Unrest in Tibet, Islamic Western China Creates Challenges for Beijing Olympics

New separatist unrest has been reported among a Muslim minority group in far-western China, posing new headaches for Beijing as it seeks to control fallout from earlier anti-government protests in Tibet.

Disturbances were reported at the weekly Sunday bazaar in the city of Hotan, deep in the Uighur cultural heartland in far-western Xinjiang, according to the local government and overseas sources.

File photo shows people congregating in front of the Idkah Mosque in Kashgar in China's far west Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Up to 1,000 ethnic Muslims staged protests in China's remote west following the death in custody of a prominent businessman, an exile group and a media report said Wednesday. (Photo: AFP)

A local government statement said a "tiny number of people" attempted to create an incident on March 23 "under the flag of separatism."

Police responded and the incident was "handled according to the law," it said. The statement said no injuries occurred.

An official with Hotan's government information office, Fu Chao, on Wednesday blamed the protest on Uighur separatists seizing on the Tibet unrest to generate publicity for their cause. Fu said several dozen people were taken into custody but most were later released.

"These people are separatists responding to the Tibetan riots," Fu said in a telephone interview. "The core separatists are still under custody."

The spread of protests to Xinjiang creates new problems for Beijing as it tries to contain demonstrations while fending off criticism of its treatment of minorities ahead of this summer's Beijing Olympics.

Tibet supporters have been among the most vocal of a variety of groups seeking to use the Olympics to spotlight free speech restrictions, curbs on religion and alleged human rights violations, and China's friendly relations with Sudan's hard-line government.

The incident in Hotan came nine days after deadly rioting in Tibet's capital, Lhasa, set off a wave of protests in Tibetan areas of western China. The incidents were the largest and most sustained anti-Chinese demonstrations in almost two decades.

China on Tuesday accused supporters of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of seeking to step up agitation by preparing suicide squads to carry out attacks in Tibet.

The India-based Tibetan government-in-exile immediately denied the charge, saying it remained dedicated to the nonviolent struggle long promoted by the Dalai Lama, who has condemned the recent violence.

The Ministry of Public Security also said searches of monasteries had turned up weapons caches, including 176 guns and 350 knives.

Beijing has repeatedly accused the 72-year-old Dalai Lama and his supporters of orchestrating the Lhasa violence. Protests that began peacefully on the March 10 anniversary of a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule spiraled out of control four days later. Chinese officials have put the death toll at 22, while Tibetan exiles say nearly 140 people were killed.

China also says sympathy protests that spread to surrounding provinces are part of an alleged campaign by the Dalai Lama to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and promote Tibetan independence.

The Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, has denied any links to the violence and urged an independent investigation into the unrest and its underlying causes—something China has repeatedly ruled out.

While Tibet and neighboring regions remain off-limits to most travelers, the region's tourist authority has decided to allow Chinese tour groups to return on April 10 and foreign groups on May 1—the start of a three-day national holiday—according to travel agents who received the announcement on Tuesday.

Many Tibetans insist they were an independent nation before Communist troops invaded in 1950, while radical Islamic groups in Xinjiang have battled Chinese rule through a low-intensity campaign of bombings and assassination.

Uighurs, pronounced "Wee-gers," are a Central Asian people related to Turks whose language, customs and religion are distinct from those of most Chinese.

China's response in both cases has been harsh repression and the flooding of those regions with military personnel and Chinese migrants. Authorities this year also claimed to have foiled a Uighur terror plot targeting the Olympics and an attempt to crash a commercial airliner.