Lou Yongfu, chairman of the standing committee of Xiahe People's Congress located in the Amchok township of Xiahe County of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province. [Photo/China TIBET Online]

GANNAN, Gansu, May 1 (China Tibet Online) Parents in Amchok Township have been worried about their children's safety and tried to prevent their children from being incited to commit self-immolation, said chairman of the Gannan People's Congress, adding that people hated these ruthless inciters.

Lou Yongfu is the chairman of the standing committee of the Xiahe people's congress of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province. He stressed the local parents' concern over self-immolation inciters and their urgent demand for the government to crack down on the criminal acts.

Last year Amchok saw four self-immolation cases which were called the " Oct. 26 Incident". The Amchok police posted an official notice in October 2012 even on the Internet, asking people to report self-immolation inciters with a 200,000 yuan (32,440 US dollars) reward.

After each self-immolation case occurred, Lou would visit the families of self-immolators who were all dead on the spot.

He said: "Their parents and other family members had no idea with their children's plans or intention of committing self-immolations in advance. When they heard the bad news, they were devastated and cursing the inciters' heartlessness and ill will. They said the act was naive, cruel and stupid."

Now, three cases have been uncovered. Yet, the local parents are still anxious to teach and instruct their children to value their lives and appreciate their life and families.

The government along with the religious circle has also made great efforts in persuading the locals to value life and appreciate the stable and secure society.

"Local residents are motivated to cooperate with the lamas and civil servants. After all, we are 'country fellows' knowing each other and our status quo." Lou said, adding that the social insurance and welfare system had covered all villagers including the self-immolators' families. "But, in fear of inciting a vicious cycle of 'self-immolation-getting a fortune for the family-more self-immolation', government won't provide any financial help or consolation money for the families whose family member committed self-immolation."

"But we would take them into consideration of preferential policies in future, only out of humanitarianism," Lou pointed out.

He explained further: "The inciters choose the incommunicative people as targets, yet these people are usually down-to-earth labor people from relatively poor families. Thus, with the beautiful words such as ‘you’ll be consecrated as a Tibetan hero by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’ and ‘the Kashag-in-exile will give your family a big sum of money enough for them to live a better-off life for the rest of your lifetime’, such naive people were apt to be used. They dared not tell their parents and families, of course, since their families must have stopped them from committing self-immolation. No parents in the world would approve their children's suicidal acts, wouldn't they?"

Lou, a Tibetan and a parent, showed a strong vigilance over his adolescent children, while pointed out that the inciters from the cunning overseas Tibetan separative forces took advantage of religion, Tibetan people's religious belief and the naivety of young people.

However, as a government official, he also showed confidence and hope since anyway there are very few such cases. Our country, the province, the prefecture, and some social organizations and persons have been helping us to build a strong social economic and welfare system. Our people are living in a better and better life, and can feel the care from the government and can feel our own geographical and natural limitations so that we understand the great efforts made and difficulty faced by the government including me as a civil servant. Therefore, I don't think self-immolation inciters are still having the market to sell their ideas. It comes to the fundamental problem: if self-immolation is so great, why don't they do it?