China claims Tibetans planning ‘suicide squads’

Accusations against Dalai Lama
Drawing from a deep historical reserve of angry rhetoric, Tibet's tough-talking Chinese Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, recently called the Dalai Lama a "wolf in monk's robes, a devil with a human face, but the heart of a beast" and deemed the current conflict a "life-and-death battle." State media has denounced protesting monks as the "scum of Buddhism."

The campaign against the Dalai Lama has been underscored in recent days with showings of decades-old propaganda films on state television portraying Tibetan society as cruel and primitive before the 1950 invasion by communist troops.

The escalation of the rhetoric to include claims of possible suicide attacks may also touch upon another sensitive issue for China's communist leadership — unrest in Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim region to Tibet's north, and Beijing's tight security measures in the area.

Last month, state media reported that a woman had confessed to attempting to hijack and crash a Chinese passenger plane from Xinjiang in what officials say was part of a terror campaign by a radical Islamic independence group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The reports said the woman was from China's Turkic Muslim Uighur minority.

While the United States has labeled the East Turkestan Islamic Movement a terrorist organization, the State Department alleges widespread abuses of the legal and educational systems by the communist authorities to suppress Uighur culture and religion.

Fischer said China has tried to change the "nonviolent, compassionate" image of Tibetans into one of violence and brutality to draw parallels to the pro-independence stance in Xinjiang.

"If they succeed in portraying them that way, then they can treat them the same way they treat Muslims in Xinjiang," he said.

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