It is not just another routine day for Buddhists. It is instead another very sad day with news that another Tibetan monk has set his body on fire in protest of oppressive Chinese rule. Buddhists in Syracuse are joining in shock and prayers as deeper concerns than ever arise that the emotional pain being felt by the Buddhists in Tibet has been growing more intense daily. Phayul.com has reported "Breaking: Tibet continues to burn – Another teenage Tibetan self immolates."
Today, another teenage Tibetan monk has set his body on fire in protest of Chinese government policies in dealing with Tibet. This Tibetan has been identified as 19 year old Losang Gyatso, a monk at the Kirti monastery in the besieged region of Ngaba, eastern Tibet. A news release from the exile base of Kirti monastery in Dharamshala, India said “At about 2.30 pm on February 13th, Kirti monk Losang Gyatso, age 19, of the Badzritsang house in Naktsangma of Cha township, set himself on fire at the top of the main street of Ngaba town."
It has been said by eyewitnesses that Gyatso was shouting slogans of protest against the Chinese governmen when he set himself on fire. Special Chinese police forces arrived at the scene and extinguished the fire. Some eyewitnesses have said the Chinese security personnel were beating Losang Gyatso as they took him away to an unknown location. At this time there is not yet any news on his condition. Losang Gyatso is the eldest of his four siblings and has been described as “one of the best and brightest students in his class".
A British journalist with the Guardian newspaper who has been able to sneak into the Ngaba region according to Phayul has commented "There are police maybe every 30 or 40 metres and, in some cases, 30 or 40 police sitting together in riot police uniform with shields, with batons and something I'd never seen anywhere else before - some of those batons had spikes coming out of them. It looked totally medieval."
This is all shaking up Buddhists and their friends worldwide as mankind must begin to ask some very serious questions about what is really going wrong in Tibet. With so many lives at stake it is time for the world to cease taking all of this complacently and begin searching harder than ever for manners to help to peacefully put out the flames of discontent which are burning stronger than ever in the hearts of Tibetans.
