Protests and self-immolations

Chabcha 2011

5 self-immolations in one day, 10 self-immolations in a week, 82 Tibetans self-immolated since February 2009, …

The headlines in the papers are getting more gruesome by the week. They are also getting smaller and smaller. It makes me wonder what ‘impressive’ statistics are needed to get us interested again.
In November, so far we are almost at one self-immolation a day, if it goes on like this, there will be 100 self-immolations before the end of the year. That will be news-worthy, I am sure. But after that?

That is why I was glad to see some other news coming out of Tibet this week. There have been demonstrations by students in Chabcha (Qinghai) asking for equal rights for ethnic minorities and the freedom to study and use the Tibetan language. It seems the protest was sparkled by a publication belittling the Tibetan language and condemning self-immolators. Around 1000 (mainly) students marched through the streets. Security forces, injuring about 20 students, forcefully dispersed them.  The area has been closed down for the press and all foreigners and communication has been cut. This always happens when there is unrest, so it will be very hard to find out about the situation in Chabcha now and to verify any news.

There have been many protests around the language issue, the first one I clearly remember is from around 2009. In 2010 there were protests in several towns in Qinghai (Tongren/Rebkong, Xiahe/Labrang, Machu, Aba/Ngaba) when it was announced that the bilingual education system would be changed to Mandarin only (except for the Tibetan language classes). When students were only allowed to own books with an official stamp on the front page that raised another wave of protests. All these protests were suppressed quickly and forcefully.

Also other demonstrations, sometimes successful, have taken place: against mines, hydro-electric dams, the building of a new airport (Xiahe) and the resulting loss of land and re-location of people. The official education programs at the monasteries are a permanent source of tension between the monasteries and the authorities. Corruption is also in Tibet a hot topic that people get angry about and sometimes raise their voices over.

It seems to me that the wave of self-immolations really started after the heavy crack down on the protests in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and now the suppressed anger is finding an outlet in the self-immolations. Many of the places where demonstrations took place in the last couple of years now see most of the self-immolations.

Tibet is a complex society that has gone and is going through a lot of changes and is rapidly developing into a modern society. These changes create tensions and sometimes resistance in the Tibetan society. So far the heavy response of the various authorities against any openly shown discontent, has not been calming down the situation.

Instead of sending the riot police to these students, what about sending a representative of the government to listen to them and talk with them? It has happened before, even in Tibet, and it might prevent further escalation of protests and violence into eventually self-immolations. Also the Chinese authorities should be happy with the demonstration, with demonstrators they can still communicate, once someone has taken the decision to self-immolate nothing can be done anymore.

(all photos: Chabcha, Qinghai 2011)

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Tibet Travel log 8, ´Things that happened´

April 2012, military with fire extinguisher tied to their back patrolling the Barkhor square in Lhasa

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Self-immolations are a subject that can not be discussed in Tibet. The word can’t be mentioned, so conversations go: ´you can not go there, you know, things happened´. Self-immolations can also be referred to as ´bad things´, ´sad things´, ´those things´, ´more things´. And even than, mostly hastily whispered while looking over a shoulder.

It is a little confusing that the same wording is used for protests and demonstrations, so a certain knowledge is required to understand what is meant. I would never start the conversation around ´that´ subject, but if it came up I would ask something like: ´with many people?´, which would be a protest. If the answer would be ´no, the other thing´, this would most likely then be someone who set him- or herself on fire. As a result of all the police presence, the spreading of security camera’s and tense atmosphere, the conversation would then quickly move to something else. It surprised me how quickly the feeling of oppression and control started to impact my attitude and movements as well.

As the self-immolations can’t be talked about, people in stead discuss the consequences of the ´things that happened´. They are quite open in expressing their angriness or even outrage on the ban on bottled fuel sales, the sudden appearance of fire stations and fire trucks in towns, the spreading of fire extinguishers in and near monasteries, police and army carrying around fire extinguishers, blankets and stretchers and everything to do with the increased army presence like the army driving at high-speed through villages, army vehicles honking, army trucks parked close to monasteries and army trucks on pilgrimage routes. This even further increases the tension between Chinese and Tibetans.

There are police and army station on every street corner in the Tibetan area’s, outside or even inside the larger monasteries and in almost every village. Lhasa had 400 police stations in 2008 after the demonstrations and riots, now there are 1600. In Lhasa groups of soldiers patrol the streets around the main temple (the Yokhang) with fire extinguishers on their back. It is a rather silly sight and it did not prevent two young men self-immolating right in front of the temple at the end of May. Since then another 14 Tibetans self immolated within the Tibetan regions, the last 5 in Ngaba, bringing the total to 51 self-immolations since March 2011. Not including the yet unconfirmed 52^nd, a woman in Gansu province, just two days ago.

Many people are angry and there is no outlet for the anger, demonstration are forbidden and if they happen they are dispersed quickly with the demonstrators arrested. Several people expressed the feeling powerlessness and suffocation to me by gesturing a tightness around the chest and difficult breathing.

Some, and sadly it is mostly the younger people, see no other way to protest than to kill themselves in this gruesome way.

Reflect on Yushu

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It is only two days ago that two men self immolated in Dzatoe (Zaduo) in Yushu prefecture and it is only 2 hours since I saw the grueling videos of that on YouTube. I was writing a new Tibet travel log, but now I feel it is completely inappropriate to post that as these self immolations (in last couple of months almost 40 Tibetans self immolated) should overtake any other posts about Tibet in importance.

But since I do not know what to say  about the self immolations, apart from the blatantly obvious, I decided to just post some pictures of Yushu. But I will come back to the subject at some point.

I visited Yushu and Yushu prefecture in 2011 almost exactly one year after the devastating earth quake in 2010 which completely destroyed the city (please see one of my earlier blogs King Gesar).  This year I wanted to go back to see how the rebuilding was progressing but the area has been closed to foreigners by the authorities as there have been large demonstrations and self immolations earlier in the year as well.
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