New Delhi/Beijing, March 23 (Agencies): The Dalai Lama today firmly backed the Beijing Olympics despite the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan protesters that prompted demands for boycott of the Games.

“I have always supported that Olympic Games should take place in China,” he told reporters here, terming as “baseless” the communist giant’s charge that he was trying to “sabotage” the premier sporting event slated for August.

“They are the hosts. The Olympics should take place in Beijing,” the 72-year-old spiritual leader who heads the Tibetan government in exile and was here in connection with a religious workshop, said.

His comments came as the Chinese government continued its vitriolic attack on the monk accusing him of holding the Games “hostage” to force it to yield on the issue of Tibetan independence, plotting “terror” in Tibet and colluding with Islamic Uygur separatists in Xinjiang in northwest China.

Unrest in Tibet began when Buddhist monks demonstrated in Lhasa on March 10 — the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against the Chinese rule — and on subsequent days. Chinese authorities said one policeman and 18 civilians were killed.

Anti-government protests then flared up in nearby provinces with large ethnic Tibetan populations, leading to violence in which several people were killed and many injured. The official Xinhua news agency today reported that 94 people had been injured in Tibetan areas in Gansu, almost all of them cops.

The Dalai Lama has criticised the violence and said he wants talks with China to negotiate autonomy, but not independence, for Tibet.

The government, however, intensified its propaganda against the Tibetan spiritual leader, accusing him of causing the trouble in Tibet and trying to ruin the Beijing Olympic Games.

“We must ... win the final victory in all respects against the secessionist forces to help ensure a successful Olympic Games with a stable social situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region,” Xinhua quoted Tibet’s Governor Qiangba Puncog as saying.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, said today that the Dalai Lama — winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize — had never abandoned violence after fleeing China in 1959 following a failed revolt against Beijing.

“The so-called ‘peaceful non-violence’ of the Dalai clique is an outright lie from start to end,” the paper said. “... The Dalai Lama is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence.”

Beijing’s efforts to isolate the Dalai Lama, however, could become a sticking point with Taiwan’s President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, who today said the exiled leader would be welcome on the disputed island and that an Olympic boycott was possible.

China calls Taiwan a breakaway province that must accept reunification.

“The Dalai Lama, if he wants to visit Taiwan, he’d be more than welcome,” Ma told the media in Taipei today, a day after his landslide election win.

“If the situation in Tibet worsens, we would consider the possibility of not sending athletes to the Games,” said Ma — who wants closer economic ties and political dialogue with China.

“Tibet is an inseparable part of China. In the history of the world, there has never been a country or a government that has ever recognised Tibetan independence,” said Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, a vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body to parliament.

The 86-year-old Jigme, represented Tibet in 1951, signing the surrender agreement with Beijing a year after Chinese troops took control of Tibet.

China’s denunciations of the Dalai Lama have begun to draw some domestic critics.

On Saturday, a group of 29 Chinese dissidents urged Beijing to end the bitter propaganda, allow UN investigators into Tibet, and open direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama.