Sixth Suicide By Buddhists

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31077, 4 June 1966, Page 17

Sixth Suicide By Buddhists

fN.Z.P.A. Reuter—-Copyright >

DA NANG, June 3.

A Buddhist nun burned herself to death here today after writing to President Johnson in protest against American policy in Vietnam. It was the sixth Buddhist suicide by fire this week.

The 26-year-old nun, Nu Dien Dinh, defied an order issued three days ago by the supreme patriarch of the South Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Church, who called for an end to self-immolations.

In her letter to President Johnson, the nun asked him to withdraw support from Prime Minister Nguyen Cao Ky’s Government, which she said had massacred Buddhists in Da Nang last month. She also wrote to the Buddhist leaders in Saigon attacking the government. It was the first of the current wave of self-immolations to occur in Da Nang where

more than 600 people were killed or wounded in eight days of civil fighting last month between anti-govern-ment rebels and troops sent by the Saigon junta. In Saigon, one of South Vietnam's most influential monks, Thich Tam Chau, today resigned as chairman of the Buddhist Institute for Secular Affairs because he said he had failed to find a solution to the country’s political problems. His move underlined a deep split in the Buddhist leadership and will probably cause further difficulties in South Vietnam’s political crisis, says the Associated Press. The committee of the Unified Buddhist Church will meet soon to decide whether to accept the resignation. Thich Chau was under fire from monks and nuns opposed to settlement of the power struggle with General Ky.