CHINA> Regional
Lhasa still bruised by deadly riots
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-13 17:24
Lost Lives

Zuo Xiaoyang has tears in her eyes when she remembers her elder brother Zuo Rencun, who died after one of his employees set his garment store in downtown Lhasa on fire. He was 45.

A Buddist monk runs past burning vehicles after clashes in the Tibetan capital in March 2008. Altogether 18 civilians and a police officer were killed and more than 600 were injured in the violence last year in Lhasa. [Agencies]

Zuo Xiaoyang's store was also set on fire, but she managed to escape. Since then, she has been running the two businesses by herself.

"Business declined sharply after the riots," she says. "In the past two months the combined turnover of the stores was only 1,000 yuan a day."

Zuo says her merchandise, all economy items with thin margins, mainly targets low-income earners, including peasants and herders. "Buyers were very few. Even the annual shopping spree before the Tibetan New Year holiday didn't come this year."

Still terrified by last year's tragedy, Zuo mails her income home every month. "If things here go wrong again, I'll escape from Lhasa at all costs. My parents cannot stand any further blows."

The Yishion garment store on Beijing Road opens 12 hours a day, with loud pop songs and stylish young men and women greeting every potential customer with professional smiles.

The store, revamped and reopened last May, bears no sign of the burning, looting and deaths of five saleswomen, aged from 19 to 24. But smiles gave way to uneasy looks when "March 14" is mentioned. The date has come to signify the deadly riots.

"I'm new here and don't know anything," shop assistants say.

The only surviving employee from the date, 24-year-old Drolma, refuses to say anything. Her look makes any further question unwelcome.

Manager Tang Qingyan keeps a low profile ahead of the anniversary. He rarely visits the store and never answers Xinhua reporters' phone calls.

Of all the 1,216 vendors that sustained losses in the riots, Tang was the first to get a government loan of 1 million yuan, with which he revamped his store and planned to expand business. "Then people began to blame him for being selfish, saying he was making money at the cost of five lives," says another storekeeper on condition of anonymity. "I think he was wronged -- his own cousin was among the dead."

Altogether 18 civilians and a police officer were killed and more than 600 were injured in the violence. It also left seven schools, five hospitals and 120 homes torched and 908 shops looted.