TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

Executive Summary

Recommendations

 

Section 1: Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

 

Land and Housing Rights

Right to Livelihood

Right to Education

Right to Health

Right to Development

 

 

Section 2: Civil and Political Rights

 

Respect for Civil Liberties

Freedom of Religious Belief and Practice

 

 

Section 3: Appendices

 

Current List of Known Political Prisoners

List of Known Arrests in 2002

List of Known Arrests in previous years (information received in 2002)

List of Tibetans Detained in Nepal

List of Known Prisons in TAR and Outside TAR

Ratification of International Covenants by China

Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

 

Monitoring and evaluating human rights violations in Tibet for 2002 has continued to be a challenge for the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) considering the tremendous lack of transparency and secretive nature in which Chinese authorities work, coupled with cynical moves by Beijing to avoid international criticism of its human rights record in Tibet. In the absence of free and independent access to Tibet, TCHRD has researched academic papers and Beijing's White Papers for data on Chinese policies in Tibet and also made use of information provided by independent travellers. However, our greatest source remains the testimonies of refugees fleeing Tibet, including former political prisoners. Tibetans can best report on what is happening in their country and the information they provide is crucial in understanding the situation on the ground.

 

The year 2002 was marked by key changes in the political control of the Chinese government. The 16th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in November appointed to China’s helm of affairs Hu Jintao as Party-Secretary, a man little known to the outside world but remembered by Tibetans as the hardline leader responsible for the imposition of Martial Law in Tibet in 1989 and for the introduction of potentially repressive policies that became the beginning of the end of what had been a relatively liberal decade in the region.

 

2002 was also a year of intensifying contradictions. China’s human rights policies and practices in Tibet were not only contradictory and self-defeating, but also without consistency. There was a pattern of Beijing’s human rights diplomacy using the cover of concessions to prelude fresh crackdowns on dissent assuming that world leaders are less likely to react strongly after a gesture of goodwill.

The 58th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a huge disappointment to the peoples of China,Tibet, Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) and Inner Mongolia. With no “Resolution on China”, UN member countries again failed to condemn and censor China for its poor human rights record.

 

The universality and indivisibility of human rights, persistently reiterated by UN delegates after the Vienna Declaration in 1993, was blatantly negated by speeches of Chinese diplomats at the UN this year. According to Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya, “owing to their different history, culture, social system and the stage of economic development, it is only natural for countries to adopt different ways, approaches and processes in realising human rights”. China claims the right to a special form of relativism. In effect this is a claim for exemption from the very concept of the universality of human rights.

 

TCHRD continued to monitor the human rights situation on the ground in Tibet throughout 2002 and found little serious effort on the part of the Chinese authorities to improve the lives of the Tibetan people or to guarantee their fundamental rights and freedoms. During the year, China tried hard to block voices of dissent from being heard inside the country as well as from outside. Within the country harassment and imprisonment of dissidents remained high. Security was tight in Beijing and around the Great Hall of the People during the 16th CPC meeting. Hotels and guesthouses were strictly ordered not to accept Uighurs and Tibetans.

 

Outside the country, China used its power as a member of the UN Security Council to block accreditation to three Tibetan rights groups to participate in world conferences including the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). TCHRD was one of the three. Elsewhere, Chinese NGOs used civil society forums to strongly defend their government policies such as at the Asian Civil Society Forum (ACSF), held in Bangkok in December 2002.

 

“Despite deepening economic reforms, China’s authoritarian government has resisted calls for political liberalization and has made little progress improving civil and political rights”,

 

-         the United States Congressional Executive Committee on China (CECC) Annual Report, August 2002.

 

This year TCHRD in its Annual Report on the human rights situation in Tibet for 2002 takes a hard look at China’s compliance with the two international instruments of human rights, i.e. International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). China ratified ICESCR on 27 March 2001 but is yet to ratify ICCPR, which it signed on 5 October 1998.

 

The year started on a positive note with the release in January of Ngawang Choephel, a prominent political prisoner. This was followed with releases of other high profile prisoners of conscience including Takna Jigme Sangpo and Ngawang Sangdrol, two of Tibet’s longest serving political prisoners. TCHRD received information of a total of 90 known releases of political prisoners upon completion or expiry of their prison terms, including seven early releases. However, information on the arrest of 40 more new detainees was reported to the Centre. There are 208 known political prisoners currently incarcerated for exercising their basic fundamental human rights

 

In September this year, China received a Tibetan delegation from the exile government in Dharamsala nearly nine years after the last contact in 1993. This visit generated renewed hopes amidst the international community in general, and Tibetans in particular. Although the Tibetan delegation stressed the visit was mainly to break the ice with China for a fresh and sincere beginning, the authorities in China maintained that the visit was a private one. While hosting the delegation in Tibet the authorities continued to condemn the Dalai Lama as a “splittist”. Applying this label to the spiritual and political leader of all Tibetans did not go down well with his people. TCHRD believes the visit was crucial as a positive outcome in terms of genuine self-rule or autonomy could mean more fundamental rights and freedoms for the people of Tibet.

