“HANDBOOK FOR SELF-IMMOLATION”: THE DALAI LAMA CLIQUE HITS A DEAD END AND GOES CRAZY

　　Today, the Dalai Lama clique published a “Handbook for Self-Immolation” on the Internet, and openly incited Tibetans in China to “carry out self-immolation in a planned and step-by-step manner”. This “Handbook” coldly explained in detail how to plan and carry out the inhuman deed of self-immolation. It quickly acquired a prominence in the hullabaloo surrounding the Dalai Lama clique and drew widespread attention. It was published under the author’s own name, obviously for the sole reason of giving the “government-in-exile” an excuse for avoiding the censure of the world for openly inciting self-immolation.

　　This  “Handbook” was written by Lhamo Je, who was a “representative” to two pseudo-parliaments of the Dalai Lama clique, and currently has an important position in the Dalai Lama clique’s “education system”. The  “Handbook”  is divided into four sections. The first section is “Ideological Inducement”. It encourages prospective self-immolators to be “fearless、heroic、great and glorious” and exhorts “male and female heroes” to always be prepared to die a martyr. The second section is “Preparing for Self-Immolation”. It instructs those who have decided to immolate themselves to “pick a significant date” and “location for self-immolation” and “prepare written or recorded last words”, and “it is particularly important to arrange for a trusted friend to photograph or videotape the event”. The third section is “Self-Immolation Slogans”. It calls upon self-immolators to shout slogans like “Give Tibet its freedom”, “Let the Dalai Lama return to Tibet” and “Release political prisoners”. It also puts these slogans on fliers to expand their impact. The fourth section is “Other Peace Activities”, such as “getting schools and settlements to shout slogans”, “give speeches and petition the central authorities”. It says, “It is important to carry on activities in the political、 economic、religious and cultural arenas”.

　　No matter from what viewpoint you analyze it, this “Handbook” is a “strange document” of a kind rarely seen in the world. What is particularly strange is that it is tantamount to a “confession” by the Dalai Lama clique that it commits the crime of inciting self-immolation. Does the head of the puppet government want to provide the Chinese government with clear evidence that “the Dalai Lama clique is inciting self-immolation”? Isn’t it “welcoming” the Chinese government to send a delegation to Dharamsala to collect evidence? Now they themselves are presenting the evidence to the world. The reliability of this evidence is not limited to the fact that it comes from the hand of an important figure in the Dalai Lama clique, but is also reinforced by the fact that the actions it advocates have already occurred. In fact, nearly every self-immolation that has occurred has followed the pattern described in the “Handbook”. Whenever a self-immolation occurs, someone is there to videotape it, and less than an hour later the Dalai Lama clique can provide pictures and details about the self-immolator. There are always people at the site of the self-immolation chanting separatist slogans and mustering and inciting bystanders to obstruct the government’s rescue efforts. And the content of many of self-immolators “last words” closely follows the guidelines in the “Handbook”. In his explanation of his actions, Lorang Konchok, who has already plead guilty to committing murder, admits that he used his position and influence to entice his nephew to work with him to incite、aid、 abet and coerce others to immolate themselves. Before the incidents occurred, they recorded information about the self-immolators and their families and took photos, and after the incidents occurred, they quickly transmitted this information to the Dalai Lama clique via their cell phones. The purpose of the “Handbook” is to “standardize and systematize” self-immolation so that in the future there will be a steady flow of self-immolations as they were coming from a pipeline in order to achieve the Dalai Lama’s objective of making self-immolations “more effective”.

　　This “Handbook” also gives some Western forces a hard slap in the face. For many years these forces have had the goal of containing and dividing China, and they have held up the Dalai Lama as a paragon of “nonviolent”resistance. After self-immolations began happening, they completely ignored the facts and did all they could to hold the Dalai Lama blameless. Rather, they falsely claimed that the policies of the Chinese government were the cause of the self-immolations, and went so far as to express sympathy and “concern” for the criminals who were convicted in accordance with the law for their part in self-immolation incidents, which further encouraged people to immolate themselves. This “Handbook” openly admits that the Dalai Lama clique incites and plans crimes of self-immolation and provides political motivation for them, and that it will continue to manipulate people to commit self-immolation. It causes the Dalai Lama clique’s Western masters to completely lose face.

