HONG KONG JOURNALIST DESCRIBES PRC-SPONSORED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HONG KONG 000706 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP, EAP/CM NSC FOR DENNIS WILDER E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/18/2033 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM SCUL CH HK SUBJECT: HONG KONG JOURNALIST DESCRIBES PRC-SPONSORED TRAVEL TO TIBET REF: CHENGDU 0069 Classified By: E/P Chief Laurent Charbonnet; Reasons 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) Summary: According to a Hong Kong journalist who participated in the PRC Government-sponsored media visit to Tibet in late March, the primary cause of the riots was ethnic resentment against the Han Chinese by the Tibetans, rather than political differences. The timing of the riots was due to an "opportune" convergence of three events: the 49th anniversary on March 10 of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, the absence from Lhasa of most senior officials (attending the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing),and the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. The journalist said none of the officials with whom he spoke explicitly attributed the outbreak of riots to instructions from the Dalai Lama, but blamed a group called the "Dalai Youth Group" (presumably the Dalai Youth Congress) which they said was a terrorist organization associated with the Dalai Lama. End Summary. ¶2. (C) During an informal April 15 meeting with U.S., U.K., and Canadian Consulate officers, Hong Kong journalist Chan Siu-ming described his late-March travel to Tibet with a group of journalists selected and invited by the PRC Government. Chan is the China-page editor for Hong Kong's independent Chinese-language "Ming Pao" daily newspaper, and told us that PRC officials follow his paper's coverage of mainland events closely. The meeting was arranged by the Canadian Consulate, which had sought to identify other Hong Kong-based journalists to join the discussion. Both TVB and the "South China Morning Post" had been represented on the trip by Beijing-based reporters, however, and the Canadians decided not to invite Phoenix Television or the "Wen Wei Po" newspaper, both of which they believed would simply repeat the official version of events. Ethnic Resentment -------------- ¶3. (C) Chan said that based on what he had seen and heard, as well as conversations with friends in other provinces, the primary cause of the riots was ethnic resentment rather than political differences. Chan described the native Tibetan and immigrant Han residents as two totally different ethnic groups who found it "impossible to live together." Chan believed most of the rioters were young Tibetans with relatively low educational levels. He observed that most small business owners, even taxi drivers, in Lhasa were ethnic Han, adding that the Han would take even the worst jobs - such as rickshaw driver -- were they not reserved by regulation for Tibetans. ¶4. (C) Chan said the timing of the riots was due to an "opportune" convergence of three events: the 49th anniversary on March 10 of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, the absence from Lhasa of most senior officials (attending the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing),and the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. From March 11-13, numerous small disturbances and demonstrations broke out, with large-scale rioting erupting on March 14. The government, although it had confined the monks to their temples beginning March 10, had not expected such large-scale demonstrations and was slow to respond as the riots grew out of control. This was due at least in part to the absence of many senior officials, including security officials. ¶5. (C) Chan said that none of the officials with whom the journalists spoke explicitly attributed the outbreak of riots to instructions from the Dalai Lama. Rather, they blamed a group called the "Dalai Youth Group" (presumably the Dalai Youth Congress),which they said was a terrorist organization associated with the Dalai Lama. Controlled Itinerary -------------- ¶6. (C) Chan described some of the journalist group's activities in Lhasa, most of which were tightly controlled by their government handlers. After arriving on March 26, their first noteworthy event the next day was a visit to a temple, where a group of young monks unexpectedly rushed out and emotionally described their confinement (they told the reporters that all monks in all of Lhasa's temples had been HONG KONG 00000706 002 OF 002 confined) in the temple since March 10. They said they wanted the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet, and told the journalists not to believe what their official hosts told them. Next, the group was taken to see burnt and looted buildings, including a Xinhua office, a hotel, a Bank of China branch, the Cultural Department, and various shops. They then were taken to a hospital to see some very badly injured and burned police officers, whom their handlers said had not been permitted to use or carry guns during the riots. ¶7. (C) At the specific request of the journalists, they were taken to a detention center and allowed to question five detainees, all of whom appeared to be in their twenties, with officials present. They were told that a total of 414 rioters had been detained, although about 100 already had been released. Forty were being prosecuted, and others remained under investigation. Security officials refused to tell them how many people had been killed. The detainees said they had not received instruction from the Dalai Lama to riot, but rather had heard local calls for all Tibetans to join the riots: "If you eat Tibetan food, join the riots!" The detainees said they had not been beaten or tortured. Asked why they had attacked local shops, one Tibetan detainee said his boss, an ethnic Hui shop owner, had mistreated him. So, he burnt that shop and other Hui-owned businesses. The other four detainees had attacked Han Chinese-owned businesses. Chan said he and his colleagues found the information from the detention center visit more credible than anything else on their itinerary, because that visit was added to their schedule at their request on short notice. ¶8. (C) Finally, asked about the attitudes of Hong Kong people toward the riots, Chan first observed that Hong Kong people were "very different" from mainland Chinese, and that they had much greater access to information. That said, however, Chan noted that Hong Kong people also are Han and "understood in their hearts" the sentiments of the Han people in Tibet. However, Hong Kong people felt constrained about voicing strongly anti-Tibetan opinions. Cunningham