Blessings from Beijing by Greg C. Bruno

Author:Greg C. Bruno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of New England

NINE A FIERY SPLIT

It was about a year after my visit with the Dalai Lama that Tibetans inside Tibet began immolating themselves to prove a point. By March 2011, issues like China’s restrictions on religion and bans on the use of the Tibetan language in schools had pushed some Tibetans to search for new ways to express their outrage. To many, fire had an intoxicating appeal.

I was living in Abu Dhabi working as a journalist at the time, and editors at my newspaper in the United Arab Emirates—a short three-hour flight from the Indian capital—saw similarities between Tibetans’ self-immolations and the wave of burnings that were rippling across the Middle East during the Arab Spring. They wondered whether Tibet, and therefore China, were headed toward its own “spring” of destabilization. I wondered whether this type of protest, for a marginalized minority with slowing growth rates, was self-defeating.1 In February 2012, I returned to McLeod Ganj to look into both.

One of the freshest immolation deaths that winter was by a young man and former monk named Losang Jamyang. On January 14, 2012, in the Eastern Tibetan city of Ngaba, Losang locked himself into a dingy bathroom near a public square, pulled a bottle of kerosene from his cloak, and took a drink. He splashed the remaining fuel on his clothing, and when he emerged from the stall seconds later, tentacles of flame trailed his wiry, twenty-two-year-old frame. Cameras clicked surreptitiously as he ran through the Ngaba town square, shouting prayers for the Dalai Lama’s long life and safe return to Tibet. Less than a minute after lighting himself, Losang dropped to his knees, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. A man-eating blanket of flame engulfed him.

Tibetan witnesses described what happened next: Chinese public security police surrounded the charred figure, but instead of extinguishers or blankets they brought batons. When onlookers moved in to collect Losang’s lifeless body, authorities blocked their path. Demonstrations turned violent, and dozens of Ngaba residents were injured in the ensuing scuffle. Two were reportedly shot.2

Weeks later a video surfaced online of Losang’s final moments.3 The composition is shaky, the sound poor, and the authenticity of the footage uploaded to YouTube impossible to verify (it was obtained and posted by Free Tibet, a UK-based advocacy group, three months after it was reportedly filmed inside Tibet). Advocates say it depicts Losang’s final moments, recorded from the upper floors of a building in the Ngaba main square. As the camera rolls, food vendors and shopkeepers mill about in the mid-morning chill. In the foreground, people out for a Saturday stroll amble into the center of the frame. One maroon-clad monk pushing a vegetable cart pauses to crane his neck as a crowd gathers near a busy intersection. A young lady in a pink jacket pushes forward for a better view.

By the time Losang appears on screen it’s as a human fireball. Five seconds into the video, a police car rolls up. At eight seconds, the monk pushing the vegetable cart stops walking.

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