The bloody commotion in Lhasa masterminded by the Dalai clique was aimed to reinforce its compressive stress on undermining the upcoming Beijing Olympics, said a veteran Tibetan official on Wednesday.

Ragdi, former vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, made the remark at a meeting of the Counseling Committee on Development of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

"Ample facts have proved that the Dalai clique premeditated the riot, aimed to disturb the social stability at such a sensitive time. The riot was maliciously incited into a bloody violence in purpose to put pressure on the Chinese government," said Ragdi.

Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Government, updated the death toll of civilians from the unrest in Lhasa on March 14 to 13 at a press conference on Monday, up from the previous official figure of 10. "The Lhasa riot has proved once again that the Dalai clique supported by some western forces hostile to China has never hesitated in committing secessionist activities," said Ragdi. "By reporting the violent crime they committed in Lhasa, we expose their conspiracy to secede Tibet from its motherland and undermine the peaceful environment for the country's host of the upcoming Olympics," he said.

"It's outrageous that the irresponsible news coverage of some Western media even failed to discover facts of the riot," Ragdi told a meeting of the Counseling Committee on Development of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

"Without knowing even the basic facts about the crime made by rioters," Ragdi said, "some Western media posed as hypocrites to clamorously advise the Chinese government not suppress peaceful demonstration and respect human rights."

"No government in the world would sit idly by as such a severe riot occurs, no government would do nothing to prevent further harmful activities, no government would allow the lawless to make terrors and destabilize social security," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 19, 2008)