Posted on 03/20/2008 1:14:48 AM PDT by maquiladora
CHINA is ramping up its security presence in and around Tibet following deadly violence there, with witnesses saying today they had seen hundreds of military trucks pouring into the region.
Georg Blume, a journalist with German newspaper Die Zeit and one of the latest foreign reporters to be expelled from Lhasa, described a large troop presence in the Tibetan capital.
"I have seen one convoy of at least 200 trucks with 30 military personnel on top of each, so that was around 6,000 troops there which I could see moving on one day,'' Blume told the BBC shortly before leaving Lhasa early today.
A BBC journalist reporting from western China said he counted more than 400 military vehicles moving in convoys of up to 80 vehicles which he said were headed for Tibet.
Some soldiers on the vehicles were carrying automatic rifles with fixed bayonets, while others were carrying shields and other riot gear.
"It seems that China is dramatically increasing its military presence in Tibet just days after the riots in Lhasa,'' the journalist said.
BBC reporters also said they had seen a train carrying about two dozen military vehicles, including trucks and four-wheel drives, on a rail line that leads from western China to Tibet.
The words "Chinese People's Armed Police Rapid Reaction Force'' were written on the side of one of the vehicles, spotted on the border between the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, which both have sizeable Tibetan communities.
Troop movements seemed to be particularly large in southwest China's Sichuan province, bordering on the Tibetan Autonomous Region and home to several mainly Tibetan areas, according to a witness yesterday.
The witness, a foreign journalist travelling in Sichuan, reported seeing a large number of military trucks carrying soldiers along rural roads near the border with Tibet.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
China has sent a large number of soldiers and paratroopers to Tibet after the violent protests in Lhasa. This army convoy was on G318, the main road into Tibet from Sichuan province.
On Wednesday alone, BBC reporters saw more than 400 troop carriers and other vehicles on the main road. The mobilisation is the biggest since the unrest began in Lhasa on 10 March.
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