By Tendar Tsering
DHARAMSHALA, May 4— After refusing to stay tuned to the Chinese order to give up 60% of land, and get rid of 54% of animals within this year, Chinese authorities in Qinghai province of Tibet forcibly confiscated the land from the Tibetan nomads to give to the Chinese migrants.
After forcibly grabbing the land from three nomadic villages in the province, the Chinese officials in the region sent strict order that the nomads can’t let their animals loiter on the lands taken by the government.
The land is reserved to be given to tens of thousands of new Chinese migrants; the US sponsored Radio Free Asia said.
As the Beijing government is in plan to turn the Tibetan villages into a Chinese town, they are also building a two huge hydroelectricity projects in the region which are speculated to attract 100,000 more Chinese migrants.
“On April 25, Chinese government officials convened a meeting of five nomadic villages in Qinghai,” exile sources quoted locals in Tibet as saying.
“At the meeting, the Tibetan residents of Setong, Dragmar, Seru, Machu, and Goekar villages in the region were told they would have to give up 60 per cent of their land and get rid of 54 percent of their animals within this year,” sources said.
Tibetan villages at the meeting unanimously refused to accept the Chinese order to take over their land, and following the refusal, Chinese officials in the region forced the Tibetan residents of Setong, Dragmar, and Seru villages to surrender al their land, exile sources with contacts in Tibet said.
Native Tibetans living in Kyegudo in eastern Tibet’s Kham Province, who were devastated by a powerful earthquake in April 2010 are also losing their land to a large number Chinese migrants.
Reports from the region say the mushrooming Chinese migrants across Kyegudo, including Jachukhog region, are seizing agricultural lands used by local Tibetans for the past many generations. The lives of Tibetans who survive on agricultural produce from their land are now in jeopardy.
Moreover, the Chinese migrants are hiring other Chinese workers for permanent job to work on their farm land, putting Tibetan residents in danger of completely losing their source of livelihood.
Despite the Chinese government’s claim of making great reconstruction effort in the region, the Tibetans have strongly protested the unjust construction plans and confiscation of plum land owned by the Tibetans. For consecutive days from 1 – 3 April 2010, a large number of Tibetans gathered in the main town in the region to vent their indignation raising slogans of “we own rights to our land”.
