(TibetanReview.net, Jan25’19) – China has not only forced nomads and farmers in five counties of Chamdo prefecture-level City of Tibet Autonomous Region to relocate in newly built urban towns but also made them pay for their new homes while saying it was meant to alleviate their poverty. The relocated Tibetans are now unable to cope with the demands of the daily life in their new settlements with promised poverty alleviation assistances not forthcoming, reported the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Jan 23.
The state-ordered resettlement scheme has already been implemented in Chamdo’s Jomda, Gonjo, Dragyab, and Riwoche counties, with families forced to pay as much as 8,000 yuan for new homes, the report cited a local source as saying. Besides, around 40 families from rural areas in Chamdo’s Pashoe County have also been moved to county towns, although many of them did not want to relocate.
Officials were reported to have promised them all sorts of assistance to make them to move.
Recent reports suggest that such assistance, when given, are subject to Tibetans giving up their worship of the Buddha and replacing it will making of religious offerings to images of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The report cited Rinzin Dorjee, a researcher at the Tibet Policy Institute of the Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, as saying China had not delivered on its promises of jobs, health care, and free education for the children of Tibetans forced to move to the new towns.
