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V.  Experiences of Compulsory or Forced Resettlement

Land suitable for forest should be planted with trees and land suitable for grass should be planted with grass and the policy of giving up farming for forest and giving up animal husbandry for grass should be diligently continued and carried forward. The traditional livelihood of the [herders] should be exchanged for market economy and prosperity should be embraced.

—F.H., from Pema (Banma) county, Golok prefecture, describing Chinese policy in his home district, January 2006.⁵⁵

Because there are no Chinese living in the remote pastoral areas of Tibet, many of our local people believe that the policy of putting Tibetan herders in the towns is in order to control those areas, and after the older generation passes away, we will gradually be assimilated into the towns...

—A.M., from Machen county, Qinghai Province, September 2005⁵⁶

On the basis of the policies described above, and in a variety of ways, tens of thousands of Tibetan herders have been required to give up their homes and traditional practices and to resettle, generally into urban or township settings where they struggle to establish themselves; in many cases the displacement and forced resettlement resulted in hardship and lower standards of living. Resettlement often entails the compulsory slaughter of livestock. Detailed below are the range of recent experiences with which Human Rights Watch is aware.

The accounts given to us by those forcibly resettled indicate some variation in the quality of the housing to which they were moved and the number of livestock they were forced to slaughter. But almost uniformly the interviewees recounted how the policies that led to their compulsory resettlement were implemented in a manner that gave them no effective opportunity to object, and little or no compensation (the issue of required consultation and compensation is discussed in more detail in Section VII).

Some of the affected people and communities have had to relocate more than once. E.A. told Human Rights Watch, “Our township is near the Tsa-nga hydropower station on the Yellow river, which was built by the government in 1988. Many villages had to migrate due to the damming of the river, and the Rabge Dewa [village community] was moved [near our township] at that time, and now they are being moved to another place called Tang Karma …”⁵⁷ (Tang Karma is described in more detail below).  One villager, N.M., said, “First they said that grass and willow trees were to be planted on the fields of our village to give protection against flooding. Then they said that [we have to move] to make the townships and county towns bigger...”⁵⁸

Grassland Division, Compulsory Livestock Reduction, Bans on Herding

The most extreme accounts of resettlement of herder communities come from the high pastures of Golok (Guolou) prefecture in Qinghai province. In 2003 a total ban on grazing was imposed, and herders were required to sell off their herds and move into government-built housing, mainly in the county capitals or newly constructed townships. After leaving the area in 2004 and 2005, several of the interviewees for this report, independently of one another, provided similar accounts of resettlement or expropriation campaigns already under way in Machen (Maqin), Darlak (Dari), Chikdril (Jiuzhi), and Pema (Banma) counties of Golok prefecture. 

Some Tibetan herders said that officials had told them their relocation was only a temporary measure to allow for rejuvenation of the pasture. F.R. reported to Human Rights Watch, “They said they will protect, prevent, guard, and manage the land and water by growing grasses and trees on the pasturelands for 10 years, after which they said they will let the herders return to their pasturelands and buy livestock to restart herder lives.”⁵⁹Yet there is no indication that such returns will eventuate.

Human Rights Watch’s discussions with Tibetans also suggest that policies designed to sedentarize herding communities, reduce their herds and curtail their access to pastureland have also been implemented in other parts of Qinghai⁶⁰, Gansu ⁶¹, Sichuan⁶², and Yunnan⁶³ provinces and the eastern prefectures of the TAR.⁶⁴

Most of those herders to whom Human Rights Watch spoke reported that the new policies stipulate a limit of five livestock per household member and require the rest of the livestock to be slaughtered or allowed to die. This compares with a usual holding in the region of anything up to a hundred or more yaks, sheep, and goats per household member. Other interviewees noted that they were allowed to keep 30 percent of their herds.⁶⁵ One 29 year-old man, K.Y., explained,

The government sets a limit of cattle numbers per household member and if you exceed that limit, you have to kill off the extra.... [T]he village leader comes to check, and there is no way that you could hide from him...⁶⁶

Some interviewees told Human Rights Watch that people are free to sell the animals for higher prices to private butchers, while others report that they must accept the fixed prices from government slaughterhouses (the issue of private slaughterhouses as an object of Tibetan opposition is discussed in Chapter VI). In principle, the proceeds from the sale of livestock are to be spent on investing in new urban livelihoods, such as shops or vehicles. According to H.D., from Tulan (Dulan) county, Tsonub (Haixi) prefecture, in Qinghai province,

