A MAJOR Tibetan monastery has been closed after rioting sparked by Chinese efforts to remove all pictures of the exiled Dalai Lama.
Many monks and nuns were severely injured at Ganden Monastery, but failed to prevent the authorities from ordering school children on May 16th to dispose of all Dalai Lama pictures, the London based Tibet Information Network (TIN) said yesterday.
Students in Lhasa were told that the possession of Dalai Lama pictures and the wearing of knotted red religious cords, sung-du, were no longer allowed, TIN said.
Monks in Ganden Monastery, 40 kms east of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, attacked government administrators on May 6th and the 15th century building was closed on May 8th, according to the Lhasa Religious Bureau.
Both the Chinese authorities and foreign news networks have reported increasing violence in Tibet since a showdown between the Dalai Lama and Beijing last year over identifying the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
Beijing swiftly installed its choice for the Panchen Lama, the second highest authority in Tibetan Buddhism, and launched a vindictive campaign aimed at discrediting the Dalai Lama - who fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against the 1951 Chinese "liberation" of Tibet.
An official from the Lhasa Religious Bureau said that Lhasa was now calm and stable, but TIN said that monks at the Sera and Drepung monasteries closed their gates in protest at the order to remove pictures of the Dalai Lama, although the removal appeared to have gone ahead.
In a further indication of rising prison in Lhasa were told on May 14th they were not allowed to visit inmates, the group also said.
Meanwhile, China maintained a stubborn silence yesterday on the inauguration of President Lee Teng hui in Taiwan and his offer to fly to Beijing to bridge the bitter 46 year rift between the rival governments.
All official organisations in Beijing that deal with Taiwan refused to comment on the events across the Taiwan Strait.
The national evening news blanked Mr Lee's inauguration and his olive branch and concentrated instead on China's international ties with Namibia, Bulgaria, India and Britain.
Mr Lee, who is the first directly elected leader in Chinese history, offered in his inauguration speech to fly to Beijing in a bid to patch up months of high tension that were sparked when he visited the United States in June. He also dismissed the idea of declaring an independent Taiwanese state as "totally unnecessary and impossible".
Taiwan split from China in 1949 when nationalist troops fled there at the end of a bloody civil war.