NOMAD RIGHTS

Suspend the non-voluntary resettlement of nomadic herders from their traditional lands – UN Human Rights Council

Pema — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:59:36 +0000

The Human Rights Council (the Council) held an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr Olivier De Schutter (Belgium) on 6 March.

Mr De Schutter criticised the policy of forcibly resettling nomadic herders and said that this policy, in relation to herders in Tibet in particular, raised ‘legitimate and important concerns’.

Mr De Schutter’s concluding comments on the policy of forcibly resettling nomadic herders followed statements made by Human Rights Watch and the Helsinki Foundation in which they called for an end to the non-voluntary relocation of nomads until consultations could take place with the parties as the nomads were finding themselves often ‘worse off’ in relation to access to food. Mr De Schutter also drew to the Council’s attention that since March 2011, there had been 25 self immolations in Tibet against the land resettlement policies of which 18 had been herders forcibly resettled in collective villages.
Mr. Schutter said that the resettlement policies were failing because since March 2011, 25 Tibetans self-immolated in protest against the policies that are implemented in this region. He said 18 of the 25 who burned themselves were actually herders forcibility resettled in the new socialist villages. “This I have to say is not compatible with the idea that these would be I quote “very popular polices”, he said.

Responding to Chinese delegation statement that the Special Rapporteur hadn’t been to Tibet, he said, “I am told that I can’t comment on this because I cannot travel to Tibet.

China’s responce:
China stated that it ‘categorically rejected’ the ‘groundless’ allegations made by the non-governmental organisations. China expressed its disappointment with the Special Rapporteur’s remarks, which it believed were outside of his mandate.

The delegation said that the nomadic herders were resettled to improve the sustainable economic and social developments in the region and has been widely supported by farmers and herders. The resettlement of nomads and herders in China’s Western provinces including Tibet were “very popular polices”.

China’s Tibetan herders face uncertain future

Pema — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:21:42 +0000

GUOLUO, China — Tibetan herder Gatou used to live a nomadic life on the grasslands of the Tibetan plateau before he was rehoused under a controversial Chinese government scheme.

Now he inhabits one of scores of small brick houses that have sprung up in incongruously neat rows in the rugged and mountainous terrain of the Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China.

“They are giving us houses for free, with electricity,” Gatou, who like many Tibetans only goes by one name, told AFP at a prayer festival he has organised for his community, his brown eyes beaming from a dark tanned face.

“Most people welcome this. But they are also making people settle down in fixed homes, which does not conform with the traditional lives of herders.”

China has invested billions of dollars into resettling Tibetan herders, who have for centuries led a nomadic life, moving regularly to seek fresh grazing for their animals.

Beijing says the policy is aimed at improving nomads’ living standards, creating markets for their livestock and the traditional herbal medicines they gather and curbing rampant environmental degradation on the roof of the world.

But while some Tibetans welcome the changes, many worry about the disappearance of a lifestyle that has endured for hundreds of years, and see the resettlements as part of a broader erosion of Tibetan culture in China.

Kate Saunders, spokeswoman for the International Campaign for Tibet pressure group, told AFP the policy appeared to be aimed largely at bringing nomadic populations traditionally free of government interference under control.

“These policies give the authorities greater administrative control over people’s movements and lifestyle,” she said.

Herders also complain of being forced to sell their livestock, of unfulfilled government promises of jobs, schools and medical facilities, and of corruption in the settlement scheme.

“They promised me a job if I sold my herds and settled down,” said a former nomad in his 40s who identified himself as Norbu.

“But I can only find seasonal work and I can never make enough money to support my family. I feel cheated,” he told AFP.

The resettlements into exclusively Tibetan neighbourhoods are ostensibly voluntary, but activists say there is plenty of government pressure.

Simmering resentments have fed into rising tensions in China’s Tibetan-inhabited areas, where anger at Beijing’s rule has sparked a series of self-immolations by Tibetan Buddhists over the past year.

Stephanie Brigden, head of the rights group Free Tibet, has described the policy as “one of the greatest expulsions of a people from their land in history,” and said there is no doubt it has fuelled the protests in Tibet.

It is hard to know exactly how many Tibetan herders have been resettled. The UN cited recent Chinese reports saying between 50 and 80 percent of the 2.25 million nomads on the Tibetan plateau were being “progressively relocated.”

