Posted on 03/20/2008 6:27:02 AM PDT by maquiladora
Chinese paramilitary police unload equipment on a road on the outskirts of Hutiaoxia, southeast of Zhongdian, in China's Yunnan province Thursday March 20, 2008. Hundreds of paramilitary troops were setting up camp in the town, which is on the road to Zhongdian, a city in a Tibetan area of Yunnan known as Shangri-La. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
BEIJING (AFP) — Thousands of soldiers were seen in Lhasa on Thursday amid reports of a huge military build-up, as the Dalai Lama expressed fears China's crackdown on Tibetan protesters had caused many casualties.
Long military convoys were on the move in Tibet while troops also poured into nearby provinces, after a week of violent unrest against China's rule of the Himalayan region, witnesses, activist groups and media reports said.
"We saw a big convoy of military vehicles with troops in the back," German journalist Georg Blume said from the Tibetan capital Lhasa early Thursday.
"One convoy was about two kilometres (1.2 miles) long and contained about 200 trucks. Each had 30 soldiers on board so that's about 6,000 military personnel in one convoy."
Blume, who works for the German newspaper Die Zeit, and another witness in Lhasa said they had seen security forces going from one house to the next.
"There are lots of security forces on the streets. We can see Chinese security going door-to-door. It's very tense," an independent source in the city, who did want to be named for fear of retaliation, told AFP by phone.
More than 400 vehicles were seen heading to Tibet through mountain passes in western China, a BBC reporter said, without specifying his location because of Chinese restrictions on foreign press reporting in the area.
"Over the past two days I've seen increasing numbers of troops heading for the Tibetan border but this is the largest deployment by far," the reporter said.
Large troop movements also took place in Sichuan province, which borders the Tibetan Autonomous Region and has several mainly Tibetan areas, one foreign reporter there told AFP.
Ah, it’s only to get ready for the Olympics. Nothing to see here.
Taiwan should take note. Hong Kong already has.
That is the Chinese paramilitary “police” force... the same guys that killed all the protestors at Tianamen Square.
*sigh*
This is a huge blunder by the Politburo.
They don’t know how to wage a PR campaign.
Olympic coverage will be terse. They need to have Baidu’s advertising and PR people take over for them lol.
China is a country and culture in huge transition, with the people gettng a taste of capitalism and some freedoms, while the government is still totalitarian. Going to be an interesting century. I’d love to see it play out but I’d have to be born 20 years from now to really see the good stuff lol.
MI PING
nnnn
“And Russia will just giggle if they’re asked to boycott.”
So would the US. Money talks, and China has plenty of it for all concerned to ignore this.
Obama to announce a US invasion of China. “Free Tibet” bumpersticker activists too busy attacking recruiting stations to do anything about it.
Time for all those Tibetan civilian riflemen to come out of hiding and start sniping ChiCom troops in the head from long range and...ooops...silly me...I forgot...the ChiComs forcibly disarmed those people long ago, with laws and legislation, for the good of the people, so criminals wouldn’t get guns...it’s for the CHILDREN, after all!
Hmmm...sounds like what Our Very Own Fifth Column, the DemoComs and RINOcoms are trying to do to us here, state by state...
But hey...don’t worry about it, Jerry Springer’s on...
“Free Tibet” bumpersticker activists” have to be the dumbest and most confused liberals in America.
Well, at least they’re *among* the most dumbest and most confused. All liberals are addle-minded. A liberal is anyone who sez such-and-such a thing needs to be done, and that their chosen enemies of the moment are the ones who should be doing it. That explains why liberals don’t have friends, only associates (including NJ call girls, catamites, etc).
Then the newest trend, partners instead of husbands or wives.
And ethics not morals, spiritual not religious, personal values not laws...
What has Honk Kong done?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.