Chinese Premier blames Dalai Lama for turmoil

Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday said the recent unrest in Tibet was instigated by the Dalai Lama and proved for all the world to see that his claims of seeking peaceful dialogue with China “are nothing but lies”.

Wen, in China’s first senior-level response to the rioting in Tibet and other Tibetan-inhabited areas of the country, said the violence Friday in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, was particularly “cruel” and caused great harm to the city and its inhabitants. He dismissed charges by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, that China’s government is committing cultural genocide by submerging the region’s native population under a wave of Han Chinese immigration, and vowed to carry on with economic development in the isolated mountain territory.

“These claims that the Chinese government is engaged in cultural genocide are nothing but lies,” Wen declared at a news conference marking the end of China’s annual legislative sessions.

Wen spoke out after Chinese police conducted house-to-house searches in Lhasa on Monday and rounded up hundreds of people suspected of participating in a deadly outburst of anti-Chinese violence, exile groups and residents reported.