Tibetan activist sets himself on fire
A Tibetan activist unfurled a Tibetan flag and then set himself on fire today outside the Mumbai hotel where Chinese President Hu Jintao was courting Indian business leaders eager to boost trade between Asia’s emerging giants.
Until today, Indian authorities had successfully prevented protests with the potential to embarrass Hu, erecting heavy police cordons everywhere he went.
Activists accused India of abandoning Tibetans in an attempt to placate China.
Lhakpa Tsering and six other Tibetan youths were able to drive right up to Hu’s hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace & Towers. Their two taxis parked in front of a thin barricade outside the hotel, they jumped out and began chanting slogans against China’s occupation of Tibet.
Tsering then doused his trousers with a liquid and set them on fire, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.
Several policemen quickly jumped on the man, rolled him on the ground and doused the flames.
Hu was inside the hotel at the time preparing to address an audience of 300 Indian business leaders and a 250-person Chinese trade delegation.
Police took the men away for questioning.
Mumbai police commissioner A N Roy said Tsering, the head of the Tibetan Youth Congress in the southern city of Bangalore, was not seriously wounded.
He denied there had been a breach of security, saying the incident occurred outside police barricades.
However, after the incident police cordoned off adjacent roads to the hotel.
Asked about the protests and the incident outside the hotel, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, “Tibet is part of China, this is a widely recognised consensus of the international community.” Jiang was speaking at a regular briefing in Beijing.
India became a centre for Tibetan exiles after their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled there in 1959 after a failed uprising, settling in the northern town of Dharmsala.
Police have gone to great efforts to prevent Tibetan protesters from embarrassing the visiting Chinese leader, suppressing demonstrations and banning gatherings of more than five people in areas where he was travelling.
Last week police barred Tenzin Tsundue – a prominent Tibetan activist with a reputation for publicity stunts that have embarrassed previous Chinese visitors and Indian police – from leaving Dharmsala during Hu’s visit.
Tsundue said today that the inability to protest led to such a dramatic act and blamed India for failing to raise the plight of the Tibetans during talks.
“During his (Hu’s) four days in India, the Indian government did not raise the issue of Tibet. We are screaming, but the world is not listening to us,” said Tsundue in Dharmsala. “It is desperate to the point that a young man is willing to sacrifice his life.”
Friendship between India and China should not be at the cost of Tibet, he said.
Separately, some 250 Tibetans held a protest in another part of Mumbai, chanting “Free Tibet” and “Down with China.”
Most Tibetans say China has attempted to destroy Tibetan Buddhist culture by flooding Tibet with China’s ethnic Han majority.
The protesters have singled out Hu, who governed the Tibetan region between 1988 and 1992, saying he had adopted a repressive stance toward the region.
Meanwhile, inside the hotel, Hu was promoting greater economic cooperation between China and India.
“If India and China work together, the 21st century would be the century of Asia,” Hu said, quoting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Hu called for steps to be taken to deregulate trade between the two countries.
While India and China have agreed to try and double bilateral trade by 2010 to €30bn, India has expressed reservations about lifting tariffs and restrictions, fearing that an influx of cheaper Chinese goods could harm its manufacturing sector.
Hu said India and China would benefit by working together on energy products in third countries.
Indian energy companies have often lost out when pitted against Chinese companies in the race to corner oil and gas exploration and production assets in third countries.
However joint bidding has resulted in lower acquisition costs, a fact acknowledged by India.
Hu was to leave India for Pakistan later today.
