Lhasa's tightly controlled relay
Done. The Olympic torch relay has come and gone from Lhasa - the entire event took just two hours.
I'm with a group of journalists invited in by the Chinese government to cover the relay. Tibet has been sealed off to foreigners since the protests here in March - but the government has made an exception for the torch relay.
Here's how our day went...
Early in the morning we were driven in convoy from our hotel to the Norbulinka Palace - the starting point for the relay. We drove along empty streets past perhaps half a dozen security checkpoints.
Ordinary people had been told to stay at home (you could only come out and cheer if you'd been given a special pass).
The relay came here just three months after the dramatic protests in this city. Clearly, the government didn't want to risk losing control for a second time in a single year.
We were all escorted to the Norbulinka Palace to wait for the opening ceremony to begin. Students had been drafted in as cheerleaders. Some were Tibetan - but we overheard many chatting amongst themselves in Chinese.
Just after 9am the torch ceremony got under way. I have covered plenty of these in the last week and they follow a set pattern - a speech, a moment of silence for the victims of last month's earthquake in Sichuan, the torch is handed to the first runner, he heads off down a red carpet, the students cheer.
After the torch left our sight, we had to wait for a little bit - we weren't given the option of following the torch as it went through Lhasa. A line of soldiers stopped us from wandering about in the middle of the (entirely empty) streets - several of them put their hands in front of our cameras to stop us from filming.
Our next and final stop was the Potala Palace, the breathtaking building that dominates Lhasa - the ancient home of the Dalai Lama. We drove past more empty streets, shuttered shops, and endless numbers of soldiers (I gave up trying to count them).
Once we got to the square opposite the Potala, there was a bit of time to spare. Teams of carefully chosen cheerleaders - each with a special pass - were sitting down on the ground. A little late, Tibet's senior officials entered the square and headed to a specially built podium, walking slowly and acknowledging the polite applause of other officials.
A bit before 11am, the final runner entered the square carrying the torch. The crowd stayed quiet until a speaker asked everyone to cheer. They did so - but the cheers were not overwhelming (by comparison, the cheering at the Hong Kong torch relay in May was almost deafening).
An official gave a speech. Then, the Olympic flame was carefully taken away. That was it. At around 11am it was all over.
We were driven straight back to our hotel.
I’m 
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Is this article came from a journalist?
It supposed to be writen by a pupil. With nothing important.
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James, you made mistake again.
"Students had been drafted in as cheerleaders. Some were Tibetan - but we overheard many chatting amongst themselves in Chinese"
Tibetans have been Chinese from 13th century, just like Indian or African living in the UK and have British passports are British.
Don't always try to divide us please!!!
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The tight control was very understandable, to prevent terrorists and voilence, some small number of Tibetans have been fooled by Daila and his background bosses in the West, and try to grap every single chance to cause chaos.
In my opinion, China has been too soft to those people in the last 20 years, I hope China can tough the law and punlish those people more severly.
The West will never succeed to divide our country, although it will never stop trying to dividing China.
Tibet will always be part of China.
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And I guess we missed the point in the process!
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Dalai said he did nto want to disrupt the torch relay in China, this is lying, he wanted to, but he could not, so say that to fool more people who believe he is peaceful person.
Shame on Dalai Lama!
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Even though I have been long aware what kind of country I was born into and is living in is, reading these reports still upset me. They remind me the boundary of my life, remind me what are waiting for me if I dare to challenge that boundary and even give a little try to push that limitation, and also remind me why I have to post my comments here via a proxy to to make my IP not easy to be traced.
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Although, this report hardly describes anything regarding the torch traveling from Norbulinka to Potala Palace, but some other reports did describe a bit of the route, especially on TV.
The route the torch took to reach Potala Palace seemed to be the same route which the Dalai Lamas used to take when they moved from Potala to Norbulinka in Summer and back to Potala in Winter.
In deed, it is a special event in the history of Lhasa to have Olympic torch travelled on this route.
The torch may have caused mixed feeling among Tibetan individuals, as it seemed when it passed through in other parts of the world.
But Olympic torch is Olympic torch and its sacredness and purity does not recede due to the fact that the host is China.
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"Our next and final stop was the Potala Palace, the breathtaking building that dominates Lhasa"
Do we still have any aborigines' "breathtaking building" of any kind in western colonized areas, like Australia, Americas ... ? I guess the Chinese government did not do "cultural genocide" very well. That's not very good, according to "human rights activists".
