BEIJING, MARCH 29 : China offered to pay compensation to the families of the civilians it says died in violence in the Tibetan capital this month, as Beijing kept up an intense propaganda campaign in the wake of the unrest.

Pressure grew from abroad for China to respect human rights in its response to continuing pockets of unrest over the past two weeks in Tibet and neighbouring areas, with US President George W Bush calling on Chinese leaders to talk to representatives of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The rash of anti-Chinese protests, and China’s response, have become a focus of global concern months before the Olympics. Beijing hopes the games that start in August will be a chance to showcase progress in the world’s fourth biggest economy. By the government’s count, 18 civilians were killed during anti-Chinese violence in Lhasa on March 14, when demonstrators hurled rocks at police and burned and looted stores and homes.

Their families would each receive 200,000 yuan ($28,530), a notice from Tibet’s regional government said. Anyone injured in the chaos that engulfed in Lhasa after days of Buddhist monk-led demonstrations was entitled to free medical care, the state-run Xinhua news agency quoted it as saying.

“Measures are to be taken to help people repair their homes and shops damaged in the unrest or to build new ones,” it said.

The Tibet government-in-exile, established when the Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive uprising in 1959, has estimated there have been 140 deaths in the violence.

Meanwhile, a select group of foreign diplomats escorted by China to riot-torn Lhasa on Saturday complained of being restrained from talking with locals as the US and EU ratcheted pressure on Beijing to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama and respect the rights of Tibetan minorities.

“The delegation was not permitted to move about independently in Lhasa and was unable to hold unsupervised conversations with local residents,” the US embassy said here after the hurriedly-organised two-day trip that included envoys from 15 countries.

No Indian diplomat was in the entourage.

In the tightly scheduled trip two weeks after Lhasa convulsed in the most vicious anti-government protests in two decades, the diplomats attended government meetings, toured the riot-scarred areas and two hospitals and held discussions with individuals.