Two more Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest China’s crackdown on rising Tibetan dissent in China’s Sichuan province.

Sources with contacts in the region tell VOA the Tibetans, both in their 20s, set themselves ablaze near a monastery in the Sichuan provincial city known as Aba to Tibetans and Ngawa to ethnic Chinese. Both later died.

[...]Beijing has described the protests as barbaric and terrorist acts. But Western advocacy groups and many governments say the protests are a direct response to ethnic Chinese indifference to Tibetan religious practices and cultural norms.

China also accuses pro-Tibetan exile groups of inciting separatism, and routinely refers to the Dalai Lama as a “splittist” (separatist).

As the recurring acts of self-immolation fuel an ongoing debate, the Dalai Lama, who retired from political power last year, has been reluctant to offer his input, and some Tibetans are finding their faith in the spiritual leader shaken. BBC correspondent Sue Lloyd-Roberts spoke with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala about his reservations commenting on recent self-immolations:

“Now this is very, very sensitive political issue,” [the Dalai Lama] explains with due solemnity.

“If I get involved in that, then the retirement from political power is meaningless. Whatever I say the Chinese government they immediately manipulate.”

[...]“These [Chinese] leaders are very foolish, narrow minded, authoritarian sort of people,” he says.

[...]“They do not understand what is the real Tibetan feeling.”

He speaks with emphasis and anger. It is the most ungodlike behaviour I have ever witnessed from His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, in 20 years of interviewing him.

He is fed up and so are his followers. But for decades, it was considered almost blasphemy to criticise the Dalai Lama and his policies. Not any more.

“I question the current policy and position of His Holiness not to face reality and then forcing Tibetans to commit suicide,” says 60-year-old Lhasang Tsering, a former president of the influential Tibetan Youth Congress.

Karma Chophel, a former speaker of the Tibetan parliament in exile, takes the warning further.

“Non-violence has not worked. Violence could now be the only option,” he says.

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While there is no lack of media commentary, scholarly examination of the subject is sparse. In a special digital issue of their academic journal, the Society for Cultural Anthropology has compiled recent work by preeminent Tibet scholars and cultural figures, in an attempt to find “ways of making sense of self-immolation.” The issue consists of 21 essays divided into six themes, including work by Tibetan historian Tsering Shakya on the changing forms of protest in Tibet; activist-blogger Woeser on CCP propaganda; and High Peaks Pure Earth blogger and translator Dechen Pemba on online documentation in a censored digital environment. An essay on artistic responses to self-immolation features a piece by Crazy Crab, author of the Hexie Farm political cartoon and frequent contributor to CDT. From the introduction to the collection:

Tibet has no history of self-immolation as sacrifice, religious offering, or political protest. Yet, in the last year alone, roughly thirty-five Tibetans have set themselves on fire. The overwhelming majority of self-immolators are inside Tibet, in the People’s Republic of China, and almost exclusively in northwestern Sichuan and southeastern Qinghai provinces (corresponding to the Tibetan regions of northern Kham and southern Amdo). In this special issue of Cultural Anthropology, we collectively ask why. Why are so many Tibetans resorting to the singular act of setting the body on fire? What combination of cultural, historical, political, and/or religious reasons inspire these acts?

 [...]As we compiled this issue over the last two months, the frequency of the self-immolations increased. Updating the numbers, however, did not necessarily put us closer to comprehending the acts. How does one write about self-immolation—an act that is simultaneously politically charged, emotionally fraught, visually graphic, individually grounded, collectively felt—and what does one write? How do we intellectually make sense of these self-immolations, and how do we do so while writing in the moment, but writing from the outside?

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Over the past 25 years in Tibet, repression has grown. But so has resistance.

[...]The biggest recent surge of resistance on the Tibetan side has been a wave of 33 self-immolations by Tibetan protesters since late February 2009, with 31 of them occurring in the last year alone.

The Chinese government has tried to discredit Tibetans who burn themselves to death by calling them criminals, terrorists, mentally ill, or losers in life.

