Tibet on Fire: Self-Immolations Against Chinese Rule

By Tsering Woeser

Since the 2008 uprising, nearly one-hundred and fifty Tibetan monks have self-immolated in protest of the Chinese occupation of their lands. Most have died from their wounds. "If Tibetans saw even a sliver of an opportunity to hold demonstrations, then they would not resort to self-immolation," Woeser, the dissident Tibetan poet, has written in the New York Times. The Tibetans she references includes herself: a prominent voice of the Tibetan movement, and one of the few Tibetan authors to write in Chinese, Woeser has been placed under house arrest and lives under close surveillance. Tibet On Fire is her account of the oppression Tibetans face, and the ideals driving both the self-immolators and other Tibetans like herself. Angry and clear, Tibet On Fire is a clarion call for the world to take action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Verso UK
• Release date: Jan 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781784781545

Tsering Woeser

Tsering Woeser is a poet, essayist and blogger, and one of the Tibetan movement's most prominent voices. In 2011 she was awarded the Prince Claus Prize and the International Women of Courage Award by the US Department of State. She lives under close surveillance in Beijing.

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Prologue

February 27, 2009, was the third day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year. It was also the day that self-immolation came to Tibet. The authorities had just cancelled a Great Prayer Festival (Monlam) to commemorate the victims of the government crackdown in 2008. A monk by the name of Tapey stepped out of the Kirti Monastery and set his body alight on the streets of Ngawa, in the region known in Tibetan as Amdo, a place of great religious reverence and relevance, now designated as part of China’s Sichuan Province. Losar is usually a celebratory festival, but it was marked by the majority of Tibetans in 2009 in silent mourning—a mourning that continues to this day. On account of the unrelenting government suppression that followed in the wake of protests across Tibet the year before, a slogan has spread secretly among the people of Tibet: No Losar. Tibetans had decided not to celebrate Losar, as a means of resisting Chinese rule. And continuing this resistance, Tapey’s final act would become the beginning of a series of self-immolations that have spread across Tibet and beyond in recent years.

What happened in 2008? On March 14, just a few months before the Olympic Games in Beijing, riots broke out in Lhasa in response to the violent suppression by Chinese security forces of monks’ peaceful protests four days earlier.¹ The protests quickly spread throughout Tibet. Two days later, on March 16, authorities forced Kirti Monastery to fly the Chinese national flag above its main prayer hall, sparking a protest and demonstration by several thousand monks and ordinary people. The Kirti Monastery is one of the more than twenty monasteries of the Gelugpa sect of the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and one of the most important inside Tibetan lands. The military police responded violently, killing more than twenty people, including a pregnant woman, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, and a five-year-old child.² This bloody day has come to be known as the Ngawa Massacre.

Nearly a year later, this violence was unleashed again against the victims, as the authorities blocked an annual commemorative prayer festival in their honor. Before his final act, Tapey left a note declaring that this decision left him with no choice but to set his body alight in protest.³ First encountering the news of Tapey’s self-immolation online that evening in 2009, I was shocked—initially, by the sheer resoluteness of his act. But reading more closely, I was even more shocked by one particular detail of the events that day: the military police had opened fire on Tapey as he was burning. According to eyewitnesses, Tapey fell to the ground after a round of gunfire and was whisked away from the scene in a military vehicle. Images uploaded to the Internet⁴ clearly show Tapey lying on the ground surrounded by sixteen uniformed and plainclothes police officers, at least three of whom are armed with guns, while another nearby menacingly brandishes a baton.

Monks from Tapey’s monastery report that gunshot wounds to his right arm and legs left him crippled.⁵ The Chinese state, however, denies that any shots were ever fired. China Central Television (CCTV), the Party’s mouthpiece, has even broadcast images of Tapey receiving generous medical care in a hospital. But behind these images of benevolent care, the truth remains that, five years after his daring act of protest, Tapey has yet to return to his monastery, or even his hometown. No one knows what has become of him or where exactly he is. Amid all of this uncertainty, one ominous fact that we can confirm is that a fellow monk by the name of Sangko has been sentenced to six years in prison for photographing and sharing images of Tapey’s self-immolation online.⁶

Since that day in February 2009 when the flames of protest were first lit in Tibet, I have documented every act of self-immolation and shared this information on my blog. I have provided daily updates, just as I first chronicled the protest movement of 2008. This book has grown out of my blog, and in both places I have chosen not to provide the names of many of the people I have quoted, for fear of threatening their safety.

