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Israel’s beleaguered prime minister, Ehud Olmert, threw his country and the Middle East into political turmoil last night when he announced he was resigning after months of mounting pressure over corruption allegations.
Olmert said he would step down in September after his Kadima party has chosen a new leader. The main candidates are Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, a pragmatic centrist, and Shaul Mofaz, transport minister but a hawk on national security issues, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the ongoing, though faltering, negotiations with the Palestinians.
Last night’s announcement came as a surprise but hardly a shock, given the accumulating weight of comment that he could not go on in the face of a slew of police and judicial inquiries.
“I will step aside properly in an honourable and responsible way, and afterwards I will prove my innocence,” Olmert told reporters from a podium outside his Jerusalem office. “I want to make it clear – I am proud to be a citizen of a country where the prime minister can be investigated like a regular citizen. It is the duty of the police to investigate, and the duty of the prosecution to instruct the police. The prime minister is not above the law.”
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, deeply pessimistic about peace since talks were relaunched at Annapolis in the US last November, are likely to be indifferent to his departure, though Olmert forged personal ties with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader. Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said: “It’s true that Olmert was enthusiastic about the peace process, and he spoke about this process with great attention but this process has not achieved any progress or breakthrough.”
A spokesman for Abbas said last night that the Palestinian president considered Olmert’s decision an “internal Israeli matter”, adding: “The Palestinian Authority deals with the prime minister of Israel, regardless if he is Olmert or somebody else.”
Opponents of Chinese rule in Tibet set fire to vehicles and shops on Friday as tear gas filled the streets and gunfire rang out in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, according to witnesses and human rights groups.
The protests — initiated by Buddhist monks — have been growing since Monday, the anniversary of the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising against Beijing rule. Tibet, an autonomous province, has long sought independence from China.
Roughly 1,000 people hurled rocks and concrete at security forces and military trucks pushing back riot police, a witness told CNN.
A Tibetan guide said armed police backed by armored vehicles were blocking major intersections in the city center and that an entire street in a busy shopping area outside the Jokhang temple “seemed to be on fire.” He said he had heard “cannon fire” and had heard reports of tear gas being used against protesters, The Associated Press reported.
In a statement, the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and the head of the Tibetan government in exile, said he was “deeply concerned” by the developing situation and said the protests were “a manifestation of the deep-rooted resentment of the Tibetan people” under Chinese rule.
“I appeal to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue. I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence,” the Dalai Lama said.
Protesters appeared to be targeting shops and vehicles owned by Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China.
A main market in the capital was set on fire, and some Tibetans were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to Kate Saunders, a spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet, which promotes human rights and democratic freedom in Tibet.
Friday’s violence started when police tried to stop a peaceful protest by monks at the Ramoche Temple, Tashi Choephel of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights told CNN from Dharamsala, India.
“The monks from the Ramoche Temple on the north side of Lhasa, they started a peaceful demonstration and they were blocked by the People’s Armed Police,” Choephel said.
Speaking to The Associated Press, a witness said hundreds of monks and civilians were involved in the protests, setting police cars and army vehicles alight. A Lhasa resident said police had imposed a curfew, closing off all roads into the city center.
A photo e-mailed to CNN from a source in Lhasa showed what appeared to be Chinese military vehicles containing security forces armed with riot shields at the Ramoche Temple. Video Watch reports of rioting in Tibet »
Saunders said violence broke out as bystanders joined the protest. “Apparently local people — lay people — got involved, and a police car was set on fire. This was followed by Tromsikhang Market being set on fire,” she said from London.
The market has many Chinese traders. Saunders said Tibetans are concerned about the influx of Chinese into the area. Some ethnic Tibetan shopkeepers hung scarves outside their stores in an effort to spare them from the protesters’ wrath, a witness reported.
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