The UN Human Rights Council in January urged China to “suspend the non-voluntary resettlement of nomadic herders from their traditional lands.”

China should “examine all available options, including recent strategies of sustainable management of marginal pastures,” and allow herders more say in how they seek out their livelihoods, it said.

The United Nations says the settlement programme covers the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan-inhabited areas in Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu provinces, although policies differ widely from one area to another.

Gatou said those rehoused herders who have been able to keep their animals and still have access to grasslands were now enjoying better lives, although unemployment was turning some settlements into shanty towns.

“Things are changing quickly on the Tibetan plateau,” Gatou told AFP as he fiddled with his mobile phone and looked out over a line of cars and motorbikes parked next to a quiet meadow below snow-capped peaks.

“Not even a decade ago, most people travelling in those cars would have been on horseback.”

By Robert Saiget (AFP) – Apr 1, 2012

One Tibetan woman’s tragic path to self-immolation

Pema — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:03:00 +0000

Tsering Kyi had witnessed the erosion of her family’s way of life and the repression of her fellow students’ protests. Last month she doused herself in five litres of petrol and set herself alight.

As a young girl, Tsering Kyi’s favourite days of the year were the eve of her village’s annual move to their summer pastures and the eve of their return. The lives of the 30 nomadic households of Tethok, in China‘s Gansu province, followed the rhythm of the seasons. In the spring they would load their household on to yaks and ride up into the high valleys and hills where their herds would find grass and the children would play with frogs in the lakes and streams. As the winter approached, they would return to lower grazing.

A day before they moved all the heavy items would be packed and sent ahead. The women and children would remain behind, sleeping under the stars, to follow the next day. This was Kyi’s favourite time.

“I remember how she was always excited. She loved to sleep outside with her sister and brothers and all the cousins,” said a close relative interviewed by the Guardian last week. “Even when she went to school and was a teenager she still came with the family to the pastures in the summer. She didn’t like the town so much.”

Three weeks ago, in the late afternoon, Kyi, now a 20-year-old student, set herself alight in a vegetable market in the centre of Machu town. Her last acts were to enter a public toilet, take off her traditional Tibetan overdress and douse herself in petrol. She then walked out into the market, ignited the fuel and became the 23rd Tibetan to self-immolate in just under a year.

Every few days in recent weeks there has been a report of another such burning. Since Kyi died seven more have followed suit – including a 27-year-old man who set himself on fire in New Delhi before a visit by China’s president, Hu Jintao. The streets of Dharamsala, the Indian hill town where the Tibetan community in exile is based, are full of posters of these “martyrs”, as they are known locally. The most recent poster shows a 44-year-old farmer. Few doubt there will be many more.

Map: Machu, Lhasa and DharamsalaTibetans in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has lived since fleeing Tibet after a failed revolt in 1959, say the self-immolations are born of desperation in the face of the Chinese authorities’ repressive policies. A letter smuggled out from one monastery lists restrictions on Tibetan language teaching in local schools, an increased presence of security personnel and new controls on religious practice as reasons behind the self-immolation of a 34-year-old monk outside its gates two weeks ago. Another factor, it says, is the continuing enforced settlement of the region’s nomads.

Chinese officials blame the suicides on “separatist plots” or “criminals“. The official Chinese news agency said Kyi was suffering depression following a head injury sustained in an accident. Her relatives, who insisted on anonymity when interviewed, tell a different story.

Kyi was born in 1992, the second child of two nomadic farmers. Her community was the village’s 30 households, and her days were spent with the yaks, horses and sheep that were their livelihood. She rarely visited Machu, the town two hours’ motorbike ride away where the nearest school and basic health facilities were located. It was a simple, if harsh life. Members of Kyi’s family watched women die in childbirth for want of medical attention. Almost no one could read or write.

Change was coming, however. When Kyi was still a young girl, relatives remembered, a new government policy led to each household being allocated a plot of land for grazing and barbed wire divided the high pastures. The old days of allowing the herds to roam freely over the high plateau grassland were over.

Another change was education. Nomad children had never gone to schools in distant towns. But new facilities were being opened, in part to cater for the huge numbers of nomads being resettled in places like Machu. Kyi set about persuading her parents to send her and her younger brother to the Tibetan middle school in the town. An aunt finally convinced them to agree and, aged 11, Kyi started lessons, staying in the hostel attached to the school during term time.

