Presented to

The First Session of the International Peoples' Tribunal on Human Rights and the Environment

Tenzing D. Sharchok

International Campaign For Tibet

'The Tibetan plateau is a fragile ecosystem, unique in many respects, which is endangered by unsustainable natural resource management practices'.1 In the name of economic development, China, during its rule over Tibet since 1950, has pushed unsustainable, large-scale, top down economic development in such a way that it has taken a tremendous toll on Tibet's environment, and in the process, grossly violated the human rights of the Tibetans.

Human and environmental exploitation often go hand in hand. In Tibet, for example, if a road is built to a village to access uncut forests for untapped mineral resources, the result, locally, will be an increase in Chinese laborers, police and government officials. Control over the local monastery will heighten, probably leading to greater restrictions on religious freedom. Implementation of family planning and other social control policies will also increase and may involve coercion. The extraction of minerals or the logging of timber will largely be done by or at the direction of the newly arrived Chinese workers and administrators. Some benefit may accrue to the Tibetans who have lived on the land for centuries, but more often than not, once the extraction becomes less profitable, the land is left despoiled and the traditional livelihood disrupted.

The Chinese leaders in Beijing have ultimate authority over what happens in Tibet. Though the Chinese government has given Tibetans more economic freedoms, through its cadres at the county level, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to have the final say in all major social, cultural, political, and economic decisions. Economic Development plans for Tibet are drawn centrally by the Chinese Government. As a result:

1. Tibetans, lacking significant political authority, are denied the right to participate in decisions that affect their local environment. 2 The development plans follow Chinese socialist models of modernization. Because Tibetans differ from the Chinese in how they organize their social, cultural, political and economic systems, the subsequent economic change is often "irrelevant to, or disruptive of, the nationality's existing livelihood, and can include the immigration of more Han".2 3. The motive behind these plans is to exploit the natural resources and to further China's political objectives of increasing its control of Tibet. This includes assimilating Tibetans by the promotion of transfer of Han Chinese to Tibet. Though their natural resources are plundered, whether through deforestation for timber or mining for minerals, Tibetans have no say in the regulation/control of such activities and the proceeds from such activities stay with China. China's constitution asserts State ownership of all natura

l resources: " Mineral resources, waters, forests, mountains, grassland, unreclaimed land, beaches and other natural resources are owned by the state". 3 "To understand the attitude of Chinese people and government to Tibet, we need to comprehend two things. First is the history of attitudes to the territory of the Chinese empire, which has left a heritage even for the communist party that Tibet and other 'minority nationality' areas are subordinated to the needs of the Hans. Second is the more recent phase of economic reforms (since 1979), which has given new significance to this subordination: the exploitation of land and natural resources for the benefit of a Han defined program of modernization."4

POPULATION TRANSFER

In addition to the strong presence of Chinese military personnel, China continues to send ethnic Han Chinese to Tibet, justifying it as filling the need for skilled labor 5 for the large-scale projects in Tibet. However, this is often not the case. "Han Chinese are serving the development market providing services to other Chinese in Tibet. There's no reason why Tibetans shouldn't be doing this".6 The Central Committee of the Communist Party has gone on record 7 saying "Individuals from the hinterland (China) are encouraged and supported to come to Tibet" and offering "preferential conditions to attract all sorts of qualified personnel from the hinterland to serve in Tibet". While subsidies have been promised to improve the Tibetan economy, they hardly seem to reach the Tibetans who claim that they are wasted, used to support the bureaucracy (largely Chinese) created by the Chinese 8 and to resettle Chinese immigrants.9 The sustenance of the influx of the Han Chinese population in Tibet has also put consider

able demands on the land in Tibet. 'For a long time in the past, a policy was enforced which was not aimed at the utilization of land in compliance with local conditions, but was aimed at growing crops, particularly grain crops, in all places regardless of their specific climactic and land conditions. Production suited to the local conditions was ousted...... The result was disastrous: For each hectare of land reclaimed, three hectares of land have turned to sand; and while the "pastures are eaten up by agriculture, farmland is eaten up by sandstorms".'10

DEFORESTATION

There is widespread, conspicuous and relentless deforestation in Tibet and "too little emphasis is placed on the planting and tending of seedlings"11. This has left barren slopes where once there were lush green forests and a thriving wildlife. Tibet's forest cover declined from 25.2 million hectares to 13.57 million hectares under Chinese rule. Old growth forest have been leveled in the Ngapa, Karze, and Mill regions and approximately 18 million cubic meters of timber was transported into China between 1965 and 1985 from the Nyintri, Gingthang, and Drago regions.12 By its own admission, by 1985 China had removed US $54 billion13 worth of timber from Tibet. According to Li Wenhua a Chinese forestry expert, logging efficiency throughout China is 60%, while in Tibet due to the transportation problems, it is even lower. Forests are clear-cut and may even be left to rot due to the poor coordination of the Government agencies responsible for the hauling of cut logs to China.

The heavy machinery used in logging tramples forest vegetation, and results in compaction of the soil leaving it unfit for seedling germination. The barren under canopy soil is prone to scouring gullies and ditches and erosion under heavy rain. Also, the use of rivers to transport logs causes erosion of the river banks. The landslides and soil erosion that occur as a result not only affect the people living upstream in Tibet, they also affect the people living downstream in other countries such as India, Bangladesh and Burma.

MINING

Tibet is rich in mineral resources and has substantial reserves of uranium, chromate, coal, copper, mica, gold, borax, lithium, iron, lead and zinc amongst others. Because ores are harder to access and more difficult to transport than logs, the development of mining has not been as rapid as the timber industry. But as roads are open and railways are laid and new power sources are made available, the mining operations are quickly expanding.

