More than 300,000 Tibetan nomads and farmers were forcibly resettled in 2008

The nomadic culture in Tibet which has lasted for thousands of years is threatened with extinction. This was reported by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) on Monday in Göttingen when it became known that 312,000 Tibetan nomads and small farmers were forcibly resettled in the year 2008 by the Chinese authorities in new "socialist villages”. Many nomads were forced to give up their herds of yak, goats and sheep. "A policy of taking away from the nomads their traditional ways of life and means of supporting themselves means the destruction of their culture and identity”, said the GfbV Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius. The human rights organisation accused the Chinese authorities of committing ethnocide against Tibet’s nomads.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua had reported that 57,000 nomad and farmers’ families were resettled in new houses under the programme "Comfortable Living” in Tibet in the year 2008. The programme was started in the year 2006, providing for 220,000 families to be settled down by the year 2012 in new socialist villages. This programme is intended to bring to the new settlements 80 percent of the nomads, semi-nomads and farmers living in the Autonomous Region of Tibet. Meanwhile 170,000 families, i.e.860,000 people are already living in these villages.

The Chinese authorities are speaking of an improvement in the living standards of the inhabitants of the new settlements, but those affected see matters quite differently. Many nomads and farmers are criticising the fact that they are not allowed to refuse the move and that they have to give up their old houses, which often lie in remote areas. In the new estates they can no longer keep their cattle. Many Tibetans, both men and women, bemoan the loss of their independence and the fact that they have been turned into wage-earners and recipients of charity.

The Chinese authorities have been working with various programmes since the year 2000 for the resettlement of the Tibetan nomads in the new government-built villages, which are easier to control. The aim is not just to destroy the traditional Tibetan society, but to pave the way for new projects of industry, mining, agriculture and infrastructure. The authorities say that the resettlement is necessary on the grounds of the progressing ecological destruction, for which they hold the farmers responsible. The fact that the reasons for the environmental problems are much more complex is ignored by the authorities.