 

After years of restricting foreign observers to the region, China invited two groups of foreign correspondents on reporting trips (admittedly heavily escorted) in August and October 2002. One of the journalists, Geoffery York, after visiting Tibet’s most notorious Drapchi Prison wrote, in Globe and Mail on 17 September 2002,

 

“In a nearby cellblock, there was another staged tableau. A hundred inmates were staring woodenly at a Christmas cartoon on a big-screen television, not daring to move a muscle or steal an illicit glance at their visitors”. He added, “Only about 100 inmates were visible. They sat with weird rigidity, gazing silently at an American cartoon on a Chinese state television channel. Prison authorities, nervous about possible protests, had obviously warned the inmates not to speak or move”.

 

The recent decline in political protests is not an indication that Tibetans are happier with Chinese rule or that their aspiration for self-determination has declined. Rather, it is the result of heightened surveillance and heavy-handed, brutal suppression by the authorities. Another factor is the fear of severe physical abuse, including beating and torture, and ensuing years of imprisonment if dissidents are caught. The authorities included “illegal religious activities” and those who “illegally guide Tibetans across the borders” which expanded the scope of the renewed “Strike-Hard” campaign in Tibet.

 

The strongly strategic and hard line policies of the PRC - made in the interests of the State by a select few-excluded the genuine interests of the Tibetan people who as a people under the United Nations Charter have the “Right to Self-determination”. UN Resolutions of 1961 and 1965 called upon the PRC to respect the ‘Right to Self-Determination’ of the Tibetan people.

 

Repression of political, religious or spiritual activities by persons or groups perceived as a threat to government authority or national stability continued through the year. Linking activities of religious persons to acts of terrorism, holding secret trials and imposing extreme sentences occurred during the year. The death sentences on Trulku Tenzin Delek and his attendant, Lobsang Dhondup, on 3 December was headline news and sent shock waves through the Tibetan people aspiring to self-determination in Tibet.

 

TCHRD received reports of many arrests of exile returnees in the Tibet Autonomous Region”, of monks for performing religious rites in Karze, eastern Tibet, and of others for engaging in peaceful pro-independence activities. Ex-political prisoners and many others who fled the country during the year reported arbitrary detentions, torture and beatings to TCHRD. One death occurred in detention.

In the religious sphere, the anti-Dalai Lama campaign heightened and restrictive measures were imposed on observance of traditional religious practices and belief. The Chinese authorities imposed Management Committees and “work team” visits in monasteries and nunneries, enforced the official ceiling on the number of monks and nuns, imposed 18 year age limits and conducted political education classes for the clergy. This year influential religious leaders in Tibet came under severe persecution.

 

Internet censorship in China remained a big issue in 2002. There were reports of the State employing more than 100,000 cyber police to maintain a tight control over the Internet. In Tibet ordinary people are unable to access information freely. Key words that the PRC deems “sensitive” such as democracy, human rights, Dalai Lama, Tibet and Taiwan trigger blocks on the Internet: jamming and strict control of foreign radio, TV and news broadcasts in Tibet remained as before.

 

In the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights the PRC’s policies on the Tibetan plateau fall short of international standards of good governance. Under the Chinese Constitution there are provisions for safeguarding the Right to Livelihood but these are not implemented on the ground. It is evident from the testimonies of refugees that it is those assigned the task of guaranteeing these rights who are the abusers. Tibet, along with 11 other western provinces of China, forms one of the country’s poorest and most underdeveloped regions. There is huge income disparity between the rural and urban populations.

At the core of the complexities surrounding livelihood issues for Tibetans is the fact that the PRC does not recognise the right of the Tibetan people to self-determination, nor their right to freely pursue economic, social and cultural development, which is at the heart of ICESCR.

 

Under the Western Development Program (WDP) launched in 1999, China is pouring billions of dollars into Tibet and other remote western areas. Beijing likes to believe that as long as the country’s economy is burgeoning everything else will take care of it. Despite the huge propaganda hype relating to the WDP, Tibetans view its main aims as being the exploitation of their natural resources and the transfer of Chinese settlers on to their land. In addition to the economic targets, WDP is aimed at cultural assimilation. The profits will largely benefit government officials, local elites and well-connected entrepreneurs from China’s affluent coastal regions. The major projects - including the Golmud-Lhasa railway line, gas pipelines, water transfer schemes and electricity transmission lines-are aimed at sending western resources to the east. One Chinese scholar has candidly described the Western Development Program as a policy of “Western Exploitation and Eastern Development”.

 

The PRC in its White Paper on Tibetan culture released on 22 June 2001 speaks on "great attention to maintaining and safeguarding the Tibetan people's right to study, use and develop their spoken and written language". The White Paper also speaks highly of its educational policies in Tibet and quotes impressive statistics on the development of education in Tibet. However, out of the 2,000 to 2,500 Tibetans fleeing Tibet every year the percentage of refugees who can read and write is not very high. A large percentage of the young people flee in search of freedom and to seek a broader-based education outside Tibet. Education in the rural areas in Tibet is hugely neglected.

