Olympic torch in Tibetan capital

Raghavendra

Beijing, Jun 21 (PTI) - The Olympic torch made its way
through the Tibetan capital Lhasa amidst tight security on
Saturday, three months after the deadly riots hit the remote
Himalayan region during anti-China protests spearheaded by
monks.
The 9.3 km relay kick-started from Norbulingka, known as
the Summer Palace of the Dalai Lama, with 156 torch bearers,
including 75 Tibetans, and wound its way through the streets
in Lhasa as the security personnel kept a close vigil.
"We are convinced that the Olympic Games torch relay in
Lhasa will further inflame the patriotic spirit of the
people," Lhasa Communist Party chief Qin Yizhi said at the
opening ceremony.
Groups of people cheered and students waved the Chinese
flags and Olympic banners.
On the eve of the relay, the Tibet Autonomous Regional
government Executive Vice-Chairman Palma Trily said the
government was confident of a "safe and successful" relay in
Tibet.
Police have been deployed for security but there was none
from the People's Liberation Army as "their duty is to guard
the frontier and protect the territory," he was quoted as
saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The relay in Tibet confined to Lhasa only for a day after
a three-day programme was scaled down with organisers citing
the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province in southwest
China that has left nearly 69,200 people dead as the reason.
Under the previous plan, the torch was to arrive in Tibet
on Thursday and leave on Saturday but the changes were made
after the May 12 earthquake.
Security personnel remained alert to thwart any potential
trouble for one of the most sensitive parts of the relay,
which has had a smooth run within the country but was troubled
by protests by Tibetans on its global sojourn.
A group of foreign journalists was also brought to Lhasa
on Friday to cover the socio-economic development and the
torch relay.
Tibet has remained out of bounds for foreign journalists,
who were earlier brought on government-controlled trips weeks
after the riots broke out during the protests in March that
left 21 people dead and spread to some other Tibetan inhabited
areas.
The Olympic flame which the Chinese mountaineers carried
to the summit of Mount Everest would be reunited with the one
on the main torch relay route.
The torch reached Lhasa from the Xinjiang Uygur
autonomous region, another sensitive and restive Muslim
dominated region in China's northwest where radicals among the
Uighur ethnic group have been waging a low-intensity struggle
against the Chinese rule.
Anti-government protests in Tibet had posed the most
serious challenge to the authorities in two decades, with
China repeatedly accusing the Dalai Lama, living in exile in
India, of having "masterminded" the violence, a charge he
denied.