成人论坛

Inside Tibet's capital

• James Reynolds
• 20 Jun 08, 05:39 PM GMT

Here come four words I didn't expect to write so soon: I am in Tibet.

It's late at night, and I'm sitting in a hotel room in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. If I jam my head out of the window and look to the right, I can just about see the Potala Palace in the distance - the ancient home of the Dalai Lama. (If I look straight ahead, I can see a well-lit advertisement for the China Construction Bank.)

A quick reminder of why getting into Tibet has been so hard: in mid-March, Tibetan monks and civilians in Lhasa led several days of (sometimes violent) protests against Chinese rule.

China sent huge numbers of security forces into Tibet to take back control - human rights activists say that many Tibetans were killed. As soon as the protests began, China sealed off Tibet.

Since then - with the exception of a brief government-led tour to Lhasa and a government-led trip to Mount Everest for the torch relay - foreign journalists have been unable to get in. China has insisted that the situation in Tibet is too unstable to allow in foreign reporters (and tourists).

But, on Saturday the Olympic torch relay comes to Lhasa for a one-day stop. The 成人论坛 applied for official permission to cover the event (as we did when we covered the relay in several other parts of China - including Hong Kong and Xinjiang). This week, the Chinese government said it had decided to grant permission to more than 20 media organisations to go and cover the relay in Tibet.

So this afternoon, at 3.20pm, we landed in Lhasa on Air China flight CA4112 - each of us carrying barrel-loads of TV cameras. We were met by local government officials and helped into a seven-vehicle convoy. We were driven into Lhasa with all indicator lights flashing.

It was hard to get anything more than a brief impression from this journey - but this is some of what I saw on the way in: rows of one-storey homes with prayer flags flying from the rooftops, watermelon farms, a police jeep parked outside a school, a group of men showing their papers to the police at a toll booth.

We got to our hotel. Inside the rooms, we found brochures about Lhasa ("Lhasa is thriving and marching towards a modern plateau city") and leaflets offering tips to help fight altitude sickness ("Avoid tobacco... Eat a high carbohydrate diet... Don't take shower on the first day").

We were then allowed out into the centre of Lhasa. Many of us headed straight towards the Potala Palace (surely one of the most breathtaking buildings in the world).

In front of the palace, there's a giant sign: "Every ethnic group calls for the people to be united to welcome the Olympic Games." (Our translation from the Chinese.)

We found small crowds wandering through the square opposite the palace. Some watched performers practising for the torch relay ceremonies. Others took pictures of themselves in front of cutouts of the Olympic mascots.

Then, further along the main avenue, we passed four military trucks. In two of them we saw - very clearly - several dozen soldiers wearing riot gear. A reminder that Lhasa is not a normal city.

At night, senior officials from the Tibetan government (which answers to the Communist Party in Beijing) gave us a press conference.

Palma Trily - the executive vice-chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous Region - told us that stability was returning to Lhasa "but we cannot say that public order has been fully restored".

I asked him whether or not he thought the Dalai Lama might one day return to this city.

"He has not brought any benefit to Tibet - either in the past or in the future... We believe the answer [as to whether he will return] is up to him and his own attitude."

The torch relay starts early in the morning. I'll be there.

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