Tibet: July 2010 Archives

By Edward Wong | The New York Times
24 July 2010

They come by new high-altitude trains, four a day, cruising 1,200 miles past snow-capped mountains. And they come by military truck convoy, lumbering across the roof of the world.

Han Chinese workers, investors, merchants, teachers and soldiers are pouring into remote Tibet. After the violence that ravaged this region in 2008, China's aim is to make Tibet wealthier -- and more Chinese.

Chinese leaders see development, along with an enhanced security presence, as the key to pacifying the Buddhist region. The central government invested $3 billion in the Tibet Autonomous Region last year, a 31 percent increase over 2008. Tibet's gross domestic product is growing at a 12 percent annual rate, faster than the robust Chinese national average.

Simple restaurants located in white prefabricated houses and run by ethnic Han businesspeople who take the train have sprung up even at a remote lake north of Lhasa. About 1.2 million rural Tibetans, nearly 40 percent of the region's population, have been moved into new residences under a "comfortable housing" program. And officials promise to increase tourism fourfold by 2020, to 20 million visitors a year.

But if the influx of money and people has brought new prosperity, it has also deepened the resentment among many Tibetans. Migrant Han entrepreneurs elbow out Tibetan rivals, then return home for the winter after reaping profits. Large Han-owned companies dominate the main industries, from mining to construction to tourism.

"Why did I come here? To make money, of course!" said Xiong Zhahua, a migrant from Sichuan Province who spends five months a year running a restaurant on the shores of chilly Nam Tso, the lake north of Lhasa.

A rare five-day official tour of Tibet, though carefully managed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, provided a glimpse of life in the region during a period of tight political and military control.

Tibet is more stable after security forces quelled the worst uprising against Chinese rule in five decades. But the increased ethnic Han presence -- and the uneven benefits of Han-led investment -- have kept the region on edge.

Some Chinese officials acknowledge the disenfranchisement of Tibetans, though they defend the right of Han to migrate here.

"The flow of human resources follows the rule of market economics and is also indispensable for the development of Tibet," Hao Peng, vice chairman and deputy party secretary of the region, said at a news conference with a small group of foreign journalists. But the current system "may have caused an imbalanced distribution," he said. "We are taking measures to solve this problem."

The government bars foreign reporters from traveling independently in Tibet. Journalists on the tour were brought to several development projects by ministry officials, but were occasionally able to interview locals on their own. Tibetans interviewed independently expressed fear of the security forces and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One high school student complained that Tibetans could not compete for jobs with Han migrants who arrived with high school diplomas. "Tibetans just get low-end jobs," he said.

Chinese officials say Tibetans make up more than 95 percent of the region's 2.9 million people, but refuse to give estimates on Han migrants, who are not registered residents. In the cities of Lhasa and Shigatse, it is clear that Han neighborhoods are dwarfing Tibetan areas.

Resentment of the Han exploded during the March 2008 rioting -- Tibetans in Lhasa burned and looted hundreds of Han and ethnic Hui shops; at least 19 people died, most of them Han civilians, the Chinese government said. Han security forces then cracked down on Tibetans across the plateau.

Robert Barnett, a scholar of Tibet at Columbia University, said the goal of maintaining double-digit growth in the region had worsened ethnic tensions.

"Of course, they achieved that, but it was disastrous," he said. "They had no priority on local human resources, so of course they relied on outside labor, and sucked in large migration into the towns."

Now, a heavy security presence is needed to keep control of Lhasa. Around the Barkhor, the city's central market, paramilitary officers in riot gear, all ethnic Han, march counterclockwise around the sacred Jokhang Temple, against the flow of Tibetan pilgrims. Armed men stand on rooftops near the temple.

Limits on religious freedom have been a major cause of discontent. In the Jokhang itself, and in the Potala Palace, the imposing white-walled winter fortress of the Dalai Lamas, images of the exiled 14th Dalai Lama have been banned. Pilgrims carry the Dalai Lama's photograph in hidden lockets or amulets. As the pilgrims circle the Potala, a loudspeaker in a small park blares Communist Party propaganda: "We are part of a Chinese nation contributing to a great future -- we are Chinese people."

