Photo courtesy of an RFA listenerMore than a hundred Tibetan villagers turned out on Tuesday in northwestern China’s Gansu province to protest the mining of gold near a sacred mountain, drawing large numbers of police and other security forces to the area, local sources said.
The May 31 protest in Amchok township in Sangchu (in Chinese, Xiahe) county follows 15 years of frustrated appeals to officials to halt the work, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“But the mining only continued,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The mining company had previously prevented a united Tibetan resistance to its operations “by spreading money and other benefits to many in the area,” the source said.
“But now, the local Tibetans have been driven to desperation and have launched this protest.”
The threatened mountain, Gong Ngon Lari, has been regarded for generations as a sacred site by the township’s cluster of eight villages, the source said.
“Villagers are now protesting at the mine with a large banner calling for all activities there to stop and for local officials to look into their appeal and take the issue up with higher authorities if necessary,” he said.
Protesters surrounded
Armed paramilitary police and other security forces arrived shortly after the protest began, and quickly surrounded the protesters, the source said.
No word was immediately available regarding clashes or detentions in the area.
Two years ago, more than a hundred Tibetan residents of another Sangchu county township protested the seizure of farmland for the construction of roads tied to state-linked gold mining and industrial operations, sources said in earlier reports.
The April 2, 2014 protest by banner-carrying residents of Hortsang township came two weeks after other local demonstrations against government seizure of Tibetan land, and quickly drew police to the protest site.
Tibet has become an important source of minerals needed for China’s economic growth, and Chinese mining operations in Tibetan areas have often led to widespread environmental damage, including the pollution of water sources for livestock and humans and the disruption of sacred sites, experts say.
Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.
