BEIJING — In the chaotic hours after Lhasa erupted March 14, Tibetans rampaged through the city’s old quarter, waving steel scabbards and burning or looting Chinese shops. Clothes, souvenirs and other tourist trinkets were dumped outside and set afire as thick gray smoke darkened the midday sky. Tibetan fury, uncorked, boiled over.
Foreigners and Lhasa residents who witnessed the violence were stunned by what they saw, and by what they did not see: the police. Riot police officers fled after an initial skirmish and then were often nowhere to be found. Some Chinese shopkeepers begged for protection.
“The whole day I didn’t see a single police officer or soldier,” said an American woman who spent hours navigating the riot scene. “The Tibetans were just running free.”
Lhasa is now occupied by thousands of paramilitary police officers and troops of the People’s Liberation Army. But witnesses say that for almost 24 hours, the paramilitary police seemed unexpectedly paralyzed or unprepared, despite days of rising tensions with Tibetan monks.
The absence of police officers emboldened the Tibetan crowds, which terrorized Chinese residents, toppled fire trucks and hurled stones into Chinese-owned shops. In turn, escalating violence touched off a sweeping crackdown and provided fodder for a propaganda-fueled nationalist backlash against Tibetans across the rest of China that is still under way.
“I really am surprised at the speed with which these things got out of control,” said Murray Scot Tanner, a China analyst with a specialty in policing. “This place, this time, should not have surprised them. This is one of the key cities in the country that they have tried to keep a lid on for two decades.”
What happened? Analysts wonder if the authorities, possibly fearing the public relations ramifications of a confrontation before the Beijing Olympics in August, told the police to avoid engaging protesters without high-level approval.
Timing also may have contributed to indecision;Tibet’s hard-line Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, and other top officials were attending the National People’s Congress in Beijing when the violence erupted.
The full explanation could take years to emerge from China’s Communist Party hierarchy. But the Lhasa unrest, not entirely unlike the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989, may be remembered as much for poor police work — faulty crowd control and political indecision followed by a large-scale response — as for the underlying grievances of protesters.
Lhasa now has created far more than a public relations problem for Beijing. It has unleashed widespread Tibetan resentment over Chinese rule. Antigovernment demonstrations have spread to Tibetan areas of western China. Military convoys and trucks of paramilitary police officers are streaming westward to quell the protests.
International leaders are alarmed at the violence and have called for restraint by China. But domestic opinion is inflamed with nationalist anger as state television is repeatedly showing images of Tibetans rioting in those early, unfettered hours.
“Our government should take a bloody suppression on these separatists!” blared one posting among the legion of enraged postings on Chinese Internet chat rooms. “We cannot hesitate or be too merciful, even at the cost of giving up the Olympics.”
The police hesitation did not last long. The crackdown began within 24 hours, on March 15. Witnesses described hearing the thud of tear gas projectiles and the crackle of gunshots as paramilitary police officers took control of the riot area. By March 16, the paramilitary police were searching Tibetan neighborhoods and seizing suspects. One foreigner saw four Tibetan men beaten so savagely that the police sprinkled white powder on the ground to cover the blood.
Lhasa’s death toll remains in sharp dispute. The Chinese authorities say 22 people died, including a police officer killed by a mob and shopkeepers who burned to death in the violence.