This propaganda is likely to succeed with Chinese who don’t have access to the complete story.

But it is unlikely to work with most Tibetans, since many of those who have engaged in the extreme act of self-immolation have been monks and nuns who are respected in their communities.

As the trend of protest by self-immolation has continued (the most recent case by an exiled Tibetan on Monday), it has sparked a debate surrounding the efficacy of the practice, its root causes and its legitimacy in Buddhist tradition, in which Tibetan blogger/activist Woeser, exiled Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay, the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government have all weighed in. Today The Economist said that if Tibetan protesters are hoping for foreign diplomatic intervention, the self-immolations have been largely ineffective:

China does not seem worried that the recent unrest in Tibet might derail its diplomacy. And it has good reason not to be too concerned. Four years ago China came under international pressure when a series of protests and riots swept across the Tibetan plateau. That outbreak coincided with Chinese preparations to stage the Olympic Games in August 2008, a period when international attention was unusually focused on China’s human-rights record. The unrest erupted before the global financial crisis made Western leaders more than usually eager to co-operate with China rather than confront it over internal issues such as Tibet.

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Tibetan scholars and exiles say the current resistance campaign is unlike anything seen before. The tactic — public, fiery suicides that do not harm bystanders or property — has profoundly moved ordinary Tibetans and bedeviled Chinese officials. Just as significant, they note, is that the protesters are mostly young — all but nine of them under 30.

Tsering Kyi was one of them. According to family members, she was a thoughtful student whose hard work earned her a place on the school’s honor roll. But in 2010, she joined classmates who took to the streets of this dusty county seat to protest the new Chinese-language textbooks and the decision to limit Tibetan to a single class. In the clampdown that followed, several teachers suspected of encouraging the protest were fired and the headmaster, a popular Tibetan writer, was sent to work on a dam project, according to local residents.

Tsering Kyi’s death has been widely publicized by Tibetan activist groups eager to draw attention to the self-immolations. The Chinese state news media, which has ignored most of the cases, reported that she was mentally unstable after hitting her head on a radiator. Her grades started to sag, the official Xinhua news agency said, “which put a lot of pressure on her and made her lose courage for life and study.”

In interviews, several Tibetan residents and relatives of Tsering Kyi’s contemptuously waved away such assertions. Instead, they were eager to discuss her devotion to her Tibetan heritage and the final moments of her life. When she emerged from the public toilets in flames, they said, the market’s Han Chinese vegetable sellers locked the front gate to prevent her from taking her protest to the street. No one, they claim, tried to douse the fire.

AP has more about the self-immolations:

“These are intelligent people who knew what they were doing,” said Tenzin Choekyi of the Tibetan Youth Congress, a prominent Dharmsala, India-based activist group. “What is the ultimate thing you can offer? It’s your life.”

In Tibet, the horrific has become normal.

More than two dozen Tibetans, many in their teens or 20s, have set themselves on fire since early 2011 in an unprecedented series of suicide-protests. In the moments before they are overwhelmed by pain or tackled by Chinese security, they cry out for the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet, for an end to China’s crackdowns or for their homeland’s independence.

There is little sign that the immolations could lead to a broad uprising. But they have embarassed Beijing and are testing Chinese policies across the Tibetan plateau. The protests also have taken place far from the Tibetan heartland, showing opposition to Beijing’s rule is geographically more widespread than ever.

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U.S. broadcaster Radio Free Asia said in an emailed statement that Sonam Thargyal, a 44-year-old farmer and father of four, fastened cotton padding to his body with iron wire and doused himself with kerosene before setting himself on fire Saturday in Tongren, a monastery town in western China’s Qinghai province. He also drank kerosene, the broadcaster said.

“The Tibetans who were at the scene attempted to put out the flames, but death was very fast because of the kerosene inside and outside the body,” RFA quoted Dorjee Wangchuk, a Tibetan exiled in Dharamsala, India, with close ties to the Tongren community, as saying.

