Lhasa harmonious ahead of New Year

By Zhu Zhe (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-11 07:42

LHASA: Peace and calm are prevailing in the Tibet autonomous region's capital - rocked by serious rioting last March - two weeks before the traditional Tibetan New Year.

All of the shops have remained open in Barkhor bazaar - a hotbed of rioting last March 14 - and the market has been bustling with mostly Tibetan shoppers buying food and clothing for the upcoming fete.

Four or five unarmed policemen casually strolled among the stalls.

Religious activities were underway in the nearby Johkang Temple. Even though many Tibetans were rushing to prepare for the festival, which begins on Feb 25, the temple received about 2,000 to 3,000 pilgrims daily, monk Ngawang Choedra said.

"Everything is back on track," he told about 20 foreign and Chinese reporters on a media trip organized by the State Council Information Office.

He said none of the temple's monks were arrested after last year's riot.

"Religious events have remained normal," Ngawang Choedra said.

He also said there are 117 monks at the temple, the same number as before the March 14 violence.

Non Gyal, a monk at the temple who disrupted a media group last March to tell foreign and Chinese reporters that authorities had killed more than 100 people in Lhasa during the March 14 violence, also admitted yesterday he did not witness these events. Instead, he was "misled by a group of people".

Non Gyal did not say who misinformed him, but there have been reports he heard the accounts from the Voice of America.

But Non Gayl said he had not been punished for espousing false information.

"My life and religious study haven been perfectly normal," he said.

In response to an underground campaign by some secessionists to boycott the Tibetan New Year festival to "mourn the dead of 2008", vice-chairman of the people's congress of Tibet's standing committee Nyima Tsering said the move would fail.

"The Tibetan people are enjoying a good life now, so there's no reason for them to forgo celebrating their traditional holiday," he told the media group last night.

"I believe there will be a glorious festival."

(China Daily 02/11/2009 page2)