纽约时报 New York time: Putting Faces on 5 Victims of Tibetan Riots

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/world/asia/28victims.html?scp=5&sq=tibet&st=nyt

Putting Faces on 5 Victims of Tibetan Riots

By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: March 28, 2008
SHANGHAI — In life, the five young women who burned to death in a Chinese clothing store during rioting in Tibet on March 14 were not the types who would make headlines.

One received permission from her family to follow her fiancé to Lhasa; another sent home most of her wages to support 13 relatives; several sent text messages in the minutes before they died warning loved ones to stay indoors as violence erupted.

In death, though, the women are being treated as martyrs. The Chinese government has been using their deaths to support its version of what happened on “3/14,” when Tibet saw its worst day of violence in 20 years. In that version, broadcast by state-controlled media, ethnic Tibetans took to Lhasa’s streets, unprovoked, burning and looting shops that were owned by Han Chinese.

This week, Meng Jianzhu, the head of the ministry of public security, used his visit to the burned-out store to drive home the government’s message: that the rioting was instigated by supporters of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader who denies encouraging violence.

“The government will lead people of all ethnicities to smash the Dalai clique’s intentional and secret effort to separate the motherland and undermine Tibet’s harmony and stability,” he said after bowing before the victims’ portraits and laying a wreath.

But the women’s story, like that of the violence that erupted in Tibet and neighboring regions, is more complex than the government suggests.

Four of the women were Han Chinese. The fifth was a 21-year-old ethnic Tibetan named Cirenzhuoga, who supported her relatives. The government, which has spoken often of innocent Chinese victims, mentioned only in passing that she was Tibetan. Her family is as angry as the others at the protesters.

And the riots that claimed their lives did not happen in a vacuum. Some Tibetans who have been able to communicate with the outside world say that in the days before March 14, they heard that monks protesting China’s hold on Tibet had been arrested, maybe even killed. Many Tibetans also say the crackdown that followed the riots has left more than 140 dead and perhaps as many as 1,000 ethnic Tibetans jailed.

Western news media have not been able to verify either version of events because reporters have been banned from traveling on their own to the sites of violence.

But telephone interviews with the families of four of the fire victims offer a more nuanced picture of the women.

They worked at Yishion, a well-known Chinese store that sells casual wear in Lhasa’s tourist area, and thought little about the tensions in Tibet, family members said. They were paid little, but earned more than they could have in most jobs in the countryside.

“Xinxin was a happy, simple girl,” said He Xiaohuan, the brother of He Xinxin, 20, one of the dead. “She never thought about any social or political issues.”

Chen Jia, who was 19, was pretty and outgoing, her family said. Her father was a soldier based in Lhasa in the 1980s who stayed on to work as a truck driver. She grew up with her grandparents in Sichuan Province before moving to Lhasa in 2003. Her first job was as a shop assistant at Yishion.

Liu Yan, who became engaged last year, was 22. She had worked in a clock factory in Fujian Province, in southern China. But after her father died in 2003, her mother found a matchmaker in their village, and she was introduced to Wang Yong, a soldier in Lhasa.

“He wants to be a military officer,” Ms. Liu’s mother, Deng Zhixiu, said Wednesday. “Last August, Wang Yong came to Zhangzhou asking me whether he can take Liu Yan to Lhasa.”

Cirenzhuoga, the ethnic Tibetan, was described as a hard worker who had many friends who were Han Chinese.

“My sister was very frugal,” says Cirenzhuoga’s older brother, Danmuzhen, who lives on the Tibetan plain with his family. “She always bought the cheapest clothes for herself and saved money for the family.”

The family of the fifth victim, Yang Dongmei, 24, was too upset to talk about her or her death.

On March 14, the women were at work when Tibetans rampaged through Lhasa’s old quarter, and tried to get word to their relatives about what was happening.

Cirenzhuoga text-messaged an aunt in Lhasa at 3:30 p.m. about the turmoil: “Don’t go outside. We are hiding in the store.”

Ms. Liu also messaged her prospective mother-in-law at 3:30: “Mom, don’t go outside. Be careful. Some are killing people.”

At 3:42 p.m., Ms. Chen sent her father a warning message, adding, “I am safe at the store.”

There were no more messages.

“We called her twice after receiving her text, but she didn’t answer,” said Ms. Chen’s father. “Her mother was scared to tears, but we couldn’t go outside.”

The families were forced to stay indoors for several days, after thousands of troops were sent to Lhasa to quell the violence.

Cirenzhuoga’s brother, Danmuzhen, said, “We called her for four days. Even though it was power off, we still believed she would pick up the phone somehow, telling us she was safe.”

Ms. Liu’s mother, Ms. Deng, was in Fujian Province, and knew of the violence. But on March 17, she said, she received a call from Wang Yong’s mother, and learned that her daughter was dead: “I almost sank to the ground. I couldn’t believe that.”

The girls’ families said they were traumatized. Wang Yong, the soldier in Lhasa, was denied leave to grieve and see his fiancée’s body, his mother said. Government officials visited each family, promising justice and compensation. Now, they are waiting — and seething. “How can those Tibetans be so cruel, with no humanity at all,” Ms. Deng said.

Danmuzhen said his parents were too distraught to eat: “I hope the government arrests all of them, gives them the heaviest punishment, sentence them to death, pay for my sister. The rioters are so brutal. We are all Tibetans. We are the same.”

Chen Yang contributed research.