What would it take for you to leave your home and relocate your family hundreds of miles away?
This is happening in Tibet, where Chinese government officials are using pressure and coercion – ranging from misleading promises of wealth to repeated threats – forcing rural Tibetans to relocate the villages they lived in for years.
Yes, to relocate their entire villages.
Coercion and Threats
A new Human Rights Watch report describes how, since 2016, officials in Tibet have relocated or are currently relocating 500 villages with over 140,000 residents to new locations, often hundreds of kilometers away. Authorities claim – misleadingly – such “whole village relocation” programs will lead to better employment and higher incomes for villagers, who are largely herders or farmers.
The Chinese government also says relocation is voluntary. But state media contradicts that claim. Also, it is virtually impossible for villagers to refuse to move without facing serious repercussions.
Moving Back?
Because of China’s crackdown on the flow of information from Tibet, and the high risks for people who speak to the media, Human Rights Watch relied on government documents and publicly available media in researching this report.
At no time did Human Rights Watch find that a village or any of its members, once scheduled for relocation, could avoid being moved.
Moving back usually isn’t possible either – the government generally requires villagers to demolish their former homes within a year of relocating.
Legacy of Relocation
Since the 1950s, the Chinese government has involuntarily relocated about 70 million people throughout China, often ostensibly for the purposes of urban development.
As the government expanded its relocation measures in poorer rural areas, it began to move villages through programs meant to combat poverty, bringing people to areas deemed more suitable for farming and agriculture. In certain cases, this worked; people did make more money.
But in Tibet, some relocated households were not even registered as poor. Rather, they were actually prosperous. And studies show that most relocatees, having been moved to areas where their farming or herding skills cannot be used, are unable to get sustainable employment.
A Culture Eroded
These relocation programs have a devastating impact on Tibetan communities. Together with government programs to assimilate Tibetan schooling, culture, and religion into those of the “Chinese nation,” the relocations erode Tibetan culture and ways of life.
The bottom line is that people have the right to be protected from forced evictions. If the Chinese government can’t demonstrate that it is complying with its own and international laws, these relocation programs should be stopped.
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