[The Wall Street Journal / 14 February 2012]
By BRIAN SPEGELE
BEIJING—A former Buddhist monk who set himself on fire became at least the 100th person inside China to self-immolate since 2009 to protest tight Chinese rule over Tibetan regions, according to activist groups and the Tibetan government-in-exile.
The grim milestone comes as Beijing has recently taken tough steps to crack down on the self-immolations, arresting dozens and increasingly blaming the unrest on the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader, and on foreign media. Tibetans and activist groups say the self-immolations at least partly stem from stepped-up controls by Chinese authorities over day-to-day Tibetan life and culture.
Activists groups said Lobsang Namgyal, a 37-year-old former monk, died after setting fire to himself in front of the Zoigê County Public Security Bureau on Feb. 3. The county—known in Tibetan as Dzorge—is located in Sichuan province’s remote Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous prefecture, which has been the site of some of the region’s most severe recent unrest. Free Tibet said in a news release it had taken the group 10 days to confirm the immolation because many Tibetans fear reprisals from authorities for sharing information.
A statement on Thursday by Lobsang Sangay, the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile’s, reiterated that the group opposes the self-immolations but described them as extreme acts of civil disobedience against Chinese rule.
“Instead of owning the onus of tragedy in Tibet—a self-evident responsibility of its over 60 years of continuous iron-grip rule in Tibet—China relentlessly and irresponsibly accuses His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan leadership of inciting these self-immolations,” it said.
Phone calls to authorities in Aba prefecture and Zoigê county rang unanswered on Thursday, and the groups’ claims couldn’t be independently verified. First-hand accounts out of the region have become increasingly difficult to obtain as foreign journalists have been blocked from entering by Chinese security forces and residents fear repercussions for disseminating information on the self-immolations.
Of the 100 Tibetans in China who have self-immolated, nearly 80 have died, according to Free Tibet. Some self-immolations have occurred outside China, including one in Nepal on Wednesday, in which a protester died after setting himself on fire, according to the Associated Press.
Confirmation of at least the 100th immolation inside China underscores how Chinese authorities and Tibet’s government in exile have made little progress toward tamping the immolations. The mounting toll keeps international focus on China’s administration of Tibet, which Beijing says has long been part of China.
For Tibetan authorities in exile, it complicated their efforts to have greater influence over events inside Chinese Tibetan regions while dealing with calls by many younger, overseas Tibetans to take a harder line with Beijing.
China’s propaganda apparatus in recent weeks has made detailed accusations against foreign activist groups, which Beijing says are recruiting and encouraging those willing to immolate. In particular, lengthy reports by China’s official Xinhua news agency and state broadcaster China Central Television allege that Voice of America, the U.S. government-backed broadcaster, served to encourage the self-immolations by frequently reporting on them. Tibetan-language programming beamed in from overseas is popular among the Tibetans in China who can access it. The CCTV report accused Voice of America of using a secret code to transmit messages from Dalai Lama supporters into China’s Tibetan regions.
Voice of America Director David Ensor has denied the accusation. “We report them. We certainly don’t encourage them,” Mr. Ensor said, according to a video posted on the broadcaster’s website.
The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and set up the Tibetan exiled government in Dharamsala, India, though he is no longer the government’s top political leader.
Tibetans inside China have said in interviews that the self-immolations are at least partly stemming from tightening police controls in recent years over institutions at the heart of Tibetan culture, in particular Buddhist monasteries. The aftermath of deadly riots in 2008 in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan-populated areas brought heightened police presence and brought new controls on daily life, Tibetans have said.
Recent weeks have brought what appears to be a tightening of controls over the region. Late last month, eight Tibetans were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for what state media described as inciting others to self-immolate. Among them, the courts sentenced Lorang Konchok of Aba prefecture to death with a two-year reprieve—which is sometimes commuted to life in prison—for allegedly convincing eight people to immolate themselves.
Meanwhile in the province of Qinghai, where immolations also occurred through 2012, police were quoted by official media last week as saying 70 people had been detained or formally arrested in connection with self-immolations there.