Effective April 1, 1994 the Chinese government promulgated new regulations on "Mineral Rights Fees", which "promote the prospecting ...and ... development of mineral resources" consistent with China's plan 'to exploit the resources of our Autonomous regions so as to minimize imports of such resources".

Mining operations, Chinese government as well as private, scar Tibet's landscape and cause severe landslide and soil erosion. According to Phuntsok Gyalpo, Deputy Director of the Tibet Autonomous regions Department of Industry, there are 148 mining zones in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).

Another development that has been a sore subject with Tibetans is the mining of gold. Tibetans have traditionally been fond of gold jewelry and have used gold in their temples. But their culture and religious heritage has made for careful removal of gold and in moderation, not the unabashed frenzy of a gold rush that independent miners from China have embarked on in Tibet in recent years.

Chinese government gold mining operations are, needless to say, well established and it is reported that the Chinese use prison labor in gold mines in Dartsedo and Dawu counties in Kartse, TAP14. Gold mining operations have left behind disturbed river beds and pitted hillsides, besides possibly toxic wastes of mercury which is used in the extraction of gold. Since the main thrust of the planned economic activities for Tibet in the 1990s is the "exploitation of mineral resources ", it is reasonable to expect that the worst is yet to come.

EDUCATION

One oft cited reason for the transfer of Chinese workers to Tibet is that Tibetan workers are not qualified. But a careful look at the education system and the job market shows that Tibetans are systematically deprived of better education opportunities.

The quality of education in most schools in Tibet is poor. It is documented that the better schools in Tibet are the ones that have a majority of Chinese students.

Tibetan language has been relegated into a folk language in Tibet, with most official business, including jobs and bureaucratic forms requiring Chinese. While at home the Tibetan students are taught to value their culture and their language, in school Tibetan language is looked down upon, and they are taught that Tibetans are "ignorant" and "stupid". To succeed, one must attend a prestigious school in the Chinese stream. This requires the students' parents to have good 'guanxi' (connections). It also forces a Tibetan student to put his/her Tibetan identity at risk. This type of bias reinforces Tibetans' lack of expertise.15 Not only is it specially difficult for Tibetan students to succeed, but studying Tibetan is discouraged by the Chinese system. The education infrastructure has thus become a prime source of the sinofication of Tibetans.

The Chinese point out that illiteracy was widespread in Tibet before 1950. While true, this claim overlooks the highly sophisticated and widespread monastic education that existed in the monasteries for hundreds of years and which is all but destroyed by the Chinese in Tibet.

CONCLUSION

There is a very clear linkage between human rights and environmental issues in Tibet. The aggressively consumptive course of development policies espoused by China in Tibet have resulted in unsustainable development projects that have resulted in land loss, marginalization of the rights of Tibetans to their land and its resources, and serious environmental degradation affecting not only Tibet but also its neighbors. Tibetans have been denied the right to free and informed consent before projects, supposedly to benefit Tibetans, are undertaken in Tibet. They have also been robbed of both present and future economic benefits accruing from their natural resources and are threatened with spiralling poverty. The protection of human rights and the protection of the environment both require the ability of people to effectively organize and voice their concerns to local and national governments. In Tibet, there are few, if any, forms of redress for the violation of human rights or degradation to the environment. We

present this case in the hope that the International Peoples Tribunal will recognize the situation in Tibet and advocate practices necessary to achieve sustainable development in Tibet.

1 Environmental and Energy Study Institute, "Partnership for Sustainable Development: A New US. Agenda for International and Environmental Security," May 1991, p12.

2 Terry Cannon, "National Minorities and the Internal Frontier." In Davis S. Goodman, ed., China's Regional Development. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1989, p.164.

3 The Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China, 4 December 1982;Chapter 1 Article 9.

4 Terry Cannion , "China's Development Policies and the environment : Problems and Prospects for Tibet", Tibet Environment and Development News, November 1993.

5 Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS); 5 April 1991 "State Supports Tibet's Economic Development".

6 Anonymous interview, March 1991 in "Developing Tibet? A Survey of International Development Projects", Cultural Survival and International Campaign for Tibet, 1992, p125.

7 The policy statements came out of the Third Work Forum on Tibet, held in July 1994.

8 "Social and Economic Statistics Year Book of Tibet 1989," in Tseten Wangchuk, 1991, p24.

9 See Appendix IV :,Wang and Bai, Poverty of Plenty New York: St. Martins Press, 1991.

10 Liu Guonguong and Liang Wensen, "China's Economy in the Near 2000", as in Tibet Environment and Development New, January 1994, p5.

11 Dong Ziyong, Vice Minister of Forestry, Peoples Republic of China, "Present Situation of Forest Administration in Southwest Region of China And its Role in River Basin management", as in Essential Environmental Materials on Tibet, International Campaign for Tibet, February 1991.

12 Issue Paper Human Rights and the Environment , Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, February 1990.

13 The Nation, as in Essential Environmental Materials on Tibet, International Campaign for Tibet, February 1991.

14 Steven D. Marshall and Susette T. Cooke, Manuscripts of "Tibet Outside the TAR", Alliance for Research on Tibet, June 1997.

15 See Anne Forbes and Carole McGranahan, Developing Tibet? A survey of International Development Projects, Cultural Survival and International Campaign for Tibet, 1992, p129.

Appendix

Responsible Party : The Peoples Republic of China

Address : The Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China

2300 Connecticut Avenue

Washington, DC 20008

Telephone #: (202)328-2500