THE Chinese paramilitary police who usually patrol Tibet's often tense capital were wearing black and yellow tracksuits instead of their green uniforms. The occasion: a government-arranged visit by a group of foreign journalists.
Sixteen months after an uprising prompted a harsh Chinese crackdown, the glimpse given to 16 foreign journalists showed official nervousness about Tibet – which has unsteadily weathered nearly six decades of Chinese rule – and how hard the governm
ent is trying to show that the region has returned to normal.
The reporters, who arrived last week for a four-day visit, were taken on rushed trips to an experimental primary school in Lhasa, a new home to meet a young couple and their two children, and a monastery at the heart of last year's protests.
Over the weekend, they saw young men in crew cuts and black and yellow tracksuits marching in patrols around the capital Lhasa's medieval Tibetan quarter.
The men said they were students and some carried maths text books. But local people said they were actually People's Armed Police officers, who had dressed in green uniforms before the reporters arrived and had been a constant presence since anti-Chinese riots erupted in Lhasa in March 2008.
Officials said security adjustments were made for the reporters to help them report Tibet's "true situation".
Gongbao Zhaxi, a Communist Party official in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, said: "For the convenience of the visiting reporters, we made some special arrangements in terms of the route and the programme, and we relocated some armed police officers who were patrolling."
Last year's violence, which started in Lhasa, shook Chinese leaders, coming months before the Beijing Olympics and after years in which the government had invested billions into the area to spur development.
In response, Beijing poured troops into Tibetan areas, kept foreign media and tourists out, purged Buddhist monasteries – which have been at the centre of anti-government sentiment – and intensified a vilification campaign against the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Arrests and detentions across Tibetan areas were widespread. Though 80 have been sentenced, hundreds remain in jail awaiting trial.
The harsh security and invective have served to further alienate many Tibetans. "The Chinese government does not want to address these problems, and they reduce it to the Dalai Lama and separatist groups. This is a way of avoiding their responsibilities," said Woeser, a Tibetan writer based in Beijing.
Getting information out of Tibet is difficult and interviews on government-organised reporting trips are often unreliable, making it "hard to get a grasp of what's really going on," she said, adding: "According to what I know, the situation is still serious."
A monk in his 30s arranged a secret meeting with one of the foreign reporters in Lhasa on last week's trip and described the political study classes he's required to attend once a week at his monastery as painful.
The man, who had dressed in civilian clothes to avoid drawing attention to himself, told the reporter monks were forced to criticise the Dalai Lama during the classes. More than half the monks in his monastery had returned to their home provinces or left their orders since last year because "they found the pressure too much," he said.
When the reporters were taken to the Jokhang Temple, the usually crowded shrine seemed empty. Two weeks after last year's riots, about 30 monks broke down in tears in front of another group of foreign journalists, shouting for the Dalai Lama's return and complaining about the heavy security.
