World Tibet Network News Friday, May 1, 1998 (II)

NEW DELHI, May 1 (AFP) - A Tibetan, who set himself on fire to protest police breaking up a marathon hunger strike here, was cremated Friday in northern India amid anti-Chinese rallies, witnesses said.

Tibetans took to the streets during the cremation of Thupten Ngodub, who died in New Delhi on Wednesday of 100-percent burns.

The cremation, attended by thousands of Tibetans, was held in Dharamsala, the northern Indian hilltop base of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, witnesses said.

The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), which sponsored the marathon hunger strike, said an estimated 5,000 people including Buddhist monks, Tibetan women and children were marching on the streets of Dharamsala.

"They are shouting anti-Chinese slogans and demanding immediate UN intervention in Tibet," said TYC leader Pema Lundhup from Dharamsala, which is also the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

"Several protesters have fainted... But so far there has been no violence," he said, adding the protests began during the funeral of the 50-year-old Ngodub.

The TYC, which opposes the Dalai Lama's non-violent struggle for Tibet's freedom, said a memorial would be built for Ngodub, a former soldier of a Tibetan unit of the Indian army.

Ngodub is the first Tibetan to immolate himself in protest against China's 1951 occupation of Tibet.

Lundhup said all Tibetan-owned business establishments, schools and colleges remained closed Friday in Dharamsala, which is also a popular tourist spot in India.

The TYC, meanwhile, rejected appeals of the Tibetan government to end the Delhi hunger strike.

"There is no question of calling off the hunger strike at this juncture," said a spokesman of the 10,000-member TYC in the Indian capital.

He said the hunger strike, which began on March 10, would continue at an old observatory in New Delhi.

T.C. Tethong, information minister in the Tibetan government-in-exile, appealed Thursday for the TYC to call off the hunger strike.

Tethong said an aggressive anti-China campaign by the TYC could turn the international community away from the non-violent independence struggle.

"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," he said.

Ngodub set himself on fire Monday when the police dragged away three hunger strikers to a hospital. In a previous action last Sunday, three protesters were removed from the obseravtory.

Five Tibetans took up the disrupted hunger strike.

Chinese troops invaded Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama and some 100,000 Tibetans fled to India after Beijing crushed an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet in 1959.

The Dalai Lama, who is currently in the United States, while speaking to a New York audience said Thursday that he told Ngodub during a visit to the Delhi hospital that he should not carry any animosity towards the Chinese.

"I made some little contribution for his peace of mind .... You shouldn't have any mean feelings toward the Chinese. In your other rebirth, all the merits you created will be there."

The Tibetan god-king also said the occupied Himalayan territory faced extinction because of Chinese communist rule.

"We are at a critical period. The next few years (will be) a very, very critical period."

"There's a real danger that we will disappear," he added.