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By RADIO FREE ASIA
4th of July 2010

A Tibetan environmentalist is sentenced on charges of "splittism" a week after his brother's trial.

Award-winning Tibetan environmentalist Rinchen Samdrup, 44, was sentenced on Saturday to five years in prison on charges of "inciting to split the nation." 

The Chamdo Intermediate People's Court found Samdrup guilty of "splittism" based on evidence that an article about the Dalai Lama had been posted on Samdrup's Web site.

Samdrup pleaded not guilty and said during the trial that someone else had posted the article.

"The court recessed for 20 minutes and the verbal verdict of five years imprisonment was given, which seems to have been decided long before the hearing in court," Samdrup's eldest daughter Dorjee Sangmo said.

Rinchen Samdrup's sentence comes just over one week after his brother, Karma Samdrup, was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 15 years for grave robbery, on charges that had been originally dropped in 1998. Karma Samdrup was also involved in environmental activism.

Rinchen Samdrup had been running an environmental NGO in Gonjo county in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, near Sichuan province.

The organization's work involves reforestation, publishing a magazine, and mobilizing local people to report poaching.  The group had earned international awards including grants from Ford Motors and the Jet Li One Foundation. 

Samdrup was detained in August 2009 after he had accused local officials in Gonjo county of hunting endangered animals.

"Our father had to face this situation because of some local government officials of Chamdo prefecture," his daughter said.

"We the four family members were allowed to be inside the courtroom, but we were not allowed to meet him. We were not allowed to meet him since his detention in August last year. Our father was looking very weak. He was not allowed to sleep well and had been repeatedly interrogated," she said. 

His lawyer, Xia Jun, said the he had not been able to meet with Samdrup since his first court session in January.

"This case is unique and I tried my best to present my defense and prove his innocence. I am disappointed by this court decision. It is difficult to say anything more under this situation," he said.

Rinchen Samdrup has 10 days to appeal the sentence, and his daughter said that he will be applying to a higher court in Lhasa. She said that the conviction document would be given to the lawyer within five days.

Relatives Targeted

"We don't know whether this is a personal grudge by leading officials against this family or an attack on Tibetan environmentalists or a combination [of those]," Robbie Barnett, the director of modern Tibetan studies at the Weatherhead East Asian Studies Institute of Columbia University, said.

"Last year when I went to Beijing to appeal for my father, I was detained for ten days," Rinchen Samdrup's daughter said.

Rinchen Samdrup's brother Karma Samdrup was detained in January after he had visited Rinchen in detention.

Their youngest brother, Chime Namgyal, 38, was detained in August alongside Rinchen Samdrup for helping him with his NGO work. Since then he has been serving a 21-month sentence of re-education through labor for harming national security.

In addition to the three brothers, two of the brothers' cousins have also been targeted, according to Barnett.

Their cousin Sonam Choephel, was sentenced to one and a half years of re-education through labor after organizing a group to petition in Beijing on Rinchen Samdrup's behalf, he said.

Another cousin, Rinchen Dorje, a monk who had worked with Karma Samdrup as his interpreter, was reported to have been detained by authorities in March, and his family says he is currently missing, according to Barnett.

Several artists and intellectuals have been detained or have disappeared in recent months in what activists say amounts to the broadest suppression of Tibetan culture and expression in years.

Tensions have frequently risen in Tibetan areas of China since deadly rioting broke out following days of peaceful protests by Tibetans in their capital, Lhasa, in March 2008.

"I think we can see very clearly that in the last two years Chinese security forces in Tibetan areas have significantly shifted their targets from monks, lower-middle class activists, nuns, etc., to intellectuals seen as cultural figures. And this is because those people were involved and were mobilized by the Chinese reaction to the protests of March 2008, Barnett said.

"And this [Rinchen Samdrup's] case fits in with that general pattern."

Original reporting by Dolkar for RFA's Tibetan service. Translated from the Tibetan by Karma Dorjee. Tibetan service director: Jigme Ngapo. Written for the Web in English by Rachel Vandenbrink. Additional reporting by newswires.

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