Mass arrests in Tibet; Bush urges China to talk

By Benjamin Kang Lim and Lindsay Beck

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have launched mass arrests of Tibetans in Lhasa for interrogation about the fiercest anti-Chinese uprising for decades, a Beijing-based source told Reuters on Wednesday.

President George W. Bush urged Chinese President Hu Jintao by phone to open dialogue with the exiled Dalai Lama. Hu said China would not talk to the man it accuses of fomenting deadly riots and trying to sabotage the Beijing Olympics.

The province of Qinghai, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from Lhasa, was the latest area to see unrest. Ethnic Tibetans staged a sit-down protest after police stopped them from marching, said the Beijing-based source who had spoken to residents.

"They (police) were beating up monks, which will only infuriate ordinary people," the source said of the protest on Tuesday in Qinghai's Xinghai county.

A resident confirmed the demonstration, saying paramilitaries had dispersed the 200 to 300 protesters after half an hour, armed security forces had filled the area and that workers had been kept inside their offices.

The Tibetan uprising and China's response are at the centre of an international storm ahead of the Olympics in August.

The head of the European Parliament on Wednesday questioned whether European leaders should attend the opening of the Games and invited the Dalai Lama, the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to address the EU legislature on events in Tibet.

The unrest began with peaceful marches by Buddhist monks in Lhasa more than two weeks ago. Within days, riots erupted in which non-Tibetan Chinese migrants were attacked and their property burned until security forces filled the streets.

China says 19 people were killed, at the hands of Tibetan mobs. The Tibetan government-in-exile says 140 died in Lhasa and elsewhere -- most of them Tibetan victims of security forces.

Protests have spread to parts of Chinese provinces which border Tibet and have large ethnic Tibetan populations.

The Beijing-based source said authorities were now rounding up Tibetans in Lhasa in the wake of the unrest.

"It's very harsh. They are taking in and questioning anyone who saw the protests," the source said. "The prisons are full. Detainees are being held at prisons in counties outside Lhasa."

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. He denies masterminding the latest demonstrations.

BUSH TALKS TO HU

U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday, a White House spokeswoman said.