Thargyal called out for an end to Chinese rule in Tibetan-populated areas, the return of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan language rights, RFA said.

As many as 7,000 Tibetans took part in Thargyal’s funeral and cremation ceremony, the broadcaster said.

An earlier report from the Financial Times (via CDT) had said that relations between Tibetans and Han authorities in Qinghai were more peaceful than those in Sichuan, where most of the self-immolations have been occurring. Dozens of Tibetans, both monks and lay people, have self-immolated in the past three years, with cases increasingly in frequency in recent months.

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Lobsang Tsultrim, a monk of restive Kirti monastery shouted anti-China slogans as he marched onto the streets while engulfed in flames, in a desperate protests against Beijing’s repressive policies on Tibet, says spokesperson of Kirti monastery in India.

Chinese security forces reportedly smothered out the flames while beating Tsultrim. The monk’s whereabouts and present conditions are not known. Sources say Tsultrim was alive at the time the security forces took him in a vehicle to an undisclosed location.

Tsultrim joined Kirti monastery at the age of eight and is the eldest among his four siblings, according to the same source.

Heavy Chinese security forces were reportedly deployed at the main gates to the Kirti monastery since Friday morning, further intensifying its already heavy military presence near the monastery.

Security had tightened in Aba and elsewhere in western China ahead of a number of Tibetan anniversaries this month, including commemorations of deadly anti-government riots in Lhasa in 2008 and the Dalai Lama’s flight from the region in 1959. And according to Human Rights Watch, the Chinese government has also introduced a system which ends a long-standing policy of allowing Tibetan monasteries to be overseen by monks and instead places every monastery in Tibet under the direct rule of permanently-stationed government officials:

“Although the Chinese government has placed many restrictions on the practice of religion in Tibet, these new regulations represent an entirely new level of intervention by the state,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “This measure, coupled with the increasing presence of government workers within monasteries, will surely exacerbate tensions in the region.”

According to official documents, the new policy, known as the “Complete Long-term Management Mechanism for Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries,” is described as, “critical for taking the initiative in the struggle against separatism,” and aims to “ensure that monks and nuns do not take part in activities of splitting up the motherland and disturbing social order.”

The order to post resident cadres within monasteries in the TAR was contained in an “important memorandum” on “mechanisms to build long-term stability in Tibet” issued by Politburo Standing Committee Member Jia Qinglin, Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu and other state leaders in late December 2011. That memorandum orders the TAR to “have cadres stationed in the main monasteries to further strengthen and innovate monastery management,” according to an official news report on December 20.

“This new decision is a major departure. It overturns the central guarantee of ‘autonomy’ that has guided policy on Tibet for decades,” said Richardson.

Tsultrim would be the 29th Tibetan to have self-immolated since February 2009, reports Radio Free Asia, which has more on the incident:

“He was pursued by Chinese policemen who beat him, knocked him down, and threw him into an open truck,” Tsering quoted one eyewitness as saying.

“He was seen being taken away but he kept pumping his fists in the air.”

…

The self-immolation came as more than 1,000 Tibetans protested in Gepasumdo (in Chinese, Tongde) county in Qinghai province on Friday calling for the release of about 50 monks who had been held for raising the Tibetan flag and demanding freedom a day earlier, according to sources.

“Over a thousand Tibetans converged at the county building and demanded that all the monks detained should be released,” a local Tibetan source told RFA.

A mother in Aba and a young student in Gansu province also set themselves alight less than two weeks ago in protest of China’s policies in Tibet, and the Associated Press reported on Wednesday that another self-immolation occurred when a monk named Jamynag Palden burned himself in the Qinghai monastery town of Tongren:

Palden walked out of Rongwo Monastery in the morning dressed in a gasoline-soaked robe, then used a lighter to burn himself, Xinhua said, citing a county government spokesman.

Free Tibet said Palden went to a public square, prostrated three times beside Rongwo Monastery and shouted “Let His Holiness return! Freedom for Tibet and the Tibetan language!” before he set himself on fire.

