CHINESE OFFICIALS at this week’s annual parliament meeting dismissed Tibetans who have set themselves on fire, in protest at China’s rule, as outcasts, criminals and mentally ill, manipulated by the exiled Dalai Lama.
The official Xinhua news agency acknowledged that a 20-year-old Tibetan woman died after setting herself on fire at the weekend but said it was probably a result of depression caused by a head injury.
The outspoken Tibetan writer and blogger Woeser said she thought the self-immolations flew in the face of the harmonious image of Tibet the government was trying to communicate.
“They always say Tibetans are having a happy life,” Woeser said in a telephone interview from her home, where she is under unofficial house arrest, “that the Tibetans were liberated and since then they have enjoyed a happy life given by the party.
“The reality is that many people are not happy, that Tibet is not really liberated and this is embarrassing for the central government. What they’ve told the world is all lies.”
Getting an exact fix on the number is difficult, but about 24 Tibetans have set themselves on fire in the last year, many in Aba in Sichuan province. They say their religion and culture are being suppressed and demand that the Dalai Lama be allowed return to China.
China insists it treats minority groups fairly and that it is investing heavily in the region to bring it into the modern era.
Wu Zegang, an ethnic Tibetan who is the government’s top administrator in Aba, accuses “outside elements” – a reference to the Dalai Lama – of orchestrating the immolations. The Tibetan leader says he does not encourage self-immolation.
Xinhua confirmed the immolation of another woman on Saturday in Gansu province, but said the student may have been pushed to suicide because of pressure at school and because of a head injury.
Xinhua said her school grades had started to slip, “which put a lot of pressure on her and made her lose her courage for life and study”.
Woeser said this was an attempt to sully the image of those involved in the self-immolations. “The government’s mouthpiece, Xinhua, is trying to stain their image,” she said.
Others who burned themselves recently include Rinchen, a mother of four, and an 18-year-old named as Dorje who died after setting himself ablaze on Monday near a government office in Jia township, in Aba.