Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of restive Tibet used the passing of the Olympic torch relay through the capital Lhasa yesterday to defend their control and denounce the exiled Dalai Lama.
The torch procession ended under tight security below the towering Potala palace after having been run for just over two hours before a carefully-selected crowd, some three months after the region was convulsed by anti-Chinese protests.
"Tibet's sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it," Tibet's hardline Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli said at a ceremony marking the end of the two-hour relay through strictly guarded streets.
"We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique," he added, in front of the Potala, traditional seat of the Dalai Lama, the most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
China accuses the exiled Dalai Lama of inciting protests and riots that erupted in Lhasa and then across wider Tibet in March, in a bid to undermine the Beijing Olympics, which open on August 8. The Dalai Lama denies the charges.
The Beijing Games torch has never been far from controversy, and never more so than in its run through the streets of this 3,650-metre high city. Lhasa was under lockdown with police and troops every few metres along the relay streets, closely watching the groups of residents chosen to cheer on the torch. Shops were shut.
At the start of the relay, groups of students - Tibetan and Han Chinese - waved Olympic banners, the Chinese national flag, and the hammer and sickle banner of the ruling Communist Party.
"We are convinced that the Beijing Olympic Games' torch relay in Lhasa will further inflame the patriotic spirit of the people," Lhasa's Communist Party boss Qin Yizhi said at the opening ceremony, adding it would also help "smash the scheming of the Dalai Lama clique".
The official Xinhua news agency said the torch passed through Lhasa "in a joyful and peaceful atmosphere". It next heads to the neighbouring province of Qinghai, home to many ethnic Tibetans.