(TibetanReview.net, Nov17’21) – A light brawl had erupted between Tibetan villagers and Chinese officials in Yushu Prefecture of Qinghai Province on Nov 10 over the latter’s continued failure to respect a promise to compensate the former for land taken from them earlier this year, reported the Tibetan Service of rfa.org Nov 16, citing local sources.
No injuries were reported from the incident which took place in the prefecture’s Domda Village, a picturesque rural area well supplied with basic urban facilities like water and electricity. The brawl reportedly led to construction work on the confiscated land being halted for the time being.
Chinese officials were stated to have seized a large parcel of land from Domda residents, saying it was needed to promote local development. Compensation was promised but nothing has been paid so far.
“So some local Tibetans from the village went to the construction site last week to halt the work until they are compensated for their land,” a local source has said. It was threats issued by official to the villagers if they continued to press their claims which reportedly led to the brawl.
The report said tension had been rising in the Domda area since work began four years ago to demolish nomadic housing to be replaced with apartment buildings earmarked for sale to Chinese immigrants and for tourism development constructions.
Earlier reports said that in Aug 2021, Chinese police stopped a group of Tibetans traveling on the road to Domda, pushing one who objected to a random search into a river, where he later died, and shooting another one who attempted to intervene.
Qinghai Province, which constitutes the bulk of the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo (or Domey), has seen hundreds of thousands of Tibetans nomads being taken off their ancestral grazing land in the name of improving their living standard and protecting the environment. They ended up being put into poorly built urban facilities with no means of livelihood.
