Dalai Lama

"Landep News"

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama fasted and led prayers on Wednesday in honor of  the eight Tibetan monks and a nun who set themselves on fire in protest against the Chinese rule in Tibet. The service was held in Dharmsala, the Indian city where Dalai Lama lives in exile since 1959, when he had to flee Tibet, at the Tsuglakhang Temple, and lasted 90 minutes.
In the prayers Dalai Lama mentioned the eight monks and a nun who risked their lives since March, five of them even died, while the fate of the other four is not known, for the freedom of Tibetan religion and the autonomy of the province. They were in their late teens and twenties.
The ceremony was also attended by Tibetan political figures such as the newly elected prime minister of Tibet, Lobsang Sangay, who urged China to stop repression against the Tibetan people, and asked the United Nations to order an investigation into what happened in the Himalayan region.
The prime minister, who took full political responsibilities for the government in exile after Dalai Lama relinquished his political powers, spoke in Tibetan and said that China was implementing an official policy of cracking down on Tibetan institutions.
He urged the Chinese government to stop this policy and to solve the problems in Tibet by means of peace and cooperation.
Dalai Lama will observe a daylong fast in honor of those who died or were injured by self-immolations, which are considered in the Buddhist religion a form of protest.
It is the first time Dalai Lama decides to honor their acts since the unrest began in Tibet at the monasteries of Tibet proper and the neighboring province of Sichuan. Dalai Lama expressed on various occasion his condemnation of self-immolation as an act that goes against the sanctity of life.
People lit candles for the souls of those who are dead, saying that the candles and the prayers are also intended to alleviate the suffering of their brethren in Tibet.
The prayers were also attended by the leader of the Tibetan Buddhist school and by the exiled head of the Kirti monastery in Sichuan. Kirti is the monastery where most of the protests occurred.

Praying for the Dead

Memorial services have also been held in New Delhi, where people of many religious faiths gathered at the statue of the Indian symbol of independence Mahatma Gandhi. There people holding the flag of Tibet marched in the streets of the Indian capital demanding freedom for Tibet and the end of rule in that province.
Monks and nuns were carrying placards on which it was written: “Tibetans want freedom to use Tibetan language,” “Stop destroying the Tibetan culture” and “Stop the environmental destruction of Tibet.”
This memorial service comes one day after a nun set herself alight in the Aba county in Sichuan, where the Kirti monastery is. The woman died of injures, but before she died she demanded that the rule of the Chinese in Tibet be over.
The anger of the monks in the Kirti monastery is caused by the lack of communication between Beijing and their leader in exile Dalai Lama, namely the fact that the Chinese do not want to engage in serious negotiations with the spiritual leader in order to find a solution that would lead to stopping the erosion of their culture.
A monk interviewed by Agence France Press soon after the self-immolation on Tuesday said that the biggest problem is that the Tibetans long to see the Dalai Lama and that there are chances that they may never get their wish fulfilled.
The monk also said that many Tibetan monasteries opposed self-immolation and added that engaging in this kind of protest was not right on the part of the nine monks, but that they had had a different view on the practice.
He added that the actions against the government could bring further problems to the monastery, alluding to the fact that since the riots in 2008, the Tibetan monasteries have been systematically under governmental crackdown.
The Free Tibet organization reminds that the nun set herself ablaze one day after the security forces wounded two Tibetans in Sichuan. The United States renewed at the beginning of this week its call on the Chinese leaders that they protect and preserve the “unique religious culture” of the people in Tibet.
The Tibetan prime minister in exile said that his government did not encourage any self-immolation act inside Tibet or Sichuan, because he knew what the consequences of such acts were.
China and Dalai Lama were engaged over the years in nine rounds of negotiations on the theme of Tibetan autonomy, and observance of the cultural heritage. The last round was in January 2010.
None of these rounds had any serious outcome, leaving the Chinese leaders in the position of waiting for the Dalai Lama to die and the hopes of independence of the Tibetans to die with him.
They were cautious enough to make sure that the next Dalai Lama would not take rebirth without the benediction of the Chinese Communist party, which caused Dalai Lama to bring into discussion the idea of terminating the office of Dalai Lama so that the Chinese may not be able to manipulate the recognition and the election of the next spiritual leader of Tibet.

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