Taking the hard line

The Chinese governor of Tibet is promising harshness for protesters who don't turn themselves in by today. "This was organized, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique and it was created under the collusion of Tibet independence separatist forces both inside and outside China," Champa Phuntsok said, without giving any details. Phuntsok described a scene of chaos throughout Lhasa on Friday with "people engaged in reckless beating, smashing, looting and burning." Shops, schools, hospitals and banks were targeted and bystanders were beaten and set on fire, he said. Among the 16 dead, he said, three people jumped out of building to avoid arrest while 13 were "innocent civilians."

Rico laughs silently, as would Buddha... "Jumped out of building to avoid arrest"? Let us remember the derivation of defenestration, the most famous of which is still Masaryk: "On 10 March 1948 the Czechoslovakian minister of foreign affairs Jan Masaryk was found dead, dressed in his pajamas, in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry below his bathroom window. The initial 'investigation' stated that he committed suicide by jumping out of the window, although it is now commonly believed that he was murdered by the ascendant Communists."