DHARAMSALA, October 31 – Chinese authorities in Tibet’s Ngaba County have evacuated 16 elderly Tibetans who have been on a month-long sit-in demonstration against appropriation of their land, according to the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. The police intimidated the Tibetans of Village No. 1 in Ngaba, Sichuan province.
The group representing 16 families of Village No. 1 were demanding compensation promised to them in exchange of their land spanning 40 mu (one mu equals 67 square meters of land) that had been seized in 1986 by the local government. The Tibetans say they had been promised jobs in 1986 by the government for foregoing their land for the government to build cattle slaughterhouse and a cold storage facility.
On 14 September 2013, the affected families submitted a petition containing three key demans. The petition in Chinese language was signed with thumbprints of the 16 elderly Tibetans. They are Chindrong, Pugo, Zonpo, Detso Kyi, Muney, Tsekyi, Peltse, Tenpa Gyaltsen, Phulkyi, Nak Dhonkho, Jhakho, Dhonkho, Norkho, Choedup, Kelsang Sonam, Kundup.
The petition calls on the Chinese government to provide employment to one family member from each affected family as promised in 1986, and also compensation for the affected family members for the past 27 years. The second demand is that the affected families be given ownership of the roads and premises surrounding the newly-built multi-storey structures on the appropriated land. The Tibetans also demanded that the government return the 6 mu of unused land as only 34 mu is being used to built multi-storey buildings for real estate purposes.
Three days after submitting the petition, the 16 elderly Tibetans launched a sit-in protest at the site of appropriated land located near the Ngachu River. For more than a month, the group of demonstrators lived in makeshift tents at the protest site.
The elderly Tibetans were forced to vacate the site after local police threatened them with imprisonment. The Tibetans were told that their sit-in demonstration had brought the ongoing construction work on the land to a halt. A source told TCHRD that the authorities had stopped the construction due to bad weather and not due to the protest.
Since the late 1980s, the affected families have petitioned local authorities 50 times demanding that the government deliver on its promises. At the time, the local government had paid 350 yuan per mu as compensation and also promised to provide employment to the affected families.
Between 1988 and 1990, as the local government kept dragging its feet on the issue, local Tibetans submitted two petitions but were told by the then County head Orgyen Kyap that the authorities were doing a trial run of the slaughterhouse and the cold storage facility and that the matter would be addressed by the County government at an appropriate time. Over the next few years, the then County head died and the matter remained pending.
Again in 2006, representatives of the 16 affected families approached the members of the Villagers’ Committee and apprised them of the situation. But the then Village party secretary Chen Bao and Village leader Sonam came told them that they had sought loans from the local government to renovate the village parking area and raising their land issue would harm their chances of getting the loan.
For the next few years since 2008, the affected families stopped petitioning the local government fearing it would give an opportunity to the authorities to charge them politically in light of the widespread protests and self-immolations in Ngaba County.
Sources said the local authorities sold the slaughterhouse and the cold storage facility, and used the money to engage in other profit-making ventures such as the ongoing construction work on the appropriated land where new buildings have come up apparently for real estate purposes.
Protests against land seizures by Chinese authorities in Tibet have led to mass demonstrations and at least three self-immolations by Tibetans including a Tibetan woman this year in April.
