The following is full text of an AFP/Washington Post “Eyewitness Account” from the Chinese city of Chengdu. It is taken from Singapore’s major newspaper Straits Times on March 18 under the headline “Tibetan youths on rampage, says tourist”.

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Enraged Tibetan youths embarked on a rampage of destruction against Chinese businesses in Lhasa that left parts of the once-fabled city in ruins, according to a tourist who witnessed the protests.

Mr Juan Carlos Alonso, 46, a Spaniard who had stayed on Beijing Street after arriving on Wednesday in the old quarter near some of Lhasa’s holiest shrines, recounted how he had seen first-hand Tibetan anger towards the Chinese boil over into violence.

“The purpose was to destroy everything on that main street, beginning with all the Chinese stores and restaurants,” he told AFP after arriving at Chengdu airport in neighbouring Sichuan province late on Sunday before catching a flight home.

“The restaurant owners and those Chinese on the street had to hide. They lowered the shutters, but the Tibetans kicked their way in, dragging people out, beating them with stones. There were knives, stones, machetes, butcher knifes – they were using everything that came to hand,” he said.

“Many Chinese were running for their lives.”

Mr Alonso estimated that he had seen at least 35 ethnic Chinese covered in blood, though he had not seen any dead.

Describing the masses of rioters as mainly Tibetan men in their late teens with only a few monks in the crowd, he said that in front of the Banakshol hotel where he had been staying, all the stores and restaurants had been ransacked.

“There are none left; they’ve all been burnt,” he said.

Mr Alonso said the tension between Tibetans and Chinese police had been palpable before the youths exploded with rage.

The unrest in Lhasa began on March 10, the 49th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising which led the Dalai Lama to flee into exile in India.

“I was not afraid,” said the tourist, who used to work in a German engineering firm.

“I knew they weren’t going after me. It would be one thing if they said ‘Get the Spaniard’, but the Tibetans were going after the Chinese.”

He added: “One girl – they grabbed her on the street and took her towards a door before kicking and stoning her. The girl was crying out for help.”

As vehicles, storefronts and restaurants burned late on Friday, the Chinese military rolled in with tanks and armoured vehicles. Mr Alonso said he knew it was time to escape.

“There was a time (Friday night) when shots were fired. Then on Saturday morning there were shots – several bursts of them.

“With every passing moment, there were more and more soldiers. We said, ‘We’re leaving’.”

As Mr Alonso and his friends cut through back streets swarming with heavily armed Chinese troops, the Spaniard said parts of the ancient city were already ruined.

Buildings and cars burned, while all manner of goods – rice, flour, meat, dresses, textiles, desks, chairs – littered the streets.

“At one point, one super aggressive Chinese military guy came up to us yelling,” Mr Alonso said.

“The guy grabbed his gun, shot ‘bang, bang, bang’ into the air. I thought to myself, ‘He’d better not drop his machine gun.’”

While the violent protests might have been long in the making due to what is seen as Chinese cultural invasion and economic domination, China’s majority Han Chinese do not share that perspective and have generally condemned the unrest.

Most Chinese see the Dalai Lama and his monks as obscurantist reactionaries trying to split the country and reverse the economic and social progress that China has brought to a backward and isolated land over the past 58 years.

In street conversions, Internet discussions and academic forums, most Chinese have readily embraced the government’s contention that the violence resulted from a plot mounted by the Dalai Lama from his exile headquarters in India.

“The riot in Lhasa was caused by the Dalai Lama,” said Professor Zhang Yun of the government-sponsored Chinese Centre for Tibetan Studies in Beijing.

“There is a lot of prejudice against the Chinese government. People believe all that stuff about the Dalai Lama, and that the Chinese government is all wrong. But actually, the reality is not like that.”

An Internet commentator who identified himself as Roomx said Buddhist monks had no more right than anybody else to torch shops and kill the Han Chinese businessmen inside.

“They are all Chinese citizens,” he added. “The monks who are connected to this conduct have to be arrested. Otherwise, it is not in conformity with rule by law.” (End text)