War Protester Sets Self Afire, Dies

A young man carrying a sign calling for “peace” burned himself to death with paint thinner on a lawn in the college town of Amherst on Monday in apparent protest against the war in the Persian Gulf.

Horrified bystanders attempted to smother the flames with their coats and a blanket, but the young man fought them off, officials said. A policeman finally put out the flames with a fire extinguisher.

The victim--thought to be in his 20s--left a Massachusetts driver’s license taped to the peace sign found beside his body, but officials declined to identify him until relatives could be notified.

Johan Gelbach, who witnessed the incident, said the sight of the burning man “puts things in perspective. . . . “

“It really makes rallying (against) the war look insignificant,” Gelbach said.

Witnesses said the young man appeared on the Amherst town common at about 2 p.m., carrying the sign.

They said that without warning, he doused himself with two cans of paint thinner and struck a match. When the first match went out, he lit a second, suddenly exploding in a ball of flame.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The body was taken to a mortuary in the nearby town of Springfield, where an autopsy will be performed today.

Police said the victim apparently was not a student at any of the local colleges, which include the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College and Hampshire College.

Elisa Campbell, head of the city council that governs the Connecticut River Valley town about 100 miles west of Boston, called the incident “appalling and distressing. . . . “

“If this was for the cause of peace, I don’t understand it,” she said.

At nightfall, about 30 to 40 peace activists carrying candles gathered on the common to place pine branches where the young man had died. None of them knew the victim.

“I watched a person die right here,” said Eddy Goldberg, a demonstrator who had witnessed the incident from a nearby cafe.

“It’s one life here, but how many people are dying in this war?” he asked. “I watched his face as his life went out of him. It’s hard to just go home like everything is normal.”