Tibetans Plan Suicide Attacks on Olympics, China Says (Update1)

By Eugene Tang

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Tibetans sympathetic to pro- independence activists are planning suicide squads to disrupt the Beijing Olympic Games in August, including a plan for the Olympic torch to pass through Lhasa, said a Chinese police spokesman.

``To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibet independence forces is to organize suicide squads to launch violent attacks'' around the time of the Olympics, Wu Heping, the Public Security Ministry spokesman, told reporters today in Beijing. He declined to say what measures police are taking to prevent such assaults.

Tibet's government-in-exile, based in India, said the accusation is ``propaganda,'' Agence France-Presse reported.

The Olympic flame, a flashpoint for protests against Chinese rule in Tibet, is expected to go through the region's capital, Lhasa, between June 19 and 21, part of a 137,000-kilometer (85,000 mile), 19-city tour around the world. Advocates of Tibetan independence want to use the global focus on China ahead of the August Olympics to highlight their cause.

The Chinese police and government blame the Dalai Lama for inciting the violence in Lhasa, and in provinces inhabited by ethnic Tibetans including Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai. Lhasa, and some Tibetan-populated parts of western China were wracked last month by the biggest protests in almost 20 years.

Chinese authorities say supporters of the Tibetan Buddhist leader killed about 20 people and torched hundreds of businesses and homes. The government-in-exile accuses Chinese security forces of killing 140 protesters.

Non-Violent Resistance

``Over the past 50 years, resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet has been largely non-violent, due to the leadership of the Dalai Lama and the influence of Tibet's Buddhist culture,'' the International Campaign for Tibet's spokeswoman Kate Saunders said today in an e-mailed response to questions. Wu's comment about Tibetan suicide squads is ``unfounded fear-mongering'' that ``serves to exacerbate an already tense situation,'' she said.

The government-in-exile didn't respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Chinese police didn't have detailed information in advance of pro-Tibetan protests that led to unrest on March 14, Wu said. Police knew Tibetan activists ``were planning disruptions, and we knew the general framework but we didn't know about the particular details including the time and place of the activities,'' he said.

``We didn't expect the magnitude of the atrocity of the criminals,'' Wu said. ``What happened on March 14 was a sudden escalation of violence.''

Arrests by China

Chinese police have arrested 37 people in connection with the riots of March 14, Wu said. Police confiscated 176 guns, 13,013 bullets, 359 knives and 3,504 kilograms (7,725 pounds) of explosives in Lhasa monasteries, evidence of a violent plot to overthrow China's rule in Tibet, he said. He declined to elaborate.

The government-in-exile reiterated today that their movement is non-violent and said ``suicide attacks are unheard of in Buddhism,'' AFP reported, citing spokesman Thubten Samphel.

``In recent weeks there have undoubtedly been acts of violence, rioting and looting by a minority of Tibetans,'' said Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet. ``But the tidal wave of protests sweeping across the plateau has still been mainly peaceful, despite the severe repression that provoked it.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Eugene Tang in Beijing on eugenetang@bloomberg.net.

I'm not buying one word of this BS. I love the olympics, but I honestly don't know why the US is not boycotting them this year. Air pollution is rampant, we are already bringing our own food, and athletes have been informed they my only view most of the areas accompanied by a "state guide" (Read Gov. handler/watchdog/spy) .

This is just giving a rotten country with horrible human rights policies and violations a world stage.

Not going to happen. Pretty far-fetched

I don´t think boycotting the Olympics is a good idea... because I doubt it will be really credible to boycott the games while we just happily go on trading with China... sad but true

In the end, it will just hurt the athletes

I agree with this totally..
If there is one thing I do not see happening is a monk with a bomb strapped on..
Never trust a commie..

Fukk the lying commie pigs..we should nuke`um along with the radical Islamics. :angry:

Why do we do business with China? Doesn't that send bad signals to the rest of the un-free world?

The chinese government has to be one of the most corrupt in the world. They lie and expect EVERYONE to eat it up.