　　Why did the Dalai Lama clique make the “Handbook” public at this time? The direct reason is that the extremists among them have lost hope. According to a report in the Canadian “Sing Tao Daily”, the Dalai Lama instructed his underlings, “If we decided to use force to reach our objectives, we would need to have weapons and ammunition, but who will give them to us? Guns can be bought but where could we get the money to buy them? If we had the money and bought them, how could we get them into China? What country could use for transit? In the past the CIA helped us with airdrops, but that time is past, and they won’t do it again.”The Dalai Lama learned a lesson from his defeat: He could not achieve “Tibet independence” through overt armed violence. It would be better to take a “middle path”, hoodwink the world and achieve “Tibet independence” indirectly. However this political program has achieved nothing from the time it was adopted until now, and by adopting it the Dalai Lama clique themselves blocked their channels for talks with the central government. Today, the scheme of inciting self-immolation—“the highest form of nonviolent struggle”，which they took great pains to devise, is on the verge of complete failure. This has made extremists in the Dalai Lama clique so anxious that they couldn’t keep themselves from making the “Handbook” public in the hope that this evil will not be extinguished without bearing any “fruit”.

　　Another reason the “Handbook” was made public is because the self-immolation incidents never had the impact the Dalai Lama clique expected them to have. Even though Western forces supportive of the Dalai Lama clique continued to support it, they could take the great risk of potentially losing their political credibility and moral legitimacy by openly supporting covert violent terrorism, which incitement to self-immolation is. On February 3, the “New York Times” reported the head of the “government-in-exile” lamented “A single incidence of self-immolation set off the Arab Spring movement. Why doesn’t the international community give us the same level of support it gave the Arab Spring” ? The “http://www.dwnews.com” hit the nail on the head in an editorial pointing out “In fact the self-immolations of Tibetans have gotten very little international support. It’s hard to imagine how the international community would support this kind of inhuman affair. The Chinese government has not created the conditions to encourage Tibetans to immolate themselves, so it cannot be blamed. Western countries all clearly understand the background of this situation and in not blaming the Tibetan administrative central authorities they are greatly giving them ‘face’”. The Dalai Lama clique in using the “Handbook” to incite even greater numbers of self-immolation incidents is attempting to gain international sympathy by upping the stakes. This move should be sufficient to make the international community more clearly understand the cruelty and madness of the Dalai Lama clique and make some Western forces think twice when they support the Dalai Lama clique.

　　In making the “Handbook” public, the Dalai Lama clique thought it could politically blackmail the Chinese government. In this it was completely mistaken. In the past when the Dalai Lama clique engaged in armed resistance, its armed rebellion completely failed to achieve “Tibetan independence”. So how does it think it can achieve those goals today by deceiving a handful of pitiful people to commit suicide? In fact, through the efforts of governments at all levels in the localities where the incidents occurred, the tendency for such incidents to occur there has already been suppressed; the means by which the Dalai Lama clique has incited self-immolations has been clearly identified, and a number of criminals have already been brought to justice. The people of all ethnic groups living in the areas where these incidents occurred abhor the criminal actions of the Dalai Lama clique. This fully shows that in the struggle against the Dalai Lama clique, the people’s hearts are on the side of the Chinese government and the Chinese government has strength on its side. As long as the Chinese government doesn’t have any illusions about the Dalai Lama clique and doesn’t have any false hopes that certain forces suddenly become charitable, but rather always keeps control of the situation grounded on the foundation of its own work, it can achieve final victory in the struggle against self-immolation. The Dalai Lama clique thinks that by instigating self-immolations it is putting pressure on the Chinese government. In fact, it’s just the opposite; with every self-immolation the Dalai Lama clique is contracting a blood debt to the Tibetan people.

　　A number of people in the Dalai Lama clique, including the author of the “Handbook”, constantly say that self-immolation is “peaceful protest” and they hope that they hope the world will show the same concern for the Tibetans who immolate themselves as it showed for the “Tunisian” who launched the Arab Spring. A number of netizens have called on members of the Dalai Lama clique to use the “Handbook” as a personal guide for themselves. If they don’t have the courage and capability to immolate themselves, then they should stop bluffing immediately. As Lu Xun said, no one has the right to urge others to die while he keeps living. If you think death is so fine, then please die first.

　　(孙显辉 译)