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Foreign Tourists Recount Crackdown in Tibet

Uploaded by: NTDTV
Video Description:
CHEN:
Early last week, Tibetan monks and others protested in the streets of the capital Lhasa, against what they call the 'Chinese occupation of Tibet.' The protests continued throughout the week, and on Friday protestors turned violent, prompting tanks and soldiers from the Chinese Army to stop the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, several foreign tourists who were in Tibet on Friday, have come forward with their stories of what exactly happened. Here's what they're saying:
STORY:
These tourists left Tibet over the weekend. Now in China's neighboring Sichuan Province, they told reporters what they saw and heard.
[Chelsea Hockett, American Tourist]:
"Yeah, last night especially, it was really bad."
(Journalist asking: You heard gunfire last night?)
"Umm-hmm, yeah"
(Journalist asking: All night long?)
"Yes, just throughout the night. My guide said he was talking to
some of his friends and they were saying nobody could walk on the street
because people are getting shot. It's really bad."
Hockett added that after the crackdown began, no one was allowed to leave the hotel where she was staying.
[Chelsea Hockett, American Tourist]:
"We were not allowed to leave our hotels so I don't know."
(Journalist asking: How do you know you were not allowed to leave your hotel?)
"There was military surrounding, they wouldn't let us. They made me show (flight) tickets to get out of there."
Rainer Ulrich is a German tourist. He was visiting Tibet as part of a tour of China. He says he didn't notice the protests until he saw tanks outside his hotel.
[Rainer Ulrich, German Tourist]:
"Thirty-one tourists from Germany and that's (Lhasa) the highlight of the tour here in China. And okay, then we have to go to our bedrooms and in the night, there were some rumours, I think it was gunfight. I am not sure but I stand up from my bed at four o'clock and I see two tanks in the streets of Lhasa"
[Rainer Ulrich, German Tourist]:
"And after that, I saw I think 30 or 40 military trucks with soldiers inside, going in two different directions"
One Danish tourist was walking on the street when the crackdown started. He says everyone was running to get away.
[Bente Walle, Danish Tourist]:
"I just saw a lot of fire and everybody was running. And my guide told me, we got to run. So we run and then somebody put us in the house and closed the door. And later on, we find a taxi and the taxi didn't want to go to the place I stay because there was fighting in the street. So he put us off
on the road and we had to run again"
[Bente Walle, Danish Tourist]:
"I didn't hear any shots. But there was a big fire on the market. And I saw a lot of people with wounded heads and blood, ambulance and tanks and policemen all over"
The Chinese communist party said that 10 civilians were killed during the protests, mainly by fires lit by the protestors. But the Tibetan government-in-exile said that eyewitnesses in Lhasa had found 80 unidentifed bodies, and that 72 others had been injured.
The BBC reported on Sunday that the Chinese also opened-fire on monks and nuns protesting in Aba city of Sichuan Province. Smaller Tibetan groups have also protested the crackdown in major cities around the world.

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