It was said that from this year all the livestock of the Guri township herders would be destroyed, and they would be moved to that place and turned into town dwellers. The county and township governments announced many things about it, and the [Tibetan herders] are very worried …⁶⁷

Those households who have livestock were told they have to fence their pasture and can keep only 30 percent of their animals under a campaign launched in 2004, and that is causing much hardship. The rest of their animals must be sold to the slaughterhouse.⁶⁸

Some interviewees mentioned that local officials warned people that if they tried to avoid selling off their animals by entrusting them to friends or relatives elsewhere, they would be fined and the animals confiscated, and several such cases have occurred. One man, F.H., told Human Rights Watch,⁶⁹

Each person is allowed to keep only five or six cattle, but we keep more in secret... They say that cattle are overgrazing and damaging the environment, that the land belongs to the government, and that it is too much work for herders to keep big herds, but in our place more cattle means better livelihood, and no cattle means no livelihood. At the end of the year the township and village leaders come with a list to check the number of animals kept by each household, and they also list the household items and income. For one yak [over the limit] it’s [a fine of] about 1,000 yuan [US$130].⁷⁰

The principal effect of grassland division is to make pastoral life unviable and fraught with conflicts. Local officials are now collecting fines for livestock that stray beyond the fenced areas, and disputes amongst Tibetan herders are on the rise as grazing areas become increasingly scarce.

People of our area were saying that if the pasture were divided it would create discord between neighbors because animals would always stray out of their patch into someone else’s. There were many disputes in Kham and Amdo after the pasture was divided, and so people were worried...⁷¹

In the past, if cattle from different villages grazed on each others’ land no one said anything, but since they introduced a new regulation dividing land between villages, if your animals stray onto another village’s land, there will be a dispute, and such things are happening now. With the grazing land divided up, the animals don’t get enough to eat … ⁷²

Compulsory Change of Land Use

According to people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Tibetan agricultural communities in Qinghai, Sichuan, and Gansu started to be told in 2002 and 2003 that they were contributing to soil erosion and that planting grass, thorn bush, and willow trees on their land was the only way to prevent flooding downstream in the watershed. Consequently, land has been confiscated or its use compulsorily reassigned for planting, restricting land available for grazing or farming, and Tibetans have been forced to plant and tend the thorns and willows. One man in his early twenties told us,

The campaign of planting thornbush on farmland is being implemented in every village. Each village has to plant 100 mu. In most villages, thornbush was planted on good land....⁷³

In some instances the reassignment of the land means overt compulsory removal orders to herders. For example, F.R., from Machen county, described how the Qinghai provincial government announced in August-September 2003 that the area was to be included in the so-called MaDriZaSum [Machu, Drichu, and Zachu] Rivers Source Protection Scheme, entailing the compulsory reassignment of pastureland. He claimed herders were required to sell all their livestock within a year and relocate to new government-built homes, with promises of material assistance and a monthly stipend—which appears not to have ever materialized—but also with the threat that livestock of any family refusing to migrate would be subject to confiscation.⁷⁴ 

In other cases, herders and farmers are not ordered off their land or have not had livestock confiscated, but the compulsory change of use of some or all of their former pastureland or of fields formerly given over to crops makes it unsustainable for them to remain. Most of the interviewees who reported this experience to Human Rights Watch said that compulsory change of land use involved up to 50 percent of a household’s fields. Villagers were initially compensated for the loss of grain-producing land, households being allocated some 50-100 kilograms of grain or flour annually for the first year or two,⁷⁵ or in some cases cash. But several complained that they received less than initially promised. F.R. from Machen county in Qinghai, for example, said “Households who lost the use of farmland were given 100 gyama as promised in the first year, but the next year they got nothing, and it seems like there is no place to complain.”⁷⁶

In some cases areas of formerly common land were fenced and planted, depriving villagers of grazing for their sheep and goats. 