“She did really well. She was starting late like most nomad children but made up for lost time. Her teachers said she was an example to the other kids,” said the relative.

Tsering Kyi who died after setting herself on fire this monthBut if Kyi thrived at the school, she did not lose sight of her roots. With their herds dwindling due to a lack of adequate pasture, some relatives were now living in Machu town. But Kyi preferred to travel back to be with the rest of her family during the long summer and winter breaks. The contrast with the fast-growing country town where she studied, with its new grids of roads, shops and large numbers of Han Chinese immigrants, was stark.

“She would come back from school and it was like nothing was different, for her or us. She was older and so able to get involved with all the tasks like looking after the yaks, shearing the sheep and so on. And she still had fun,” remembered the relative. “She had a wonderful voice and was always in demand in the village to sing at all the festivals.”

Such festivals – and their accompanying religious rituals – marked the slow progression of the days. The rites of Tibetan Buddhism were carefully, unquestioningly observed. Even in the summer pastures, a small tent was set up to shelter a sculpture of the Buddha and a picture of the Dalai Lama.

“Religion is everywhere for us. It is just part of our lives,” said the relative.

But if Kyi did not show any signs of becoming “political” as a young teenager, she was now an avid reader, hungry for knowledge.

“When she came back to be with her family, she always brought books. When it was dark, when we had all gone to sleep, she would be still there, reading by the light of a lamp,” the relative said.

Unpicking the course of events that led Kyi to her self-immolation is difficult. The act itself goes against many of the fundamental tenets of Buddhism and although the Dalai Lama has refused to condone it, he says he understands the reasons behind it. But if Kyi had not actively searched for involvement in activism, she was soon to find herself plunged into its centre.

The spring of 2008 saw the most significant unrest in Tibet for decades. Peaceful protests turned into serious riots in many cities and towns as security forces moved to disperse demonstrators. In Machu police cars and government buildings were burned. In a major crackdown, hundreds were detained, according to Tibetan campaigners, human rights groups and western governments.

But the unrest did not stop, at least not in Machu. Kyi’s school became a centre of protest in 2010 when students staged a demonstration calling for more freedom and Tibetan independence. Though dozens were arrested, another protest took place a month later. Then the popular headmaster was fired and at least two teachers detained, provoking further anger. Kyi had found herself in a hotbed of activism.

Following the 2008 unrest there is now an unprecedented level of “political consciousness and Tibetan nationalism”, a monk in Dharamsala said last week. He would only speak anonymously as he feared reprisals when he returns to Tibet. “With the internet and mobile phones, everyone now hears about what the Dalai Lama is doing, the protests, every burning. That is a huge change from before,” he told the Guardian.

In early January Kyi spoke of the spate of self-immolations and told a close relative that she understood why they were happening. “No one could go on living like this,” she said.

Kyi died the day after returning from a month’s winter break spent with her family in the winter pastures. She had spent the night at a cousin’s home and a friend had given her a lift on his motorbike to school. Kyi did not enter – had she signed the registration book she would have been the responsibility of her teachers and thus have exposed them to reprisals – but headed into the town. One petrol station refused to serve her. A second did not. The last images of Tsering Kyi show her buying a five litre can of fuel.

Hours later Chinese security officials were removing her charred remains from Machu’s vegetable market.

• This article was amended on 27 March 2012 to remove details of Tsering Kyi’s death that were inconsistent with the Guardian’s guidelines on the reporting of suicides.

Jason Burke, The Guardian

19th Session of the Human Rights Council

Pema — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:20:38 +0000

March 6, 2012 – Mr. Kai Müller, Executive Director International Campaign for Tibet-Germany speaking on Tibet for the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Clustered Interactive Dialogue with: – The Special Rapporteur on the right to food and – The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, 19th meeting 19th Session of the Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system made up of 47 States (presently including the People’s Republic of China) responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe. The Council meets three times a year in Geneva, and the 19th session runs from 27 February until 23 March 2012.

Special Procedures of the Council address specific country situations or thematic issues. Most Special Procedures receive information on specific allegations of human rights violations (including from ICT) and send urgent appeals or letters of allegation to governments asking for clarification. In this context, NGOs can be given an opportunity to address topics covered by the Special Procedures during its regular sessions.