Security forces put out the fire by covering Palden’s body with a sheet, the group said.

Palden was taken to a hospital, but was brought back to the monastery by monks who feared he would be arrested by Chinese authorities, Free Tibet said.

Advocacy group Free Tibet posted a disturbing image of Palden in a hospital bed following his self-immolation, as well as three videos, including one which claims to show Palden himself surrounded by a group of monks in prayer:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The second video shows hundreds of monks protesting in Tongren’s central square on Wednesday after the incident. The demonstration appears to be among the largest since the riots in 2008, according to The New York Times:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The third video, which is silent, claims to show students marching through a street in Rebkong:

Click here to view the embedded video.

See also previous CDT coverage of the Tibet protests and self-immolations in western China.

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Tibetans have no voice in China. The Dalai Lama, who has been in exile for 53 years; the Panchen Lama, who has been missing for 17 years; the 27 people who have set fire to themselves over the past three years, a group of people between the ages of 17 to 41, monks and nuns, farmers, herders, students, and the parents of children — the only existence they have in Chinese society is one in which their reputations have been sullied and the truth has been distorted.

How many members of Tibet’s elite have been disappeared by the party apparatus and now sit in some black jail somewhere?

And still the Han Chinese say nothing. Many keep silent because they accept the concept of grand unity, where all minorities need to be shoehorned into fitting under Chinese rule. Some keep silent because they mind their own business, a traditional principle of Confucianism that has devolved into selfishness. And some are silent because they are afraid. In Beijing recently, someone transmitted news of a Tibetan committing self-immolation on Sina’s microblog (China’s Twitter). The police took him to a police station in the middle of the night and warned him not to mention Tibet again.

Read more by and about Woeser, via CDT. Also see her blog, Invisible Tibet, and follow her on Twitter, @degewa.

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A famous story tells how, in a previous life, the Buddha took pity on a starving tigress, who might otherwise have had to eat her newborn cubs. He sacrificed himself instead. The tale is often recalled by Tibetans in exile in Dharamsala in northern India as they lament a seemingly endless cycle of self-immolations in their homeland. In the past year at least 26 Tibetans, mostly young Buddhist monks, have set fire to themselves. As they burned, usually to death, they shouted slogans against Chinese rule and for the return of the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader, who has been based in Dharamsala since 1959. The moral of the tiger parable is that, though Buddhism abhors even self-inflicted violence, it can be justified if the sacrifice is for the greater good. The agonising question, however, is whether these brave acts do anybody any good at all.

Tibetan blogger Woeser, under house arrest in Beijing since March 1, has posted an open letter to Tibetans on her blog (zh). In the letter, co-authored by the exiled Arjia Rinpoche, Woeser makes her opinion clear: its time for the 3-year long string of self-immolations to stop. Radio Free Asia reports:

“Expressed through these self-immolations is the will of Tibetans,” the letter said, referring to the 26 self-immolations since February 2009 in protest against Beijing’s rule in Tibetan-populated areas and calling for the return of Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Woeser, who has written critically of the Chinese government’s policies in Tibet, said that the self-immolations by mostly young Tibetans “make one feel grief-stricken,” and that ending the trend “deserves to be treated as a matter of utmost urgency.”

“Twenty-six cases make it clear what Tibetans have wanted to articulate,” said the joint letter by Woeser and a senior Tibetan religious figure, Arjia Rinpoche, now living in exile in the United States, and Tibet’s Amdo-based poet Gade Tsering.

“Yet, articulation of one’s will cannot be an ultimate goal. The will has to be put into practice, transforming into reality,” they said in the letter titled “Appeal to Tibetans To Cease Self-Immolation: Cherish Your Life in a Time of Oppression.”

The Guardian has more on the letter, and also a taste of what Beijing and the Dalai Lama have to say about the issue:

“Staying alive allows us to gather the strength as drops of water to form a great ocean,” it said. “It depends on thousands and more living Tibetans to pass on our nation’s spirit and blood!”

