The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Beijing

China has accused the Dalai Lama of plotting "terror" in Tibet and colluding with Uighur separatists in Xinjiang as it escalates a security and propaganda drive to stifle anti-Chinese unrest ahead of the Olympics.

Anti-government protests by Buddhist monks erupted in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, from March 10 and five days later anti-Chinese rioting shook the city, killing a policeman and 18 innocent civilians, burnt or hacked to death, authorities have said. Protests then flared in nearby provinces with large ethnic Tibetan populations, leaving at least several more people dead.

In Sichuan, Gansu and other troubled provinces, troops continued conspicuously patrolling the streets of Tibetan towns, with schools and Buddhist monasteries under tight guard.

Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, has criticised the violence and said he wants talks with China to negotiate autonomy, but not outright independence, for his homeland, which was occupied by Chinese troops from 1950. But Beijing is intensifying propaganda telling its citizens and the rest of the world that the Dalai Lama, not failings in government policy, caused the trouble and that he wants to ruin Beijing's Olympic Games in August.