UN chief urges restraint in cautious response to Tibet violence
Posted: 18 March 2008 0313 hrs

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UNITED NATIONS : UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged China to show restraint in handling protests in Tibet, in a cautious response to an issue in which the world body appears reluctant to get involved.

"I urge restraint on the part of (Chinese) authorities and call on all concerned to avoid further confrontation and violence," he told reporters after attending a luncheon meeting with members of the UN Security Council.

The UN secretary general said the unrest in Tibet did not come up during the luncheon with the 15 council ambassadors.

"I am closely monitoring the situation," Ban said, adding that he met separately with Chinese ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya on Monday and expressed his concern about the violence in Tibet.

"It (Tibet) is not a matter for the Security Council," Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the council chair for March, curtly responded when asked to comment.

On Sunday, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, condemned what he said was China's "cultural genocide" in Tibet and called for an international investigation into unrest there.

Ban, as secretary general, is often called upon to use his moral authority to speak out on matters of human rights. But in the case of Tibet, he has to tread carefully due to China's considerable influence at the United Nations.

"He is being told by his senior advisers that he should be cautious because of China's influence, China's presence in the Security Council and China's clout in the UN," a UN source told AFP.

Ban took his cue from Louise Arbour, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who Friday called on Beijing to "allow demonstrators to exercise their right to freedom of expression and assembly, to refrain from any excessive use of force while maintaining order.

"We don't have independent reports of what is happening in Tibet. What we know is what what we are hearing from the media and from other sources," UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said on Monday. "We have completely conflicting numbers in terms of how many people died, how many people were wounded."

"We are concerned about what might happen after the deadline (set by Chinese authorities)," she added, stressing that Ban was "very concerned about the violence getting worse."

Chinese authorities have set a deadline of midnight on Monday for Tibetans involved in the unrest to surrender and warned that people sheltering them would be punished.

In its first official account of the unrest in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, China blamed protesters who rose up against Chinese rule, in what has turned into a public relations nightmare for Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games.

"They either burned or hacked to death 13 innocent civilians," Tibet government chairman Qiangba Puncog told reporters in Beijing, adding Chinese forces had not fired weapons at protesters.

But according to Tibetan exile leaders and aides to the Dalai Lama, the Chinese crackdown in Tibet left about 100 Tibetans dead, though it could be as many as "hundreds".

In Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, a massive security presence remained in place to ensure there was no repeat of Friday's violence, with independent reports still filtering out of the city despite foreign journalists being denied entry.

Earlier on Monday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Beijing to open talks with the Dalai Lama, amid mounting international unease over China's crackdown on protests in Tibet.

The Netherlands summoned the Chinese ambassador to express concern and the European Union also said it was troubled, but Russia insisted the Tibet crisis was an "internal matter" for China.

And Britain's Minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, Mark Malloch-Brown, warned that China risks wrecking its international image as the Olympic host if the Tibet violence escalates.

The protests, which spread outside Tibet into other areas of China, came amid a growing international campaign by Tibetans to challenge Beijing's rule of the Himalayan region ahead of the Olympic Games in August.

They were held to mark the anniversary of the 1959 uprising that led to the Dalai Lama fleeing and establishing his exile base in Dharamshala, India.

China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 to "liberate" the region and officially annexed it a year later. - AFP/de