More than 600 people involved in violent protests in Tibet have surrendered to the authorities, China said yesterday as Potala Palace, the seat of the Dalai Lama, reopened for the first time since riots swept Lhasa, the capital, 12 days ago.

State media said that 280 people had surrendered in Lhasa and 381 in a county of southwestern Sichuan province, where police opened fire to try to disperse crowds demanding the return of the Dalai Lama and independence for the Himalayan region.

Since the March 14 riots in Lhasa and after protests that spread to other Tibetan communities, about 660 people have turned themselves in to the authorities. Those who do not surrender have been told they will face punishment and a “most wanted” list of 53 people has been publicised on television, with offers of rewards to those who turn anyone in.

A Communist Party chief said that the Dalai Lama and associates were to blame for the violence. He said: “Most of those who have come forward are ordinary people and monks who were deceived or coerced.”

Details emerged yesterday of protests in the city of Xigaze, Tibet’s second city. About a dozen monks from Tashilunpo monastery, the religious seat of the Panchen Lama, managed to make their way briefly on to a city street, residents said. Paramilitary police quickly turned them back.

Monks wanting to leave the monastery must now sign a book giving a reason for going out.

It is unusual for lamas from Tasilunpo to join in anti-Chinese unrest based in Lhasa because of the history of rivalry between the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s temporal leader, and the Panchen Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Chinese crackdown on the protests has left at least 135 people dead, 1,000 injured and 400 arrested, Karma Chophel, the head of the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, told reporters at the European Parliament in Brussels yesterday.

“We believe the number of people dying, injured, arrested, could be ten times more than the confirmed reports,” he added. China has reported 20 deaths, 19 of them in Lhasa.

Tibetans were sacrificing their lives “to voice their dissent against Chinese rule,” Mr Chophel said. “They are doing this at the cost of their lives, thinking that the European countries who have political power, economic power . . . will speak up.”

Mr Chophel, who will address the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva tomorrow, urged Europe to make sure its “moral power is not compromised in order to have good trade relations with China”.

Tibetan sources said that monks at monasteries around Lhasa were now required to pledge their allegiance to China and to denounce the Dalai Lama. Many, especially younger lamas, had fled to avoid the re-education and possible punishment.

The education campaigns, which have increased under Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party leader in Tibet, are blamed by some for sowing resentment of Beijing within the monasteries.

Foreign reporters who were taken on a government visit to Lhasa yesterday were urged not to go into the streets at night for their own safety, even though they saw plenty of police patrols.

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