For the entire month of March and
until further notice, a visa to visit Tibet will not be granted to
foreign tourists, Zhang Qinli, Party regional secretary, announced on
the fringes of the National Peoples’ Congress being held in the capital.
The official reasons being given are care for tourists welfare,
given that the weather is currently “ice-cold” in Tibet, and the
difficulty of finding accommodation in hotels.
In March the Tibetan New
Year is celebrated and there are numerous religious activities that
attract thousands of Buddhists.
Zhang pointed out that out of 1000 the
hotel, only 165 are used to accommodateforeign travellers, and therefore
"our ability to welcome more tourists is limited".
State news agency Xinhua notes that in the month of
March the Himalayan region will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the
so-called "peaceful liberation" of Tibet, when the country was occupied
by the army of Mao Zedong in 1951.
Many suspect that the ban serves to isolate the region and
avoid the presence of foreign journalists especially at a time when
riots and demonstrations may occur, as in 2008, just months before the
Beijing Olympics.
On March 14 of that year, some peaceful demonstrations
by monks and Buddhists turned into riots that left 13 Han Chinese dead.
The military crackdown led to the deaths of about 200 Tibetans and the
arrest of thousands more.
At that time, Zhang - who has headed the party in Tibet for
five years - accused the Dalai Lama of being the instigator of the riots
and called him "a wolf in sheep's clothes" and a "devil with a human
face, but with the heart of the beast. "