ONE policeman was killed and several others injured in the latest assault by rioters in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province on Monday, local authorities said.

A group of rioters attacked armed police officers on duty with knives and stones at 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Police officer Wang Guochuan, a native of Sichuan, was killed on the spot and several other policemen were wounded.

“The police were forced to fire warning shots and dispersed the lawless mobsters,” said an official.

A total of 381 people involved in the riot in Aba County of the province had surrendered to the police as of Monday noon, local authorities said.

Riots in Tibetan-inhabited areas in Gansu and Sichuan provinces erupted on the heels of the Lhasa unrest, which broke out March 10. Eighteen civilians and one police officer were killed in the Tibetan capital. Lhasa prosecutors have so far issued arrest warrants for 29 people allegedly involved in the riot.

While some Western media organizations have rashly accused China of “violent crackdown” on the “peaceful protests” in Tibet, foreigners there disagreed.

“Many reports were not accurate,” said Tony Gleason, field director of Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, a U.S. organization which provides training and monetary help to poor Tibetans. “The protests were by no means peaceful,” he said.

He recalled that he was dining at Snowland Restaurant with his wife and 1-year-old daughter March 14 when a large group of rioters threw bricks and rocks at cars on the street. (Continued on Page 4)

“I saw black smoke from the center of the city, and there was more smoke from different parts,” he said. “I never saw police open fire to the mobsters.”

Ursula Rechbach, from Slovenia, has worked with the Lhasa-based Project for Strengthening the Tibetan Traditional Medicine more than eight years .

The woman, in her 50s, said she was having lunch with her colleagues March 14 when the riot started. Her Tibetan colleagues quickly accompanied her to her hotel.

“We hardly made it,” Rechbach said, adding she saw young people holding long sticks and screaming, damaging cars and smashing and looting shops.

“You cannot have it all of a sudden. It can be (happening) in one place, if it is not organized. It must be premeditated, at least prepared,” she said.

Commenting on some Western media reports accusing China of “massacring Tibetans” in their “peaceful protest,” Ursula said:”You can invent some stories in order to sell better, but how can you accuse anybody if you were not there,” she said.

Guzman Escardo, who works with the Association for International Solidarity in Asia (ASIA), said that the local police had been extremely polite, contrary to what Western media presumed.

“The police on the streets are kind and polite. They always smile at me,” he said.

German TV stations N-TV and RTL have apologized after being accused of distorting facts in covering the Lhasa riot, admitting they “used a picture in a wrong context.”

(Xinhua)