BEIJING — Two men set fire to themselves Sunday outside the holiest temple of Tibetan Buddhism in the center of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and one died, according to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency. The act was apparently in protest of Chinese rule over Tibet, and it signaled that the wave of self-immolations that had occurred in eastern Tibet had spread to the capital.
The self-immolations took place outside the Jokhang Temple, during the holy month known as Saga Dawa, when followers of Tibetan Buddhism celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. The self-immolations were the most significant act of protest to take place in Lhasa since the uprising in 2008, when security forces clamped down on rioters and protesters and kept Lhasa in a state of permanent lockdown afterward, particularly in the central market area known as the Barkhor. The Jokhang is a pilgrimage destination that lies at the area’s heart.
The fact that the self-immolations took place in Lhasa, and under such tight security, underscores the widening discontent over Chinese rule, a phenomenon apparent since 2008, and the depth of frustration among many Tibetans. At least 36 people in Tibetan regions of China have set themselves on fire since March 2011, when a monk named Phuntsog from Kirti Monastery self-immolated in the town of Ngaba, in a Tibetan area of Sichuan Province.
Xinhua identified the self-immolators in Lhasa as Dargye, from Aba County, the Chinese name for Ngaba, and Tobgye Tseten, from Xiahe County, or Labrang in Tibetan, the seat of the famous Labrang Monastery and also a locus of protests against Chinese rule. Both counties are in the region of eastern Tibet that is traditionally known as Amdo, and that forms the borderland where the ethnic Tibetan and ethnic Han worlds have overlapped. The Han rule China, and many Tibetans resent their policies in Tibet and their migrations into Tibetan regions for work and business opportunities.
As a result of the self-immolations, Tobgye Tseten died, while Dargye had serious injuries but was in stable condition and able to talk, Xinhua reported. The act took place at 2:16 p.m. outside the Jokhang.
“They were a continuation of the self-immolations in other Tibetan areas, and these acts were all aimed at separating Tibet from China,” said Hao Peng, secretary of the Communist Party’s political and legal affairs committee in the Tibet Autonomous Region, which includes Lhasa and central Tibet, according to Xinhua.
Harriet Beaumont, a spokeswoman for Free Tibet, an advocacy group, identified the man who died as Dorje Tseten, 19, from Bhora in Labrang County. She said contacts had told Free Tibet that the two men rented a hotel room at 1 p.m. Sunday in the Jokhang area and set out from the hotel at 2:15 to commit self-immolation. They shouted three times outside the Jokhang, but it was not immediately clear what they had yelled, Ms. Beaumont said. She added that security officers had arbitrarily detained Tibetans afterward, especially those from Ngaba County.
A man who answered the telephone at the Yarlung Tsangpo Hotel in Lhasa said security in the city had been tightened. The man, who gave his name as Mr. Liu, said it was unclear whether the additional security forces were regular police or units of the People’s Armed Police, a paramilitary force usually used to quell riots and maintain security in the restive ethnic regions of western China.
Robert J. Barnett, a scholar of modern Tibet at Columbia University, said a Tibetan in Lhasa had told him the city was now in a “boiling situation” following the self-immolations.
“We’re now seeing self-immolations that seem to be political expressions that are in sympathy with the core incidents that happened earlier,” Mr. Barnett said. “The Chinese officials are really worried about protests that are trans-local, driven by an idea, a political goal.”
By contrast, he said, the self-immolations by Phuntsog and others that had taken place in Ngaba were largely in reaction to severe security clampdowns that had taken place at Kirti Monastery following the 2008 uprising.
Ngaba has been the epicenter of the self-immolations, but Tibetans have now set themselves on fire all across the vast Tibetan plateau. Most have been members of the clergy. Before the self-immolations in Lhasa, there had been one act of self-immolation in the Tibet Autonomous Region. That was by a layman in the eastern area known as Chamdo.
The Jokhang has been a focal point of protests in Lhasa since at least the 1980s. The rioting in Lhasa in March 2008 began in the surrounding Barkhor market area. After security forces clamped down, Chinese officials brought a group of foreign journalists to visit Lhasa, only to have 30 monks inside the Jokhang start yelling “Tibet is not free!” in front of the journalists and defend the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader vilified by Chinese leaders.
The self-immolations in Lhasa were first reported by Radio Free Asia and Voice of America, which have contact with Tibetans in the western regions. Voice of America reported that the two men worked at a restaurant in Lhasa called Nyima Ling. Radio Free Asia said the two men were monks who were taken away in security vehicles within 15 minutes of setting themselves on fire.
In March, President Hu Jintao, who once ordered crackdowns on protests as the party chief in central Tibet, told the Tibet delegation to the National People’s Congress in Beijing that they must exert “continuous effort in sustaining social harmony and stability.” Mr. Hu’s talk has been widely cited and reprinted in official news media, including in the Tibetan-language media, and has set the tone for the state of security in Tibet since the spring. Official news reports say Chen Quanguo, the current party chief of Tibet, repeated Mr. Hu’s words in public meetings and said officials will “persist in the thought that stability overrides all.”
Source Credit: The New York Times
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