The Washington Post
Por Tsering Kyi
29 of January of 2013
Read original in English: My nephew self-immolated for Tibet
Tsering Kyi is a journalist, Tibetan writer and blogger, ex Miss Tibet. He escaped from Tibet into exile in 1999. This piece has been translated from Tibetan to English by Dhondup Tashi Rekjong and Tenzin Dickyi.
The early call of my relatives from Tibet, woke me up in my apartment in Washington DC. I heard people crying, and shouting and sounds of protest in the Amchok dialect, my village in eastern Tibet.
“Boys, don't be sad., be strong, walk this path, walk forward. Om Mani Padme Hum, “Think of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.”. Nobody was talking to me. Just confusion on the other side of the line. I knew something terrible had happened.
I called other villagers who told me, “Your brother's beloved son has died.”.
“¿That?”
“Your nephew set himself on fire on Amchok Street at 2 today's afternoon".
He 12 January, My nephew Tsering Tashi became the first Tibetan self-immolator in 2013. He joined the almost 100 Tibetans from Tibet who have been self-immolating since 2009 in protest against the Chinese government. Your demands are clear: freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama. The tragic wave of self-immolations embodies the suffering of the Tibetan people under Chinese rule, and their fight for a free Tibetan homeland.
¿How did my humble nephew come up with such an idea?? It was just a few days ago that we spoke on the phone. He told me half jokingly, half serious, “I see you often on TV, but your hair is pulled back and your face looks like a moon. ¿Don't you have some pretty sucks (Tibetan traditional clothing) to use?
I also joked with him that he should make me some new sucks in Kachigar (chino: Linxia). That was my last conversation with him..
I hadn't seen my nephew or other members of my family since 1999, when I escaped from the Chinese and fled across the Himalayas, arriving in India as a refugee. I later moved to the United States., where I now work as a journalist.
My nephew Tsering Tashi was only eight years old when I left home. How I recited the Tibetan alphabet Ka, Kha, Gha, that, at home, He called me “Sister Ka-Kha”.*
On the morning of the day the fire was set, He told his mother, “I'm going to wear my jacket today.”. ¿Which is the best?”.
“It's quite cold, put on the thick” said his mother.
Using his thick sucker, He asked his shepherd friend to take care of his yak and sheep..
“I have an important job in the city. I will return”. In the folds of his woolen clothes, He was carrying a bottle of gasoline that the others did not see.. He turned off his mobile phone. And then he lit a match.
my nephew, in his thick wool jacket, was seen in the village engulfed in flames and shouting the name of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He fell to the floor at least once., before getting up again and running, until he saw the police and the army. Somehow, He then managed to get away before falling again and dying minutes later..
Tibetans threw stones to keep police and army away from my nephew's body, as much as they could.
My brother was called to identify the self-immolator. He was barely able to look at his disfigured body, He identified his son by the shape of his face. While some Tibetans went to look for a car to transport the body, others continued to keep the Chinese police at bay. Finally, they carried the body home in procession.
The police blocked the path of monks from the local monastery who were trying to reach to pray where my nephew's body was.. when I called home, I was told that police cars were parked on the streets leading to our village.. They brought back each one who came to offer condolences.
An elderly relative told me, “They ordered us to have a quick funeral without monks. We have our Tibetan tradition of making arrangements for a funeral: we inform the head monk, then the monks come to pray, and we perform the ceremony and make offerings to the monastery. But the police are coming here again and again, saying that we must have the funeral immediately”.
¿How can I live with the fact that my beloved nephew was burned beyond recognition?? ¿How can I console his wife who has become a widow, and to my parents whose hearts are broken? ¿How can I comfort my brother, prevented by Chinese authorities from giving his son a proper funeral?
Despite the immensity of his own grief, my brother tried to comfort me. "Don't worry” said. “I do not believe that my beloved son died without sense or reason.”.
deep down, I also believe that the flames that rose from my nephew's body will illuminate our fight for freedom and bring a ray of hope to my suffering homeland..
My dear nephew, your sister Ka-Kha will always keep your last words in her heart. rest in peace, my dear nephew, now forever separated from me, I don't know if this is real or an illusion. I have carried you in my heart for more than 13 years. I will remember your eyes and your voice when you called your sister at home, and I will imagine, my beloved nephew, that you continue living.-
* Since the age difference between the two is very small, the nephew called his aunt, sister.
