Trial by Fire

The automobile at the head of the procession of saffron-robed Buddhist monks in Saigon suddenly choked to a stop at an intersection. The occupants of the car lifted its hood as chanting priests began forming a circle seven or eight deep around the vehicle. Prayer beads clutched in his hand, a phlegmatic, 73-year-old monk named Thich Quang Due sat down cross-legged on the asphalt in the center of the circle. From under the auto's hood, a monk took a canister of gasoline and poured it over the old priest. An expression of serenity on his wizened face, Quang Due suddenly struck a match. As flames engulfed his body, he made not a single cry nor moved a muscle. "Oh my God," cried a Western observer, "oh my God."

Casting the Blame. In the Buddhist faith, self-sacrifice is often undertaken to transfer the suffering of others to oneself. The martyr is usually considered a holy man so close to nirvana that he is unaffected by pain. Quang Due's premeditated act was a demonstration of Buddhist determination to force South Viet Nam's Roman Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem to knuckle under to demands for increased religious freedom (TIME, June 14). In a will written "before closing my eyes to Buddha," Quang Due said: "I have the honor of presenting my words to President Diem, asking him to be kind and tolerant toward his people and to enforce a policy of religious equality."

Diem's reply was to clamp virtual martial law over Saigon. All the city's main pagodas were sealed off, and barbed-wire barricades blocked off streets. On the radio, Diem blamed Quang Due's "tragic death" on "certain minds, poisoned by seditious propaganda." Refusing to yield to Buddhist demands, Diem added: "Buddhism in Viet Nam finds its fundamental safeguards in the constitution, of which I personally am the guardian."

The Warning. But Diem's intransigence troubled the U.S. In Saigon, U.S. embassy officials bluntly warned Diem that the U.S. would publicly condemn his treatment of the Buddhists unless he took prompt action to redress their grievances. Behind the U.S. threat was the fear that continued Buddhist discontent could cause passive resistance to government programs in the rural provinces where political unity is the key to victory in the war against the Communist Viet Cong.

The U.S. warning seemed to sink in. At meetings with Buddhist leaders, government officials tentatively acceded to all their demands. The government promised to change existing laws so as to give Buddhism equal standing with Catholicism, granted Buddhists the right to fly their flags at religious festivals. It was the flag restriction at Hue last month that set off demonstrations in which nine Buddhist marchers were gunned down by government troops. Under prodding from Buddhist leaders, the government, which had blamed the Viet Cong for the Hue tragedy, reluctantly agreed to take the blame for the incident. But if the government should renege on its agreement, the Buddhists have threatened two more ritualistic suicides--one by fire and one by disembowelment.

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