A Tibetan monk who set himself on fire near an important Tibetan monastery in China’s western Sichuan province died early on Thursday morning, State media reported.
Phuntsog, a 24 year-old monk, attempted suicide near the Kirti Monastery in Aba (Ngaba in Tibetan), a small mountain county inhabited by Tibetans and located near Sichuan's border with Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
The International Campaign for Tibet said his self-immolation attempt sparked a protest on Wednesday by many monks at Kirti, which was also the site of unrest in March 2008, when many Tibetan-inhabited areas in western China saw protests.
The official Xinhua news agency said Phuntsog died more than 10 hours after setting himself on fire, at 4 pm on Wednesday evening. An Aba county government spokesman told Xinhua that a delay in getting him treatment was the cause of his death. According to Xinhua, “police rushed him to a nearby hospital”, but monks “hid him in the monastery until nearly 3 am.” He reportedly died at 3.44 am.
Phuntsog’s was the second self-immolation attempt in Kirti in two years. In 2009, another monk set himself on fire, but survived, according to reports.
In recent weeks, the Chinese government has tightened security in Lhasa and other surrounding areas, in the lead-up to the third anniversary of the March 14 riots, which left at least 22 people dead.
The Chinese government blamed the Dalai Lama and his followers for instigating the violence, saying it was aimed at splitting China. Many Tibetans say the ethnic unrest was the result of increasing migration of China’s majority ethnic Han Chinese to the region, which, they say, has eroded their culture.
Many Tibetan scholars, and some government officials, have recently called for more balanced development in Tibet, amid rising income disparities and fears over the future of Tibetan culture.
“If there is no culture, there will be no development,” said Na Ceng, a Tibetan adviser to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a political advisory body, in an interview with The Hindu last week, on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislative body.
The NPC, for the first time, passed a law on the preservation of cultural heritage, which Mr. Ceng hoped would play a crucial role in helping protect Tibetan culture. In the interview, Mr. Ceng acknowledged that Tibet was facing a huge challenge “in transferring Tibetan Buddhism to the next generation,” and suggested that the government would do more to address Tibetans’ concerns over language policies and livelihood issues.