The letter also asks “monks, the elderly, intellectuals, officials, and the masses” to help prevent more immolations.

China blames supporters of the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama for encouraging the self-immolations.

The Dalai Lama has praised the courage of those who engage in self-immolation and has attributed the protests to what he calls China’s “cultural genocide” in Tibet. He also says he does not encourage the protests, noting that they could invite an even harsher crackdown.

Voice of America reports on how the situation in Tibet has been “downplayed” in press conferences surrounding the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress.

As a wave of self-immolations continues in Tibetan areas of China, Chinese authorities not only are tightening security, but also are stepping up efforts to discredit those who have set themselves on fire to protest China’s policies in the region.

[...]On Wednesday, Wu Zegang, an ethnic-Tibetan and head of Aba prefecture – where most of the recent self-immolations have taken place – blamed separatists for the unrest.

Wu said that most of the people who are carrying out acts of self-immolation shout out separatist slogans such as “Independence for Tibet” or aim to divide China.

He also said that many of those who have committed suicide have criminal records and are outcasts.

More on Beijing’s attempts to “downplay” the situation from the LA Times:

In an effort to instill Chinese values, authorities have in recent years stepped up what they call “patriotic education” in schools and monasteries, forcing Tibetans to renounce the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, and to study communist theory. Such efforts have backfired.

“There is an escalation of control and restrictions in daily life, and that burst out in frustration,” said Lobsang Jinpa, a 29-year-old former monk from Nyitso Monastery in Dawu, Sichuan province, which, like Gansu and Qinghai, has a large Tibetan population. He knew two people who died by self-immolation. He left China last year and now lives in Dharamsala, India.

The government has tried to downplay such motivations. China’s New China News Agency reported Wednesday that Tsering Kyi [a recently deceased self-immolator] had been suffering from fainting spells after hitting her head on a radiator while playing in a classroom. “The medical treatment held up her studies and her school scores began to decline, which put a lot of pressure on her and made her lose courage in life,” the agency reported.

Also see a recent High Peaks Pure Earth translation of a Woeser blogpost from last month, in which she profiles a monk named Tapey, possibly the first Tibetan to self-immolate in protest.

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Dominated by Kirti Monastery, a sprawling complex that houses several hundred Buddhist monks, Aba has now been swamped by Chinese paramilitary police.

Ranks of men in anti-riot gear crouch behind the steel barricades that line the town’s main street, while camouflaged troops use a field less than 200 yards from the monastery’s golden stupa to practice martial arts drills.

Though no violent protests have been reported in Aba, unrest in nearby Ganzi has left at least two people dead.

While the Sky reporter, Holly Williams, was able to sneak past police checkpoints, she reports that it wasn’t all smooth sailing:

After leaving Aba the Sky News crew was detained by police who forcibly searched bags and deleted files from an audio recording device.

They temporarily confiscated a computer and camera, threatened to revoke Chinese visas and then followed the car for 300 kilometres (187 miles).

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The student set herself ablaze Saturday at a vegetable market in Gansu province’s Maqu county and died at the scene, the report said, without giving the girl’s name or age.

Chinese market vendors threw stones at the girl’s burning body, the broadcaster said, citing an unidentified Tibetan exile with connections to the community in Maqu. It didn’t say why they attacked her.

The girl was described as a middle school student, but it was unclear whether she was in regular middle school, where students range from 13 to 16 years old, or senior middle school, where students can be up to 19. Calls to local Maqu schools rang unanswered.

On Sunday, a woman identified only as Rinchen set herself on fire in front of a police station by the main gate to the Kirti Monastery in Aba prefecture in Sichuan province. Radio Free Asia said she was a mother of three young children. A report Sunday by the London-based Free Tibet group said Rinchen had four children.

Read more about recent self-immolations in Tibetan regions, including a discussion of whether self-immolation can be considered a Buddhist act.

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