Back in February of 2009, as I read about Tapey’s final act, I never could have imagined that so many Tibetans would sacrifice their bodies and lives to these flames, in a series of protests unlike any that the world has ever seen. And I certainly never could have predicted that my blogging would barely be able to keep pace with the lives sacrificed for this cause. In Ngawa alone, thirty-nine more people have followed in Tapey’s footsteps.⁷ At least ten Tibetans have given themselves to the flames on the same street where Tapey self-immolated; it is now known among Tibetans as Heroes’ Lane. As of July 9, 2015, 146 Tibetans have chosen the path of self-immolation. This is unprecedented in human history.

The Chinese government has declared self-immolation a crime, thus making those who commit this act criminals. And the state has furthermore unveiled an ambitious campaign against self-immolation that extends throughout Tibetan areas of the country. One aspect of this campaign has been collective punishment of the Tibetan community, including the arrest and sentencing of relatives, friends, and neighbors of self-immolators. Another has been a resolute blockade on any and all information related to instances of self-immolation. In this environment, news of such incidents only manages to find its way out of Tibet days, weeks, or even months after the fact. And because of this information blockade, the real number of self-immolations may be considerably higher than is currently known. For example, in late March 2013 there were reports that a Tibetan woman, Dickyi Choezom, in Kyegudo,⁸ self-immolated in protest against land seizures in the area and the forcible demolition of her home.⁹ But because no further information has yet emerged on this case, I am unable to confirm it, and it is not included in the 146 cases.

The details recounted in this book, which aims to provide a general overview of the wave of self-immolations thus far, are based solely upon fully verified and publicly available information, much of which can be found on the Internet.¹⁰ Of the 146 Tibetans who self-immolated between February 27, 2009 and July 9, 2015, 141 did so within Tibet, while the remaining five were living in exile. According to the best information that we have, of these 146 protestors, 125 have died (including 122 within Tibet and three abroad). Most of these individuals are men, though some are women. Many were parents who left behind young children. The oldest was sixty-four, and the youngest was sixteen. Seven underage Tibetans have either self-immolated or attempted self-immolation; of these, two died, and two were detained without any further information. Three monks of high rank (tulkus, or reincarnated masters) have self-immolated, along with thirty-nine ordinary monks and eight nuns. But many were ordinary people: seventy-four were nomads or peasants. In general, the profiles of the self-immolators are diverse, including high school students, workers, vendors, a carpenter, a woodworker, a writer, a tangka painter, a taxi driver, a retired government cadre, a laundry owner, a park ranger, and three activists exiled abroad. All are Tibetan.

Most of the self-immolations have been concentrated in culturally and historically Tibetan regions, including Amdo, Ü-Tsang, Kham, Gyalrong, and Changtang, but the flames for Tibet have also

Reviews for Tibet on Fire

[le.vert.galant · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Since 2008 over 140 Tibetans have set themselves on fire as independent acts of non-violent protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the Chinese government's attempt to eradicate Tibetan culture and language. They are an unprecedented expression of the despair felt by individual Tibetans at the apartheid-like conditions under which they live: race-based denial of free movement, constant surveillance, harsh repression. For someone who does not live under such a system, it is hard to image the conditions that could drive a person to commit such a horrific act.

While few of the self-immolators give international attention as a reason for their action, the lack of official foreign support for a free Tibet is disheartening. In the words of Ai Weiwei, who designed the cover of this book: Tibet is the most serious test for today's China and for the international community's standards of human rights and justice. There is no dodging this test, and there is no getting around it. And thus far, everyone should be disgraced and ashamed at the results.

This short book looks at the motivations behind these protests and the recent events that have given rise to them. It is a political and journalistic work rather than a piece of literature; however, it is powerfully expressed with excellent documentation.