World Tibet Network News Thursday, April 30, 1998 (I)

by Pratap Chakravarty

NEW DELHI, April 30 (AFP) - Thousands of Tibetans gathered Thursday in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala to pay respects to a compatriot who killed himself to protest after police broke up an anti-China hunger strike.

Meanwhile, the Tibetan government-in-exile called on six hunger-strikers to end their protest in New Delhi.

Witnesses said mourners thronged a complex in Dharamsala to see the body of Thupten Ngodub, 50, who died of 100-percent burns in a New Delhi hospital on Wednesday. He will be cremated on Friday.

Dharamsala, a northern Indian hilltop town, is the base of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Tashi Tsering, an official of the Tibetan government, said: "Up to 50,000 people attended a prayer."

Ngodub set himself on fire Monday when the police broke up a marathon hunger strike in Delhi. It was immediately resumed with a fresh batch of six protesters by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC activists).

Tibetan Information Minister T.C. Tethong said the Congress has been asked to consider the exiled government's appeal to end the protest.

"The TYC is determined to carry on this hunger strike, and we are now requesting them that they should consider an end to the strike as the protest has drawn enough international sympathy," Tethong said.

"They should rethink as one life is already lost."

The Congress, a large section of which opposes the theory of absolute non-violence of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, warned on Wednesday that "more blood will flow in the coming days."

The information minister said an aggressive anti-Chinese campaign by Tibetans could turn the international community away from their non-violent struggle for independence.

"The sympathy and support of the international community is with us because of the Dalai Lama's non-violent struggle which we do not want to see frittered away," Tethong told AFP.

"We only hope the movement does not turn militant... We are trying to disssuade them as international politics takes time."

The hardline section of the Tibetan Congress appeared in no mood to relent.

An analyst from the Tibetan parliament and policy research centre said: "The

international community reacts only to militancy.

"If it still does not react to Ngodub's self-immolation then more such cases will happen," the analyst, a former Congress leader who did not want to be named, warned.

Ngodub was not part of the almost 50-day hunger strike by six Tibetans, but he set himself on fire after the police dragged the last three protesters to a hospital.

Six others started a new hunger strike Tuesday at the site of the previous protest in an old Delhi observatory.

The self-immolation was the first by a Tibetan against Chinese rule.

The Congress on Wednesday said: "The Tibetan people have sent a clear message to the world that they can sacrifice themselves for the cause of an independent Tibet.

One of hardline leaders of the Congress warned that Ngodub's death could steer the Tibetan campaign away from the Dalai Lama's non-violent struggle.

Karma Yeshi, the group's vice-president said: "The Dalai Lama did not achieve anything during his 40 years of struggle.

"We have achieved something with Ngodub's death. Thousands of Tibetans in our homeland have now woken up and will support our type of campaign against China.

The Nobel laureate Tibetan leader, while visiting Ngodub in a hospital here on Tuesday, said he was "confused."

"I have made every effort for the past 20 years for the self-rule of the Tibetans but I have failed ... I am confused... I have no alternative solution to offer.

Chinese troops marched into Tibet in 1951. Apart from the Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland following a failed anti-Chinese uprising in 1959, India is home to more than 100,000 Tibetan refugees.

Meanwhile, Chinese President Jiang Zemin steadfastly refused to discuss the issue of Tibet with visiting US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Beijing, cutting off her words with a long speech about the history of religion in China.