent protests by Tibetans, which it said were orchestrated by followers of the Dalai Lama to wreck the Beijing Olympics in August.
But even as the governor of Tibet told reporters in Beijing that no lethal weapons had been used against protesters in the capital, Lhasa, troops poured into neighbouring provinces to quell copycat protests and riots that erupted over the weekend.
Exiled representatives of Tibet in Dharamsala, India, on Sunday put the death toll from last week's protests in Lhasa at 80.
But Qiangba Puncog, the government chief of the Himalayan region, said that only 13 "innocent civilians" had been killed and dozens of security personnel injured in Lhasa when several days of monk-led protests broadened into riots in which houses and shops were burned and looted on Friday.
The governor said the unrest was planned and organised by "external and domestic forces" of the "Dalai clique", referring to Tibetan Buddhists' exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
"This time a tiny handful of separatists and lawless elements engaged in extreme acts with the goal of generating even more publicity to wreck stability during this crucial period of the Olympic Games -- over 18 years of hard-won stability."
Tibet is one of several potential flashpoints for the ruling Communist party at a time of heightened attention on China ahead of the Olympic Games.
The government is concerned about the effect of inflation and wealth gaps on social stability after years of breakneck economic growth, and this month it said it had foiled two plots hatched by the members of the Muslim Uighur population in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, including an attempt to disrupt the Olympics.