(TibetanReview.net, Feb28’24) – China has imposed a lockdown on the seven monasteries along the two banks of eastern Tibet’s Drichu (Chinese: Jinsha) river which it is set to demolish to make way for a massive hydropower dam project in Dege County of Sichuan province, reported the Tibetan service of rfa.org Feb 27, citing local Tibetan sources speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.
More than 1,000 monks and other local Tibetans have been arrested over Feb 22-23 after they petitioned the authorities as well as held protests since Feb 14 to seek a halt to the project.
China has reportedly released around 20 monks each on Feb 26 and 27. But the brutal ill-treatment of the vast majority still under arrest continues while tight restrictions on movement and control over communication channels have been imposed over the county.
Those released were among a large group of monks arrested from Wonto (or Wangdui) Monastery, the report said, citing local Tibetan sources. The authorities have imposed strict restrictions on their contact with the outside world, the report added.
“One of the main reasons for the release of the Tibetans is the growing media coverage abroad of the mass arrests that have taken place,” one source has told rfa.org.
Monks who had to be hospitalized due to severe beating during interrogation had been permitted to return to their monastery. However, all the seven monasteries – Wonto, Yena and Khardho monasteries in Wangbuding town on the east bank of the river in Dege and Rabten, Gonsar, Tashi and Pharok monasteries on its west bank in Tibet Autonomous Region – have been placed under lockdown, with no one being allowed to enter or leave them, the report said.
Local Tibetans have been petitioning and protesting since Feb 14 not only because the dam will submerge two villages, which are home to some 2,000 locals, but especially due to the fact that seven monasteries along the two banks of the Drichu in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River had been earmarked for destruction. One of these monasteries, the Wonto, was built in the 13th century and has priceless murals dating from that time.
The Gangtuo Dam is part of a plan announced by China’s National Development and Reform Commission in 2012 to build a massive 13-tier hydropower complex on the Drichu. It is located at Wontok (or Gangtuo, in Chinese) in Dege county, northwest of Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The total planned capacity of the 13 hydropower stations is 13,920 megawatts.