Read Mr. Mueller’s oral statement:

General Assembly
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL – Nineteenth session
Agenda item 3 – Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development

Interactive Dialogue: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food (A/HRC/19/59/Add.1)

Oral statement by Mr. Kai Müller on behalf of Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights

Madame President,

We wish to thank the Special Rapporteur on the right to food for his report on his mission to China. While the Rapporteur’s findings suggest that overall access to food in the People’s Republic of China has improved, his reference on forced eviction of nomads suggests that improved food access does not extend to everyone in China.

The Special Rapporteur’s description of the program of nomadic “resettlement” indicates that while the Chinese government is ostensibly acting in order “to preserve the land and benefit the Tibetan nomads economically,” such policies have failed to meet the goals. Mr. De Schutter found that many of the re-settled nomads had lost their land, were unable to keep their livestock, were relocated to areas unsuitable for agriculture, could not practice their traditional livelihoods and were thus economically dependent on State aid.

We wish to inform the Council that Tibet’s nomadic lifestyle is one of the last examples in the world of sustainable pastoralism. For centuries, Tibetan nomadic herders have made a sustainable living uniquely adapted to the harsh conditions of the Tibetan plateau. An estimated 2.25 million Tibetan nomads live on the plateau, and as the Special Rapporteur noted, in 2010 between 50 and 80 percent of these nomads are being evicted from their ancestral lands.

Madame President,

As NGOs have stated to this Council, we wish to echo the Special Rapporteur’s recommendation that calls for the Chinese government to:

“(a) suspend the non-voluntary resettlement of nomadic herders from their traditional lands and the non-voluntary relocation or re-housing programmes of other rural residents, in order to allow for meaningful consultations to take place with the affected communities, permitting parties to examine all available options, including recent strategies of sustainable management of marginal pastures;” and “(b) Improve employment opportunities, education and health services in ‘new socialist’ villages, in order to enable the realization of the right to adequate food in all resettled rural habitants.”

Dalai Lama Speaks Out

Pema — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:26:09 +0000

BODH GAYA, January 4: In a rare meeting with his own people from across the Himalayas, Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama yesterday offered advice and suggestions to counter the many social and environmental problems plaguing Tibet. Around 8000 Tibetans from Tibet are attending the ten-day Kalachakra teachings in Bodh Gaya.

At a special audience, the Dalai Lama, who has been living in exile since he was forced to flee his country in 1959, urged his people to plant trees around their houses and monasteries in Tibet. The Dalai Lama also spoke out on nomad rights, “Instead of forcefully resettling them, building of hospitals and schools for the nomads around their grazing areas would be more constructive,” the Dalai Lama said.

Beijing is using climate change as the final argument for the forced settlement 2.5 million Tibetan nomads, blaming them for damaging the vulnerable grasslands by overgrazing. Over 1.4 million nomads have already been relocated into reservation-style concrete housing blocks, these homes are bleak and isolated housing settlements where they can not keep their animals and continue their traditional way of life.

Under a false claim of “environmental protection,” China is clearing the land to make way for destructive dams and lucrative mining operations. Scientists have shown that nomads’ traditional grazing patterns actually help to mitigate the impact of climate change on the plateau.

Tibetan nomads’ very way of life is inherently connected to the land. Aimed at tightening its colonial grip over Tibet, China’s policy is a death sentence for Tibetan nomads a way of life that has been maintained, sustainably, for centuries.

Nomads in Inner Mongolia Protest

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:55:31 +0000

On May 23, thousands of Southern Mongolians, led by students, took to the streets of Shiliinhot. Protests demanding the Chinese government respect the rights of Southern Mongolian herders quickly spread across Southern Mongolia.

Students as young as 12 along with herdsmen held banners reading, “defend the rights of Mongols” and “defend the homeland,” and shouted slogans as they marched to Government offices.

These protests erupted after a 100-ton coal-hauling truck owned by a Chinese company crushed a local herdsman, named Mergen. “These coal-hauling trucks have randomly run over local herders’ grazing lands…killing numerous heads of livestock… [and] further damaging the already-weakened fragile grassland,” wrote the Mongolian blogger Zorigt. . Read more on the SFT blog…