China lays out conspiracy claims against Dalai Lama

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China accused Tibetan groups on Tuesday of planning suicide attacks following last month's riots and protests but did not answer key questions about its evidence for such allegations.

A spokesman told a news conference in Beijing that police had seized guns, bullets and explosives in some Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and repeated the accusation that the Dalai Lama was linked to Tibetan groups that had organised the recent unrest.

An aide to the Dalai Lama immediately denied what he called "baseless" allegations, and the U.S. State Department said the Dalai Lama was a man of peace who wanted only to talk to China.

At the same time, China's anti-riot force was issued a mobilisation order to ensure a trouble-free Beijing Olympic Games in the wake of the anti-Chinese unrest across Tibetan areas.

The Dalai Lama's representatives in India, where he has lived in exile since 1959, have denied Beijing's charges of his complicity in deadly riots that swept Tibet's regional capital on March 14 and urged Beijing to allow an international probe.

But China's Ministry of Public Security said it had arrested "key members" of an underground network in Lhasa working in concert with overseas pro-Tibet independence groups to spark a "Tibet People's Uprising Movement".

"We now have sufficient evidence to prove that the Lhasa incident is part of the Tibetan People's Uprising Movement organised by the Dalai clique. Its purpose is to create crisis in China by staging coordinated sabotage activities," ministry spokesman Wu Heping told the news conference.

"To our knowledge, the next plan of the Tibet independence forces is to organise suicide squads to launch violent attacks."