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I work for the Voice of Tibet radio, an indipendent radio station providing unbiased news and info in Tibetan and Chinese about Tibet related issues only, ans we have been facing systematic jamming attempts by China towards our SW radio transmissions. I would like people going to Tibetan and Chinese areas to bring a radio to monitor and confirm these violations are taking place every single day towards Voice of Tibet's every single transmission. Pls. highligh and inform others about the grave censorship violations by China, who have guaranteed for free access to unbiased news in their own constitution as well as at the UN. Maybe BBC could bring a radio and confirm my story..? See www.vot.org with schedule, but it is blocked in China and Tibet...
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I have an idea that you can use "tightly controlled Olympics" as a title to report Beijing Olympics. If one day in your report you tell your audiences that people in Beijing want to be independent I will be not surprised. Because you just want to make up a story that Chinese people hate the government and China is not a stable country. Sadly your report just make Chinese people to understand the importance of unity around the government. If you really see China as enemy,I would like to give you one suggestion that before you start to attack you need know your enemy first.
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I am remined of some world government meeting some years ago in that delightful lakesde town of Evain.
Trouble with rioting crowds were expected and the extent of the threat was, in the event, 'overstated'.
I arrived in Geneva one evening, took a taxi to the local French town of Annemasse. He drove the long way around explaining that the town had all been cut off (along with several others) becasue of the Evian event.
On arriving in the not-so-pretty but normally busy town of Annemasse I saw shuttered and boarded shops, empty streets...it had become a ghost town.
No one was told to do this but they did anyway, mindfull no doubt of the 'no-cover for riots or disturbance' clause in everyone's insurance papers.
Is the threat overstated in China? The fact remains that a threat exists and a single explosive device can and will hurt a lot of people and generate a lot of anger.
Its why we cant leave bags unattended right? Its why we have a CCTV on every corner right? (and why we have to pay for them) We have to practically undress to get on a plane right?
No Western goverent will tell its people to stay off the streets if it wants to stay in power.
Perhaps thats where the difference lays....The Chinese obey.
No one got hurt as the torch passed through China. Several did elsewhere despite our hi-tech security measures. We used our 'freedom' to abuse those that were rightly and legally upholding the torch.
The Chinese made the 'olympic statement'. Had the same method been employed in the US for example it would have been 'our expression of freedom'.
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LEARN TO RESPECT YOUR COACH!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Tibet is occupied by foreign invaders of the worst kind. No regard for human rights, cultural rights and environmental concerns.
They eat everything that moves, graze and clear precious forests in Tibet for timber in China causing huge errosion issues that will have dire effects with flooding further down the 3 gorges in China. Next time you see natural disasters in China, blame it on the communist leaders.
Tibet and Tibetans are not objects to be owned, we are our own people with a pround culture and language and history of our own that is distintly separate of Chinese. We are as different as western culture is to eastern. Its time China realizes this and do the honorable thing.
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Some times, I feel sympathized the tibetants. However I still love my country so much, believe everything is just on the way to peace and happy life.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Thank you James for your coverage on Tibet. I am a Tibetan, born and raised in Tibet, and went to Chinese school. So, I can understand your description of the parade display. I am sure the Chinese government wasted no time in preparing for this day, as its propadanda machinaries did in the past. These school kids must have been trained long time prior to the arrival of the torch in terms of to use which langauge and to say what. Certainly, they decide who should participate. For most Tibetans, it is heart-breaking to see 'China's glory' has to be celebrated in Tibet in such way and at such critical time for Tibet when dozens of their brothers and sisters have been killed by this very government... where is its credibility, humanity, decency? or Am I little navie to ask for these from this government?
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Dozens killed by the government? Provide evidence please. And make sure you know who killed who. There were plenty of foreign tourists in Lahsa when the violent riot happened. They were the eyewitness and they have video of the violent scenes where inocent Han and Hui bashed on the street and shops burned. Yet this will never makes its way to the mainstream western media because the west wants to portrait it as a peaceful protest crushed by brutal Chinese government. It is so unfair that so many have been fooled. And this so called free press continue to deliver biased news through its cranky right wing journalist.
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that was a very tight control relay; compare to many hours and many stops...
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