Dalai Lama responds to Tibet turmoil

The Dalai Lama has said he will stand down if violence in Tibet spirals out of control.

The Tibetan government-in-exile claims a further 19 people have been killed in clashes between Chinese authorities and Tibetans, bringing the death toll to 99; but Tibet's China-appointed governor said only 16 people had been killed.

On Friday, monk-led anti-China protests in Lhasa, the biggest in almost two decades, turned violent, with shops set alight and residents attacked.

China has accused the Dalai Lama of organising the riots in a bid to sabotage the Beijing Olympic Games.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said: "There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique."

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism who fled into exile in India in 1959, has denied Chinese accusations, and said he wants autonomy for Tibet within China but not outright independence.

Addressing a news conference at his base of Dharamsala in northern India, he said: "If things become out of control then my only option is to completely resign."

The Tibet government announced a deadline of midnight Monday for people involved in the demonstration to surrender to police or face harsher punishment if caught.

Authorities have said 100 people have handed themselves in and some protestors

have returned money they stole.

Meanwhile, 30 Tibetan protesters have been arrested after staging a demonstration near Lhasa on Monday evening held in defiance of a region-wide security clampdown, according to an exiled Tibetan rights group.

A dozen Buddhist monks from the Dinka Monastery in Duilong Deqing County, near Lhasa, held the protest on Monday evening and were joined by local lay residents, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.

The group said local security officers failed to contain the protest, and within minutes large numbers of police and anti-riot troops arrived to break up the demonstration.

The reports are unconfirmed.

The show of defiance came as Chinese authorities continued a massive security sweep to enforce control in Tibet and surrounding provinces with large ethnic Tibetan areas.

In London, an exhibition of China's Terracotta Warriors has been targeted by protesters, who hung pro-Tibetan slogans around statues' necks.

Visitors at the British Museum applauded as 50-year-old Martin Wyness and 47-year-old Mark Trepte put placards on the warriors, saying "Stop killing Tibetans" and "Boycott the Chinese Olympics".

Neither of the two 2,200-year-old statues was damaged in the incident, but police attended the scene.

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