The grass seed or willow saplings were usually provided free, at least initially, and it was up to the farmers to plant them and ensure that they grew well. “You have to fence your land with the barbed wire and plant grass, a kind called mosotse. If it does not grow, you have to plant it again every year and look after it, otherwise you do not get any aid from the government,” F.S., from Chentsa (Jianza) county, Malho TAP (Huangnan prefecture) in Qinghai told Human Rights Watch, adding, “It is village duty, there is no wage, every person in the village between 18 and 50 has to go do that for 10-15 days every year in spring.”⁷⁷Others told of having to appoint and pay a few of their own people to watch the saplings and thorns in order to ensure that the deliveries of grain in compensation, dependent on successful growth, were forthcoming. ⁷⁸ Some villages failed, “Not a single tree planted on the farmland has grown well because sheep and goats eat them and no one waters or takes care of them. So there are just weeds and no trees on the empty fields.” 

Villagers were expected to find alternative means of income, something that interviewees found to be a struggle. M.U., from Tawu County, Kandze prefecture, told Human Rights Watch,

We are farmers, but since we were obliged to plant grass and trees on our land our [cultivatable] land has been reduced and people have become poor as a result. After that I did some goods trading but the local government collects many taxes on businesses and it is difficult to prosper. It is hard to make a living and I have two children who need to go to school.⁷⁹

Z.R., from Rigmon township in Chabcha county, Qinghai, told Human Rights Watch about a village into which Tibetans had moved. Lasilwa, in Yulung, was also experiencing an influx of Han Chinese migrants, who worked primarily in mines and factories. In addition, they have built on the farmland of the village, leaving the villagers unable to farm and unable to secure jobs in the mines or factories.⁸⁰

In the context of the compulsory removals associated with the MaDriZaSum Rivers Source Protection Scheme, some herders were moved to agricultural areas, which were useless to them. One person from Dulan county, Tso-nub (Haixi)prefecture, Qinghai, told Human Rights Watch that herder households in his area had been allocated farmland in a new settler colony near Guri township, but that “so far, this land has remained unplanted because the [herders] do not know how to farm …”⁸¹

E.A., from Chabcha county, described a project to develop what appears to be a new mixed farming settlement on the site of a disused prison at Tang Karma, Qinghai province, using forced resettlement—including of former herders—to what are currently very unwelcoming conditions:

They say there is a plan to move 2,000 households there, and 500 have already been moved from various counties in Qinghai …. Those households with livestock do not like it because there is no pasture there, and they have not moved yet …. Sometimes officials come and tell them to sell their animals and move out, but they don’t use force. In the end they will definitely have to go. There are a couple thousand mu of farmland at Tang Karma and there are plans to convert more grassland into farmland. Over 600 households, Chinese, Tibetan and Hui have already moved. Each household is given two or three rooms that used to be prison cells. They say in future each household will be given land to build on.⁸²

The Tang Karma project illustrates another aspect of relocation—the Chinese government’s policy of “support” to the rural poor by selective resettlement of the poorest members of some Tibetan herders communities. E.A. said that relocatees to Tang Karma were so far mainly those without livestock who would “move anywhere if there is farmland.”⁸³ Z.R. told Human Rights Watch how around 30 poor households from his herding village in Rigmon township of Chabcha country, Qinghai, had been required to give up the former livelihood as herders to move to Tang Karma:

According to the Chinese government, they talk about the need to cultivate farmland there. But Tang Karma is a desert where there is no electricity and drinking water, so it is hard to grow grain well. Not only that, those herders also don’t have any experience of cultivating fields and growing crops, so for sure they will have a difficult life.⁸⁴

Z.R. also commented of Tang Karma,

No new houses have been built, they have just put new doors and windows in the old prison buildings. The government made a lot of publicity about bringing electric and water facilities, but those who moved there say there is no such facility. The government talks about providing food subsidy eventually, but so far they got nothing...⁸⁵

Similar relocations to other former government facilities were reported by T.L. and S.Z. in Shasang Tang in Chentsa county⁸⁶ (see text box, below), also by H.C.in Batsang Tang in Mangra (Guinan) county, ⁸⁷ and in Qinghai by C.P. in Tang Karnak in Derong County, Kandze (Ganzi) prefecture, in Sichuan.⁸⁸ Relocations to other similar facilities have also taken place at Kartse Tang in Triga (Guide) county, Hainan prefecture, in Qinghai province.⁸⁹

In some instances, people from farming villages have had to move altogether into new urban accommodation and find alternative livelihood, just like some of the herders. Officials cited environmental justifications, but also the sheer imperative to enlarge the towns to speed up development. N.M., a villager from Nangchen county, Yushu prefecture in Qinghai, told us,

