China has blamed Tibetan separatist forces for fomenting “hatred among the people” in its first reaction to a string of deadly police shootings in the southwestern province of Sichuan, state media said on Wednesday.
The statement by the publicity department of the Communist Party’s Sichuan Committee followed clashes since last week between ethnic Tibetans and authorities in the mountainous frontiers of Sichuan that border Tibet proper.
Security forces have clamped down on the area, setting up road blocks and cutting off some communications, making it impossible for journalists and others to independently verify conflicting accounts.
“Evidence shows that the violent attacks in Ganzi Tibetan autonomous prefecture were long plotted by separatist forces,” the information office of the Sichuan government said, according to the China Daily newspaper.
The incidents were “plotted copycats” of the deadly riots that engulfed Tibetan areas in 2008, “with a deliberate plan to incite hatred among the people”, according to Sichuan authorities cited by the Global Times, a popular tabloid owned by the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece. Sichuan government officials were not available for comment.
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