Dharamsala backs worldwide campaign to halt project in Tibet

Says the World Bank-funded project encourages more Chinese onto Tibetan plateau

DHARAMSALA, 11 June 1999 - Amidst rising controversy , the executive directors of the World Bank will decide on 22 June whether to okay its controversial farming project in Tibet while Tibetans worldwide and the Tibetan administration in exile join hands to renew their campaign to halt the project which they describe as encouraging more Chinese settlers onto the Tibetan plateau and thus further undermining the ability of the Tibetans in the area to protect their distinctive culture.

In a letter to the president of the World Bank and other executive directors, Kalon T.C. Tethong, the minister for the Department of Information and International Relations, said, "In our considered judgement the project in Tulan in Amdo (re-named Qinghai by the Chinese) will do more harm than good to the Tibetans in the area because it will reduce their capacity to exist as a distinct cultural entity because of the project's plan to re-settle more than 60,000 Chinese famers in the region. We are also convinced that the project will contribute to social and ethnic tension in the area."

The US $100 million project is aimed at converting estimated area of 45,000 square kilometres into farmland to be worked by about 61,775 Chinese and Hui Muslim farmers to be brought outside of the region.

The Tibetan concerns are that the project is planned without local participation, will reduce the already dwindling Tibetan and Mongolian into impoverished minorities and the project will have a huge adverse impact on the region's fragile eco-system. The Tibetans also argue that the proposed project in Tibet goes against the World Bank's own regulations which state that the bank won't finance any project which goes to undermine the cultural integrity of a minority people.

The latest voice to join the chorus of protest over the planned project in Tibet is the US administration. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said that the US government was "inclined to oppose the project."

Meanwhile Tibet supporters throughout the world have flooded the World Bank office based in Washington, DC with faxes, e-mails and signature campaign letters. The World Bank officials were also presented two letters from Tibet itself, demanding the bank to withdraw its support for the project.

A new arrival from Tibet, a resident of Tulan itself, said that water to irrigate the planned farmland will be drained from nearby Tsonag lake. In order to do this, Tibetan and Mongolian farming villages which receive their current water from the lake will be cut off once the project goes through. One of the letters stated that if the project goes through then the World Bank was passing "a death sentence to the Tibetans of the region."

The Tibetan who wishes not to be named because he plans to return said that the lake area will also be the site of a dam. The hydro-electric power generated by the dam will be used to extract oil. Though the region has long been identified has being oil-rich, the Chinese have not been able to do anything about it mainly because they lacked the power to extract the underground oil. The new dam will remedy this.

The Tibetan efforts will get a major boost on 13 June when in four cities 75,000 teenagers will be reminded to lend their hand and voice to protest the Woorld Bank project in Tibet. The Freedom Concert to be held simultaneously in Tokyo, Sydney, Amsterdam and Chicago will make the Tulan project its common theme.

Department of Information and International Relations

Central Tibetan Administration

Dharamsala - 176215

H.P. INDIA

Tele: 0091-1892-22457, 22510

Fax: 0091-1892-24957