(TibetanReview.net, May22’24) — China has coercively removed more than 700,000 farmers and herdsmen from their ancestral villages and grasslands in occupied Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since 2016 with promises of “improved living conditions” only to leave their fate to joblessness, economic hardship and social exclusion in new urban sprawls or villages where they were made to resettle, according to a new report released May 21 by New York-based Human Rights Watch. Those refusing to relocate have even been accused of being separatists.
The Tibetans uprooted from their ancestral homes included 567,000 who are now scattered across the TAR, while 140,000 others had some 500 new villages built for them, the report said, citing official publications and field research findings.
The 71-page report, Educate the Masses to Change their Minds: China’s Coercive Relocation of Rural Tibetans, is based on information from over 1,000 official Chinese media articles dating between 2016 and 2023, as well as government publications and academic field studies, the group said.
While the national and regional authorities issued the orders, local officials used coercion and other extreme forms of persuasion to pressure villagers and nomads to “agree” to relocate themselves, official press reports were cited as saying. Still, China has claimed that the relocations were voluntary and would improve livelihoods as well as protect the environment.
Local officials too had little choice in the mater. Senior authorities put pressure on local officials to carry out the relocations as non-negotiable policies, threatening disciplinary action against those who failed to meet their relocation targets, the report said.
The coercive “persuasions” to relocate were stated to include repeated home visits by officials, disparaging the villagers’ intellectual capacity to make decisions, implicit threats of punishment for refusing to relocate, and snapping of basic utilities and services such as electricity and water.
Officials were also stated to have lied to the victims by saying they would be provided employment opportunities and would earn higher incomes after their relocation.
Besides, “when a whole village is targeted for relocation, it is practically impossible for the residents to refuse to move without facing serious repercussions,” Maya Wang, the group’s acting China director, has said in a statement.
And while “the Chinese government says that the relocation of Tibetan villages is voluntary, … official media reports contradict this claim,” Maya has added.
Making it clear that the whole exercise, especially the coercive measures, violated even Chinese laws, the group has urged Beijing to suspend the relocations in Tibet and conform with Chinese laws and standards as well as international law concerning relocations and forced evictions.
One victim has told the report that when the Tibetans in his village refused to be moved to Lhasa, “Chinese authorities accused us of disobeying national orders and labelled us as separatists.”
He has said the order to relocate came suddenly, compelling the Tibetans to sell their herds in a rush, which left them with nothing for their sustenance.
As regards the new homes provided by the Chinese government, the victim, who has not provided his real name for safety reasons., has said they were very small, with large families of 10 or so members forced to live in only two to three rooms, forcing some to sleep in tents on verandas.
Getting jobs or taking up business has been out of the question for most of the relocation victims as they lacked any prior experience or qualification.
Elaine Pearson, the group’s director of Asia Division has told RFA that relocations had occurred both across the TAR and in Tibetan-populated areas in Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, besides other parts of the People’s Republic of China as well.
However, “Tibetans have a particular connection with the land and their livelihoods, and they lose that connection if they are forced to move,” she has said.