Yeah, this is pure government propaganda. They must think the world is really stupid and they can just pull the wool over everyones eyes.

Just wait until there happen to be a bunch of bomings in Beijing. And ALL of the clues left point to Tibetan monks. <_<

I would be screaming BS on that one, I'm sure they are capable of staging it though.

I bet you're seeing the ground work laid for it right now.

Say you expect the monks to attack.
Stage the attack.
Blame it on the monks.
Move in and mow them down.
Problem solved on China's end.

I sure as hell wouldn't put a little false flag terrorims beyond the Chinese.

I thinkn one of the single best things an American can do is boycott Chinese made crap. Not only are you not supporting a horrible foreign nation with pollution and civil rights atrocities, you're supporting American jobs and you're not having your junk shipped half way around the world to you.

I really despise human rights violators.

I don't buy chinese, not because I hate the chinese people, but because I abhor their government; who get a large chunk of the money we send to china for the "junk" we get shipped halfway around the world.

Tibetan monks are about the last people that come to mind when I think about terrorism and suicide attacks.

That is a interesting way of looking at it. I also would not put this past them in any way.
This could be just one big setup.

China Alleges New Olympic Terror Plot

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN – 1 hour ago

BEIJING (AP) — China said Thursday that it had uncovered a plot by members of a Muslim minority group to sabotage the Beijing Summer Olympics with suicide bombings and kidnappings of foreign visitors.

Chinese officials offered no evidence to back up the allegations, the latest in a series of dramatic terrorism charges against ethnic minorities in the run-up to the Summer Games.

China says violent separatists are behind recent unrest in Muslim and Tibetan areas that has drawn increased attention to China's treatment of minority groups. Pro-Tibetan protesters have also outraged China by disrupting sections of the global Olympic torch relay. Last month, authorities in Beijing accused followers of the Dalai Lama of plotting suicide bombings inside China.

Members of the Muslim Turkic Uighur minority in parts of western Xinjiang province have staged a struggle for a breakaway state, accusing Chinese communist authorities of suppressing their culture and religion.

Public Security Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said at a news conference that 35 people had been arrested in Xinjiang over recent weeks for plotting to kidnap athletes, foreign journalists and other visitors to the August Olympics.

He identified two of the men as Abdulrahman Tuersun and Kuerban Mutalifu, both traditionally Uighur names.

He said the gang hatched the plot in November and traveled through Xinjiang last month seeking recruits, including those skilled in weapons and explosives production.

They also sought fanatics to carry out suicide bomb attacks in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, and other Chinese cities, Wu said. He didn't say whether any volunteers had been found or whether any attacks were imminent, but said police decided to "neutralize the threat" after collecting sufficient evidence.

Wu said police confiscated almost 22 pounds of TNT-based explosives, eight sticks of dynamite, two detonators, and "jihadist" literature in raids in Urumqi.

"They wanted to make a global impact to sabotage the Beijing Olympics," Wu said, adding: "We face a real terrorist threat."

Nicholas Bequelin, a Xinjiang expert with Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said Beijing has undercut its credibility by consistently labeling criminal acts, anti-government violence and peaceful dissent as terrorism.

"The experience around the world since the launch of the global war on terrorism, has taught the international community how easily threats of terrorism can be manipulated by authoritarian governments for their own purposes," Bequelin said.

Wu also provided new allegations about a plot Chinese officials said they broke up in January.

Xinjiang's top Communist Party official said last month that two people were killed and 15 captured in raids on members of a radical Islamic Xinjiang independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, who were conspiring to disrupt the Olympics.

Wu said Thursday that they had been plotting to attack hotels, government offices and military targets in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities with poison, poison gas and remotely controlled bombs.

Wu said 10 men had confessed and police had seized materials and equipment used to make bombs and poison, along with a large amount of jihadist training materials.

During his presentation, police showed a film of a variety of bottles and boxes with brand names printed on their labels in Chinese, along with vehicles, an electronic scales and machinery they said they confiscated in the raids.