By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, March 17: The Chinese authorities are forcing the family of the latest Tibetan self-immolator in Tibet to account his death as a household accident.
According to freetibet.org, the family members of Kalsang Wangdu, 18 year old monk of Retsokha Aryaling Monastery, are being pressurized by the Chinese officials to say that ‘Kalsang Wangdu died in a house fire.’ Moreover, local Tibetans were prohibited from visiting the family to pay their last respects, and threatened with fine or arrest.
This was the first case of self-immolation this year in Tibet, which happened on the same day as Tsering Dorjee, 16 year old Tibetan boy in exile, who self-immolated on February 29 near Dehradun.
Kalsang Wangdu set himself ablaze around 4 p.m. local time near his monastery in Nyagrong, a town in Eastern Tibet, which is currently under so-called Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China’s Sichuan Province. While on flame, he had called for complete independence for Tibet.
Kalsang, who succumbed to his burns on the way to the hospital, was born to Sotra and Urgyen Dolma. With Kalsang’s death, the number of Tibetans resorting to self immolation as a form of protest went up to 145 since early 2009.
In self-immolation cases, the authorities suppress the local Tibetan communities in order to avoid further protest and chaos. More so, they cremate the remains to skip proper funeral rituals.
