China says its police shot Tibetan protesters

By Lindsay Beck and Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police shot and wounded four protesters this week in an ethnic Tibetan community in the province of Sichuan, Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.

Citing police sources, the state-run agency said police acted in self-defense when they opened fire on Sunday. It is China's first admission its security forces have caused injuries in their crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.

Chinese authorities also said they had arrested dozens of people involved in the protests that have swept Tibet and prompted Beijing to pour in troops to crush further unrest.

China's response to last week's violence -- which it says was orchestrated by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader -- has sparked international criticism and clouded preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August.

In a phone call with Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged China to show restraint towards protesters.

"We have urged for many years that China engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who represents an authoritative figure who stands against violence and who also stands for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people but has made very clear that he does not stand for independence," she added.

China says 13 "innocent civilians" died in riots last week in Tibet's capital Lhasa, after days of peaceful protests led by monks. Exiled Tibetans say as many as 100 Tibetans have died.

Mindful of the international condemnation of its military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, China says its security forces in Lhasa exercised "maximum restraint" and did not use lethal weapons.

But the Xinhua report makes clear the same did not apply in other parts of western China, where it has been sealing Tibetan areas from foreigners and tightening security.

State television broadcast on Thursday pictures of protests in Sichuan and Gansu provinces, both home to Tibetan communities, which showed men on horseback shouting Tibet independence slogans, burning cars and raising the Tibetan flag.

The report said the situation was now calm and showed pictures of barricades and police in riot gear. In Gansu's Gannan region, eight police and three government officials were injured in the unrest, it said.

In Kangding, a Tibetan town in Sichuan, roads were crowded with troops who blocked most travel. Notices on walls warned locals not to protest and to stay away from the "Dalai clique".

ARRESTS

In Lhasa, the prosecutor's office said 24 people faced charges of "endangering national security as well as beating, smashing, looting, arson and other grave crimes" in Friday's riots, the Tibet Daily reported.

Some outside groups say hundreds of Tibetans may have been detained, and the China News Service reported that authorities had broadcast pictures of "wanted" suspects.