In 2002 officials came and held a meeting where they announced that we have to move out. They were leaders from the county government and Nyakla township government. Then the leader of our Nyagon village announced that we have to move from our place to near the county town, saying that this is a direct order from central government and not something made up [at lower levels]. Not a single household can stay behind. We should listen to the decision of the county government carefully, and it will benefit us. All villages in Nyakla township have to move to the town, to make the town bigger, and that we will not face any problem. Each household would be given a new house and 11,000 yuan (US$1,423) according to the number of household members, and the move has to be completed by 2004 …. [T]hey said that they have to make the villages, townships, and county towns bigger [to promote development] …. I did not move to the county town, but I watched my neighbors moving. They just loaded their household possessions onto horses or carried them on their back. There was no help from the government, they did it by themselves.⁹⁰

Urbanization is central to current development strategies in the Tibetan areas. The TAR government announced in 1996 that the number of towns in the region would increase from 31 to 105 by the year 2010. ⁹¹

Evictions for Public Works Schemes

Relocations are also taking place as a result of public works schemes, typically large-scale infrastructure projects such as roads and dams. The Chinese government insists that these large-scale infrastructure projects benefit the local population. The White Paper on Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China, for instance, states, “Since 1999, the Chinese government has launched large-scale transport infrastructure construction programs that were intended to benefit all ethnic autonomous regions.”⁹² Another White Paper, on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet, makes a similar point:

With the leapfrogging of stages of development as the target of economic and social development and the improvement of the infrastructure and the people's living standard as the key, it has independently arranged its economic and social development projects, and has thus guaranteed the rapid and healthy progress of Tibet’s modernization drive and the development of Tibet’s society and economy in line with the basic interests of the Tibetan people.⁹³

But a Chinese academic study obtained by Human Rights Watch contradicts these claims, at least in the case of Qinghai and Inner Mongolia:

Some of the ethnic minorities displaced because of infrastructure projects have not benefited at all from the opportunities for development coming from the exploitation of natural resources. It is in fact the opposite, after having been displaced their life environment worsened, and therefore there have been very big problems in raising their living standards and bettering their quality of life. This led some to protest under the slogan: “Give me back my land.”⁹⁴

The study also points out that Tibetans are seldom employed in these infrastructure projects:

These infrastructure projects themselves are fairly advanced technologically, and there is no choice but to employ people coming from the relatively developed areas of China.⁹⁵

Consequences for Livelihood, and Common Concerns for the Future

Policies adopted in an effort to protect the environment and modernize the region, have in reality increased the difficulties many Tibetans face in sustaining their livelihood. In situations where relocation to urban areas was not overtly forced on them, herders from several areas whom we interviewed said that fencing and herd restrictions are in effect forcing them to seek alternative income.⁹⁹ Compulsory change of land use in agricultural areas produces the same result as fencing and resettlement in pastoral areas, but it affects a larger and less remote population. As one interviewee commented, “In the past there were very few, but nowadays the number of people going for wage labor is increasing because the difficulty of earning a living is getting worse, and there are strong indications that the living standards of Tibetans are poor.” The most common experience appears to be relocation (seasonal or permanent) to seek casual employment in urban areas or on construction sites. 

The Chinese authorities portray this kind of relocation as positive, with one government-run newspaper concluding,

Following implementation, the numbers of those going outside their native places for work steadily increased … The implementation of “give up farmland for forest” was a powerful factor encouraging the growth of engagement in formal employment and of rural industries, providing a source of continual and stable income for farmers and herders.¹⁰⁰

But in stark contrast with glowing accounts in the official media, a number of academic studies of the ecological migration policies in Qinghai obtained by Human Rights Watch confirm the reality of the livelihood difficulties recounted by resettled herders. Employment opportunities are often lacking. “Because they are not skilled enough … upon resettlement, ethnic minority laborers don’t find job easily,” acknowledges one study.¹⁰¹ Interviewees told us that taking up business or other forms of income generation is impractical or even impossible without any background skills or experience, especially as the market for labor and commerce has become highly competitive in Tibetan areas in recent years. As one person explained,

My father says that... the government is destroying the wealth of the [herders] and eliminating their livelihood. Even if we become town dwellers and try to do business, we don’t have the education or the experience to succeed. We don’t even know how to live from farming. So in future we will face great difficulty.¹⁰²

Another study blames the fact that “financial investments are insufficient,” in particular funds for resettlements and for easing migrants into their new life.¹⁰³ Corroborating this, an interviewee from Chentsa county in Qinghai, F.S., described his experience of being forcibly relocated from a farming village to a makeshift town:

