PARIS (AFP) — The Dalai Lama accused Chinese soldiers of firing on Tibetan protesters this week, as China hosted the Olympics, and told a French newspaper in an interview published Thursday there were unconfirmed reports that up to 140 people were killed.
He told Le Monde newspaper that at least 400 people had been killed and 10,000 people detained since a Chinese crackdown on unrest in Tibet and neighbouring regions in March.
"The Chinese army again fired on a crowd on Monday August 18, in the Kham region in eastern Tibet," the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader was quoted as saying.
"One hundred and forty Tibetans are reported to have been killed, but the figure needs to be confirmed," said the Nobel Peace prize winner who is on a 12-day visit to France.
The Dalai Lama's representative in Geneva, Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, said the incident occurred in Garze, a Tibetan-populated town in China's southwest Sichuan province that has been tense for many months.
He said the information had come from one "reliable" source in Garze.
Normally the Dalai Lama's office releases information after getting at least two sources, according to Chhoekyapa. "But because of the absolute blackout on information there, we have been unable to do that," he told AFP in a telephone interview.
Tibetan activist groups that normally provide information on unrest said they were unaware of the clash reported by the Dalai Lama. But they said information sources had dried up because of the security crackdown.
Chinese security forces opened fire and killed at least eight protesters in Garze on April 3, exiles and activist groups said.
The Dalai Lama told Le Monde that since March "reliable witnesses say that 400 people have been killed in the region of (the Tibetan capital) Lhasa alone."
"Killed by bullets, even though they were protesting without weapons. Their bodies were never given back to their families. If you consider the whole of Tibet, the number of victims is obviously higher," he said
"Ten thousand people have been arrested. We don't know where they are imprisoned," he said.
Unrest erupted in Lhasa after four days of protests against nearly six decades of Chinese rule.
The Dalai Lama said it looked as though Chinese security forces were planning to continue their crackdown for many years and had build new military camps.
He said the "frenzy" of military building in the regions of Amdo and Kham "makes me think that this colonisation by the army is destined to last."
"A project of long-term brutal repression is under way."
He said that in the run-up to the Olympic Games, currently underway in Beijing, he had been hopeful of progress, encouraged by the commitment of Chinese President Hu Jintao to begin serious talks.
"But we were quickly disillusioned. Our envoys came up against a wall. There was no opening," he said, adding that autonomy and not independence remained his goal for Tibet.
"Real autonomy, because we know what Chinese-style autonomy is: a trap."
The Dalai Lama repeated in his Le Monde interview that his visit to France was not political.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has refused to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, but the Dalai Lama said he hoped that Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Euroepan Union, would "make constructive propositions to the Chinese government" when the Olympics are over.
The Tibetan leader is to meet with Sarkozy's pop star wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Friday.
China warned France on Wednesday to prudently deal with the "important and sensitive" issue of Tibet.
China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 and officially "liberated" it the following year. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet and of fomenting unrest. The spiritual leader insists he wants autonomy and religious freedom rather than independence, and has said he supports the Beijing Olympics.
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