The Dalai Lama has denied any involvement in the unrest and has long insisted that he is seeking greater autonomy for Tibetan parts of western China, not an independent Tibet.  Thubten Samphel, a spokesman for the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government in exile, said the Dalai Lama’s envoys were still awaiting word on when and where a dialogue might take place.  “We are in touch with them through all the means of communications available in the modern world,” he said. “We hope the meeting takes place as soon as possible.”  It is not entirely clear what may be accomplished at such a meeting. Until talks broke off last summer, the two sides had met half a dozen times since 2002 with little progress. Discussions have largely avoided the subject of enhanced Tibetan autonomy, focusing instead on the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet, which he fled in 1959 during a failed uprising against Chinese rule.  If the sentences issued Tuesday by a provincial court in Lhasa are any guide, the government has no intention of softening its position on Tibet or on those who had a hand in rioting that has deeply shaken Beijing.  According to the account provided by Xinhua, the official government news agency, the trials took place Tuesday at the Intermediate People’s Court in Lhasa and drew 200 spectators. One of the men given a life term was Soi’nam Cering, 20, a driver for a local real estate company who was accused of burning cars and throwing stones at fire engines and police stations.  “He was convicted of arson and disrupting public services,” the court said in a news release.  Another man who received a life sentence, a monk named Basang, was blamed for leading a rampage by 10 people who attacked the police and destroyed shops and a local government office. The other members of the group, including five monks, were sentenced to 15 or 20 years.  The violence was directed at Han Chinese, who make up China’s largest ethnic group. Beijing has long encouraged Han Chinese to resettle in the Tibet Autonomous Region, in a policy Tibetans deeply resent.  According to the Chinese government, the violence that began in Lhasa in March destroyed 7 schools, 5 hospitals and 120 homes. Tibetan exile groups say more than 200 people, most of them Tibetans, were killed in the crackdowns that followed in western China. They also reject the government’s contention that fewer than 100 people are awaiting trial, saying many more are in custody.  Urgen Tenzin, the executive director of the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said he had learned from sources within China that 5,000 people had been detained in recent weeks. “There is no way to get a fair trial in China,” he said, speaking from Dharamsala. “If they are doing this now with all the pressure from around the world, imagine how it will be after the Olympics.”  As the Olympic torch travels the world in advance of the Games in Beijing in August, it has drawn large protests in London, Paris and elsewhere that have fueled a nationalist backlash in China against the West, including a boycott campaign scheduled to begin Thursday against the French supermarket chain Carrefour.  On Sunday, as the torch was paraded through Seoul, thousands of Chinese students clashed with a smaller group of South Korean demonstrators and North Korean defectors, leaving several people injured. Captured on video and widely circulated on the Internet, the confrontation has infuriated South Korean officials. In her news conference on Tuesday, Ms. Jiang, the Chinese government spokeswoman, defended the Chinese students, saying they were simply upholding the Olympic spirit. “As to the disruptions and sabotage by the separatist forces, some students upholding justice came out to safeguard the dignity of the torch,” she said. “I believe that’s natural.”  Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: China Sends 30 to Prison in Tibet Riots. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The sentences are the first punishments meted out to those accused of taking part in last month’s riots.