About 300 households from different villages in our township had to migrate to a place called Tsogenkhug. The township leaders came to the villages and announced how many had to leave, and then it was decided by lottery which households had to go. My household was given about 20,000 yuan (US$2,588) in compensation, calculated according to the size of the house and the quality of the timber. Tsogenkhug is about 30 kilometers away near the Yellow River. Each household was given one square room accommodation for the time being, and nowadays they are all building their own separate houses. No money is given for this apart from what they received in compensation. Each person regardless of age was allotted half a mu of farmland. The land was prepared by the government and they installed water pumps (for irrigation), but there is not much production because the land is so small. We have to pay 30 yuan a year for water and 0.4 yuan per unit of electricity, but they said farmland tax will not have to be paid for a few years. Conditions are poor because the land is so small and we have no livestock. People go for part-time work like roads and construction. My household has become poor compared to the past.¹⁰⁴

F.R. told us how payments to help families make the transition to their new livelihood in the urban economy are similarly insufficient: 

They didn’t give food or money allowance. Relocated families complain that their life is hard because now they have to buy everything, even meat and dung fuel for the stove.¹⁰⁵

Official statements on the resettlement policy claim that “ecological migrants” will benefit from the loss of their land in the long term, by making the transition to a new improved livelihood as shopkeepers or entrepreneurs in the urban economy. However few of those “migrants” themselves shared this optimism. M.U. was among the Tibetan herders who articulated their concerns about their inability to succeed in monetized, urban economies:

The township leaders encourage people to do business and change their way of life but many Chinese have come to Tawu county town [in Sichuan] and the township centers, have opened shops and restaurants, and are overseeing house and road construction. Tibetans cannot match them in competition because first they have more capital and second they have experience and know well how to deal with government leaders. Tibetans have to give in to the Chinese in their own land.¹⁰⁶

Some of the households who resettled near our township centre have opened shops and restaurants, and since there are many people traveling through who buy goods and eat, they manage to earn a living, but in the future they will have problems, because so many Chinese migrants are settling in the county town and the townships also, and since they have far better skills, I think the Tibetans will lose out... The Chinese run restaurants, shops, bars, video game parlors, movie halls and so on, and they probably have good business because most of the young Tibetan school graduates are unemployed and go to such places to pass their time.¹⁰⁷

One young man, P.T., made it clear that the “happy life” promised by local authorities remained elusive:

The government says that if we sell our animals and start businesses like shops and restaurants we would have a happy life and not have to work so hard. In our village at present, about 100 households still have cattle, and 100 have none left. Of those, about 50 opened shops and restaurants, but they don’t know how to do good business or how to prepare food very well, so naturally they became poor. The other 50 have no shops, no restaurants, and no cattle.¹⁰⁸

The concerns expressed by Tibetan interviewees are echoed by a comprehensive Chinese study of the results of ecological migration policies, stressing “unimaginable problems and difficulties” for herders resettled in urban areas:

In the present situation, the majority of migrants of ethnic areas do not migrate to big or medium cities, but are set into the surroundings of little towns. This of course is beneficial to the goal of urbanizing the ethnic population, but at the same time also causes a series of problems that deserve consideration. New migrants who have moved to the cities find the use of their mother tongue deeply challenged, and are confronted to profound changes in their environment and way of live, as well as to a radical change in the way social relations between people are conducted...  The future that awaits them presents unimaginable problems and difficulties.¹⁰⁹

B.U. told Human Rights Watch,

If all [the herder families] are obliged to move to the city, they are bound to become impoverished, as there is no income for them there at all. Because of this, there are very many among the herders who are anxious about the future.¹¹⁰

Numbers

Human Rights Watch is not able to determine the size of the Tibetan population affected by forced resettlement, but the numbers clearly run into the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.

The most detailed official data comes from the Three Rivers Area of Qinghai, According to official media reports, since the launch in 2003 of what are termed the “ecological migration policies,” the Three Rivers Area has resettled 28,000 people (6,156 households), and the government has constructed 14 “migrant urban districts” to carry out the policy of “concentrated settlements” (jizhong anzhi).¹¹¹ In late 2004 the government announced that it planned to move 43,600 people (7,921 households) out of the Three Rivers Area, to turn its central zone into a “no-man’s land” (wurenqu).¹¹²