"Death blow" for Tibet´s nomads comes from Berlin

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) accused the Bombardier

Transportation Company, which has its head office in Berlin, of

contributing to the destruction of the nomad country with the construction

of 361 railway carriages for a controversial railway line across the roof

of the world. " The 1st July 2006 is a black day for Tibet", said the GfbV

Asia expert, Ulrich Delius. "For this railway line will give the

death blow to Tibet´s traditional nomad society, since it will bring

hundreds of thousands of additional Chinese settlers to Tibet." The line

between Gormo (in Chinese: Golmud) and the Tibetan capital Lhasa will be officially opened on 1st July 2006.

The Bombardier Transportation Company, which has its head office in

Berlin, is the world´s leading manufacturer of railway stock. It is part

of the Canadian technology concern Bombardier and produces not only in

Berlin- Hellersdorf and at 42 other centres, but also employs 1,400

persons in China. There the carriages were built in a joint venture with

Chinese firms and a Canadian company between December 2005 and May 2006.

The Chinese Railway Ministry ordered 361 carriages valued at 213 million

euros. Bombardier´s share lies according to the information provided by

the firm itself at about 59 million euros.

Tibet´s nomads fear for their survival. For the railway will transport at

least 900,000 passengers per annum. The nomads will lose their land

because tens of thousands of Chinese will settle along the railway line.

In the neighbouring province of Xinjiang, the migration area of the

Turk-speaking Uigurs, who are suppressed by Peking, more than 100,000

Chinese have settled along the line.

While official China today celebrates the new railway connection as a

master stroke of technical engineering Tibetans throughout the world have

called for protests against the opening. For them the railway line is an

expression of the express policy of Peking to change in the long run the

population structure in favour of the Han Chinese. Today already the

Tibetans are in the minority in the Tibetan towns. Although Peking boasts

of the "development" of the autonomous regions poverty has increased

especially in those rural areas inhabited by Tibetans.

The Tibetan nomads feel themselves as "third class people" as they are

discriminated and despised. Instead of respecting their culture and way of

life, which used the sensitive ecological system sparingly, the

authorities have taken away from the nomads their traditional land. Large

areas are now being used for intensive agriculture, which has led to

enormous environmental problems.