Lipang Village(Nepal-China border): China has deployed security personnel inside neighbouring Nepal to keep an eye out for protests by pro-Tibetan groups, Nepali officials have said.
Plain-clothes Chinese officers could be seen yesterday on the Nepali side of the border with Tibet, and even blocked an AFP correspondent and photographer from working on Nepali soil near the main border crossing with Chinese-controlled Tibet. The cross-border security measures come after unrest in Tibet and a major clampdown in Lhasa, the Tibetan Capital.
"Because of the situation in Lhasa, there are a lot more plain-clothes Chinese armed police on the Nepal side," explained a senior Nepali military official who asked not to be named.
"In India, there are Tibetan exiles starting marches to Tibet, and the Chinese are scared the same thing could happen here," the military official told AFP from the border crossing near Lipang village, 70 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu. Another Nepali border official confirmed the presence of Chinese security officials inside Nepal.
"Before, there were very few Chinese security on our side, but since the protest in Lhasa, there has been at least six Chinese security officials on the Nepali side of the border post all the time. Sometimes, there are as many as 12," said the Nepali border official, who also asked not to be named.
"We are a very small country. China is very powerful so we must do what the Chinese tell us," said the Nepali official, while refusing to say if Chinese security officials were allowed to detain people inside Nepal.
