Thousands of Tibetans Protest Against Mine 30th May

As many as 5,000 Tibetans have protest­ed against Chi­nese min­ing

As many as 5,000 Tibetans have protest­ed against Chi­nese min­ing

oper­a­tions at a site con­sid­ered sacred by local res­i­dents, draw­ing a large secu­ri­ty force to the area and prompt­ing fears of clash­es, accord­ing to Tibetan sources this week.

The protest last Fri­day took place at Nagl­ha Dzamb­ha moun­tain in Tibet’s Driru (in Chi­nese, Biru) coun­ty, the scene of sim­i­lar protests two years ago, sources said.

“On May 24, about 100 mem­bers a Chi­nese com­pa­ny arrived at Nagl­ha Dzamb­ha on the pre­text of putting up cable tow­ers and pow­er lines and build­ing hydro­elec­tric projects for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple,” a res­i­dent of the area told an RFA Tibetan Ser­vice call-in show on Sat­ur­day.

“Actu­al­ly, they were there to mine min­er­als,” the source said, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

About 5,000 local Tibetans then gath­ered in Driru to protest, he said, and of that num­ber, 3,500 went to the pil­grim­age site to demand an end to the project, say­ing “Please leave our resources where they are.”

Six men cho­sen to rep­re­sent the peo­ple of Driru approached the Chi­nese com­pa­ny with a peti­tion not to fur­ther harm the local envi­ron­ment, but author­i­ties on Sat­ur­day deployed secu­ri­ty forces in about 50 trucks to the protest site, RFA’s source said.

Coun­ty author­i­ties lat­er “gave in to the pop­u­lar out­cry and made an announce­ment to that effect,” eas­ing imme­di­ate fears of a crack­down, but Tibet’s India-based exile gov­ern­ment in a sep­a­rate report described the sit­u­a­tion in Driru as “tense.”

Fre­quent stand­offs

Min­ing oper­a­tions in Tibetan regions have led to fre­quent stand­offs with Tibetans who accuse Chi­nese firms of dis­rupt­ing sites of spir­i­tu­al sig­nif­i­cance and pol­lut­ing the envi­ron­ment as they extract local wealth.

In March, oper­a­tions at the Gya­ma mine in Tibet’s Mal­dro Gongkar coun­ty near Lhasa caused a cat­a­stroph­ic land­slide that killed 83 min­ers.

And in Jan­u­ary, Tibetan sources told RFA that Chi­nese-oper­at­ed mines in Lhun­drub coun­ty, also near Lhasa, have caused “severe” dam­age to local forests, grass­lands, and drink­ing water.

Waste from the mines, in oper­a­tion since 2005, “has been dumped in the local riv­er, and min­ing activ­i­ties have pol­lut­ed the air,” one source said.