TRINKLED

Olympic torch relay passes through Tibetan capital

Agence France-Presse
LHASA, China - Hand-picked spectators cheered runners as the Olympic torch relay passed through Tibet's capital Lhasa on Saturday, just three months after deadly riots against China's rule here.
Paramilitary police watched the event closely from the ground and surrounding buildings, an AFP photographer witnessed, while the area was closed off to all but those given special passes for the event.
Students and employees of state-owned companies were among those chosen to cheer the torch as it passed through the city before ending in front of the Potala Palace, former chief residence of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.
Tibetan singer Caidan Zhuoma took the torch to the palace before it was combined with the special flame that was carried up the Tibetan side of Mount Everest.
Rights groups, meanwhile, insisted that China was irresponsible for allowing the flame to visit the region. But the carefully-staged relay leg ended apparently without incident after less than two hours, instead of the scheduled three, with no reason given for the change.
Many locals were told to stay at home, and shops along the relay route in the remote, Himalayan city were closed to the public.
"We are not supposed to leave the hotel to watch the relay, so we are staying inside," an employee at the Tibet International Grand Hotel told AFP.
A taxi driver said he had received instructions from his company over the cab radio that a curfew had been imposed along the relay route on Saturday.
"This torch relay was not interesting, as they didn't let people come out," he said.
Pro-Tibet activists argued that the leg should have been cancelled in the wake of the unrest there in March.
Beijing's crackdown on the violence that began in Lhasa on March 14 -- and spread to other areas of western China with Tibetan populations -- drew international concern over China's rule of the region.
Exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died in the clampdown, while China has reported killing one Tibetan "insurgent" and says "rioters" were responsible for 21 deaths.
The crackdown sparked international protests that dogged the torch's month-long global journey in April, before it arrived in China ahead of the Beijing Games in August.
Chinese authorities closed Tibet to tourists after the crackdown, claiming it was unsafe for travellers to go there.
Since then, mainland Chinese and visitors from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, have been allowed back in. Foreign tourists are still banned.
China released 1,157 people who were involved in the Lhasa riots, the official Xinhua news agency said on the eve of Saturday's relay, a move seen as an attempt to defuse tension ahead of the event.
However, courts on Thursday and Friday also handed down "punishments" to 12 people involved in the unrest, Xinhua also reported, bringing to 42 the number punished so far.
On Saturday morning, crowds in Lhasa waved flags and shouted rehearsed slogans like "Good Luck Beijing" and "Good wishes for the Olympics" in unison as the torch made its way through the city.
Starting from Norbulingka, the former summer palace of the Dalai Lama, the torch was carried first by 75-year-old Tibetan mountaineering hero Gonpo.
Beijing had shortened the original route in Tibet from three days. It further cut the event to three hours, citing last month's deadly earthquake in the country's southwest.
Human Rights in China, a New York-based rights group, denounced the government's decision to conduct the Tibet leg.
"This provocative decision -- with the blessing of the International Olympic Committee -- could aggravate tensions and undermine the fragile process to find a peaceful long-term solution for Tibet and the region," executive director Sharon Hom said.
Anne Holmes, acting director of the London-based Free Tibet Campaign, said the move was "the height of irresponsibility."
China says the Dalai Lama was behind the March unrest, but he has repeatedly denied involvement and insisted he does not want independence for the region, which China annexed in 1951.
Monks led peaceful protests in Lhasa on March 10 to mark a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. The protests erupted into widespread rioting four days later, and spread to other areas.
No monks were seen around the Potala Palace, where windows were shut, and in neighboring areas.
"They all stay in their monasteries and they can't go out," a taxi driver, who refused to give his name, said Friday.
The torch heads to neighboring Qinghai province on Sunday -- an area with a large Tibetan population that was also hit by unrest in March.