China insists used massive restraint on Tibet riots

By Chris Buckley and Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Monday it had shown massive restraint in the face of violent protests by Tibetans, which it said were orchestrated by followers of the Dalai Lama to wreck the Beijing Olympics in August.

But even as the governor of Tibet told reporters in Beijing that no lethal weapons had been used against protesters in the capital, Lhasa, troops poured into neighboring provinces to quell copycat protests and riots that erupted over the weekend.

A resident in Sichuan's Aba prefecture said fresh protests flared in two Tibetan schools on Monday, with hundreds of students from each facing off against police and troops.

The resident, who declined to be identified, said 18 people, including Buddhist monks and students, were killed when troops opened fire with guns on Sunday. Earlier a policeman was burnt to death.

His account could not be immediately verified.

Exiled representatives of Tibet in Dharamsala, India, on Sunday put the death toll from last week's protests in Lhasa at 80.

But Qiangba Puncog, the government chief of the Himalayan region, said that only 13 "innocent civilians" had been killed and dozens of security personnel injured in Lhasa when several days of monk-led protests broadened into riots in which houses and shops were burned and looted on Friday.

"I can say with all responsibility we did not use lethal weapons, including opening fire," he said in Beijing, adding that only tear gas and water cannon had been used to deal with the region's worst protests in nearly two decades.