We didn't start the protests, say exiled Tibetans

By Jonathan Allen

DHARAMSALA, India (Reuters) - China says the Dalai Lama "organized, premeditated and masterminded" the violent uprising in Tibet, but exiled Tibetans of every stripe say no one outside the region is coordinating the protests.

"What can I say, these are baseless accusations," Tenzin Taklha, a spokesman for the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans' spiritual leader, said with an exasperated laugh.

He was responding to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's statement on Tuesday that the "Dalai clique" incited the protests.

"It started off with just one or two incidents. Because of technology, because of word of mouth, word quickly spread. This was very spontaneous," Taklha said.

The region's biggest protests in two decades, exiled Tibetans say, are a spontaneous outburst by a long-oppressed people aware they have the world's attention again as August's Beijing Olympic Games draw near.

"I know people can't believe that there isn't coordination," Lhadon Tethong, the director of Students for a Free Tibet, said in an interview at the group's office in the Indian hill station of Dharamsala, the exiled Tibetan government's adopted home.

"But," she added in a whisper, "it's not there."

No one, from the Tibetan parliament downwards, denies there is furtive contact between the exiled, most of whom now live in India, and those left behind.