主题：【原创】西藏暴乱真相----我和一个美对华研究问题专家的争论 -- 新长城

Around noon on March 14, after monks at the Ramoche Temple in Old Lhasa had finished their morning rituals, several of them suddenly went outside the temple, overturned the police cars that were stationed there, and then, as if nothing had happened, calmly walked back inside and continued to read their scriptures.

The Ramoche Temple is always tightly guarded, but, because of its location near the center of Old Lhasa, most of the guards need to be disguised in civilian clothes. This makes the appearances more seemly, but the monks and other Tibetans are all quite clear who the police are. This was the context in which the first "riot" of March 14 occurred. About 1:00 p.m., Tibetans and monks from a small temple near Ramoche clashed with plainclothes police at the Ramoche gates. A few Tibetans sustained serious head injuries and were carried away by friends. A private residence next door to Ramoche happened at the time to be undergoing renovations. Angry Tibetans took bricks from the renovation site and used them to smash several nearby shops owned by Han Chinese. The trouble soon spread to the Tromsigkhang District, which lies to the south of Ramoche across Beijing Road. Strangely, the uniformed guards who had been stationed in front of Ramoche disappeared at this point, leaving behind only the plainclothes guards, who, when discovered by the incensed crowds, became their targets. The protestors moved slowly eastward along Beijing Road, passing the intersection with Shonu Road, which runs north and south. It is that strip of Shonu Road near Beijing Road that Chinese television later showed, over and over, as evidence of the "grave losses" that rioters had inflicted. The protesters then moved to the Tsomonling district, about a hundred meters beyond Shonu Road, and toward the center of Old Lhasa where the Barkor and Jokhangl Square are located. By 2:00 p.m. clouds of black smoke were rising along the route between the Tromsigkhang District and the Barkor.

The public schools in Lhasa normally observe a noon recess, but that day, because of the disturbances, they all cancelled afternoon sessions and sent their young charges home. The protestors were targeting Han-owned shops, not children, so the youngsters walked home through all the turmoil as if charmed, and remained unscathed.

Roadside shops began to close up, and crowds of Tibetan onlookers began to form. Vehicular traffic, which had been temporarily stopped, began to reappear from the eastern end of Beijing Road. The Tibetan crowds shouted taunts at Han Chinese who passed by on motorcycles, but they spared tourists, and were especially careful not to affront Western tourists. At the intersection of Beijing Road and Shonu Road about ten policemen directed traffic but, strangely, did nothing to intervene in the rioting. At one point when the rioters suddenly turned westward, in the direction of the policemen, they seemed to panic. They scurried from the center of the road and disappeared into alleys, seemingly more fearful than were all the curious onlookers. I heard a tourist ask a policeman for assistance in returning to a hotel at the eastern end of Beijing Road. "We're busy enough just trying to take care of ourselves here,” the policeman said. “How do you think we can care for you?"

The police, including the military police, were trying to control only certain stretches of road. Elsewhere they occasionally tossed a tear-gas grenade into a crowd, but that was about all. The Tibetan rioters rarely sought to confront the police, either. It was almost as if the rioters and the police had agreed to disagree and let each side attend to its own business. I saw a convoy of government cars and police cars turn south from Beijing Road toward Yuthok Road passing right through a knot of rioters. Neither side seemed to pay any attention.

Suddenly, about 200 meters to the west, near the junction of Beijing Road and Nyangdren Road, I could see that a contingent of People's Armed Police had appeared in helmets and shields. Then about fifty meters farther east, at the junction with Karnadong Road, which is also eastern edge of Potala Square, more rows of military police appeared, and large armored vehicles lined the streets. A stream of military vehicles arrived steadily from the west along Beijing Road; when they reached the junction with Karnadong Road they turned south toward Chingdrol Road. All of these vehicles, whether armed or not, were military vehicles. I saw no fire engines or ambulances, even though, at that time in the eastern part of the city, several fires were already burning and a number of Han Chinese had already been injured.

Potala Square is the seat of the Tibetan government, and the stretch of Beijing Road that runs east from it contains several large buildings housing the Bank of China, the Bank of Agriculture, the central post office, and Lhasa’s largest shopping center. It was, in short, the obvious place for troops to protect. Shortly after 3:00 p.m., when the rioting was still confined to the eastern side of Shonu Road, the soldiers at Nyangdren Road were already shooing bystanders westward toward the far side of Potala Square. They were also stopping anyone they could from using cameras or cell phones to take photographs. Around 4:00 p.m. soldiers blocked off Beijing Road eastward from Potala Square. Meanwhile the disturbances had crossed to the west side of Shonu Road. An hour later they had spread to Lingkor Central Road, northward to the area of New Unity Village, and eastward as far as the Karma Kunsang area. These were the areas most affected by the rioting.

One reason why the riots spread as far as they did was that Chinese troops apparently did not dare to carry out major repression while Western tourists were watching. There was very little gunfire anywhere along Beijing Road, where the tourists were most numerous. But some Tibetans were shot to death elsewhere. A witness told me that he had seen military police kill at least four or five Tibetans at Lingkor Road about 5:00 p.m. At the Barkor, police shot and killed a nun whose family then carried her body inside their home; that evening police came to the door, entered forcibly, and removed the body. With the arrival of nightfall, when the tourists were in their hotels and out of sight, gunfire in the city increased.

• 【原创】西藏暴乱真相----我和一个美对华研究问题专家的争论