TIMEW NOW TV: March 19, 2008 5:15:57 PM A day after the Dalai Lama lashed out at the Chinese government asking them to prove that he was stoking the violence in Lhasa, the Chinese government seems to be doing everything it can to prove that it hasn’t crossed the line. But eye witness accounts available to TIMES NOW tell a different story altogether.

In what can perhaps be described as propoganda by the state machinary, powerful images which show the Tibetan protestors in the regional capital Lhasa actually unleashing terror on the streets have been aired repeatedly on state sponsored media channels. In one such video, a man is shown accosting a passerby and threatening to kill him with a knife. The video goes on to show protestors setting army trucks on the streets on fire.

While the Chinese government makes these claims, the ground reality according to those who stood witness to those protests is quite different.

An eyewitness account by a cameraperson working for a European television channel described a massive crackdown by the Chinese army in the area. Visuals aired by a foreign channel show the Chinese army lining up on the streets of Lhasa preparing for the ‘kill’.

“The Chinese army were already in force and had closed off the streets with military in riot gear, and basically 4 tanks rolled down the street followed by three army trucks carrying more army soldiers into the site,” and foreigner who was in Lhasa at the time and witnessed the incidents narrates.

“We don’t have any freedoms (rights) - The Chinese government tells people all over the world that they are giving freedoms to the Tibetan people - but we don’t have any freedom. There is no religious freedom in Tibet,” said a Tibetan man in Lhasa.

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Posted: 03|20|08 at 12:58 am. Filed under: News.
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