 

Education policies in Tibet are meant to indoctrinate communist ideologies. Students must denounce the Dalai Lama. Tibetan students are taught a Chinese version of the history of Tibet. The medium of language and instruction in most schools is in Chinese sidelining the Tibetan language. As a result many Tibetans are losing the ability to write their own language. In July 2002, the Chinese authorities closed down a private Tibetan school “Tsangsul” in Lhasa. The school had a record of stressing on preservation of Tibetan culture.

 

Tibetans in Tibet have very limited or no access to health care facilities. Health provisions for Tibetans continue to lag far behind China’s national averages, and fall short of international standards of adequate healthcare. The increasing cost of hospital care, and the shortage of trained village-level health professionals, contribute to a worsening health situation for Tibetans. Health care is no longer a right. It is the privilege of those who can pay and have the right connections.

 

The prison conditions in Tibet are alarming and way below international standards. They are overcrowded, lacking proper ventilation, with very poor sanitary conditions and low-grade food. Since 1986, TCHRD has recorded the deaths of 79 prisoners, many of who succumbed to the unhygienic and inhumane conditions of the prisons after long periods of torture.

 

Conclusion

The world today is pre-occupied by its fight against terrorism. China joining the United States-led anti-terrorist coalition could be an end to or at least a toning down of criticism of Beijing’s human rights record by western governments, in particular the United States and the European Union.

 

The fundamental problem in Tibet in regard to human rights abuses and restrictions on human freedom is the Chinese government’s lack of implementation and abuse of Laws. It becomes clear that the strength of the rule of law, in which lies its universal relevance and application, is non-existent. “All too often these laws are not honoured, all too often; domestic laws are subverted to provide a cloak of legitimacy for breaches of fundamental human rights, or infringements on civil liberties” said UN Secretary-General Mr. Kofi Annan on the occasion of Human Rights Day, 10 December 2002.

 

Aware of its rising global status, China is today obsessed with presenting a clean image to the world. Its increasingly prominent international profile was symbolised in 2001 by its entry into the World Trade Organisation and Beijing’s successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics. Yet the communist administration remains an international bete noire for its violation of human rights and is facing huge opposition from various rights groups, western countries and donors against giving aid to China. International attention to its policies on Tibet is a continuing thorn in China’s global image.

 

However, TCHRD sees change in China as inevitable, and with that there is hope for a peaceful solution to the Tibet issue. Noting resolutions adopted on Tibet in particular the Tibet Policy Act of the US Congress, signed into United States Public Law 107-228 by President George Bush on 31 September 2002, TCHRD calls upon the international community to maintain the pressure on the PRC until signs of real improvement in human rights are seen on the ground. China must adhere to international standards of human rights both for its own citizens and the people of Tibet.

 

Xu Wenli, a prominent Chinese dissident freed in late December 2002, said, "There is a strong awakening of consciousness within Chinese society towards democracy, freedom and human rights".

 

Recommendations

 

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

 

×           TCHRD deplores the fact that China is yet to submit its initial report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which was due on 30 June 2002.

×           TCHRD calls upon China to carry out its obligations to recognise and provide implementation mechanisms to safeguard the right to work and adequate standard of living

×           Inspite of having ratified the ICESCR the Chinese government does not respect the Tibetan people’s right to preserve their culture and identity and their Right to Self-determination. TCHRD calls upon the PRC to allow the Tibetan people direct control of the content of the curriculum and the medium of instruction in Tibetan schools and monasteries.

×           TCHRD calls upon PRC to halt its population transfer policy that has adversely affected the livelihood of the Tibetan people

×           TCHRD would like to urge all international development agencies collaborating with China to ensure the participation of Tibetan people at all levels of developmental projects that are being undertaken in Tibet in particular, the Western Development Programme.

×           TCHRD urges China to develop and enforce health-care policies, which match the standards of healthcare guaranteed in the Conventions, which it has ratified. China must provide its citizens and Tibetans the right to free or affordable healthcare services.

×           TCHRD deplores China's failure to submit its second periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which was due in March 1999.

 

 

 

Civil and Political Rights

 

×           TCHRD urges China to immediately ratify the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

×           TCHRD demands that the Chinese government clarify the scope and extent of the term “endangering state security” in its Criminal Procedural Law. The term’s ambiguity is used to suppress multiple legitimate rights, including the right to freedom of expression and speech.

×           TCHRD calls upon the Chinese government to respect the rule of law, its universal relevance and application. It urges the Chinese government to create a system of free and fair trial for people accused for political, religious or other reasons.

×           TCHRD calls upon the Chinese government to release all prisoners of conscience held in prisons, labour camps and detentions centres in Tibet.

×           TCHRD also calls upon China to extend a standing invitation to all Thematic Special Rapporteurs of the UN Commission on Human Rights as already done by 40 countries as of 3 December 2002.

×           TCHRD urges the Chinese government to allow free movement of Tibetan people wishing to travel within or outside Tibet. Tibetans must be allowed to return to their homeland freely, without fear of harassment or arrest.

×           TCHRD calls upon the Chinese government to stop the ongoing anti-Dalai Lama campaign and to halt the “patriotic education” of monks and nuns. China must stop limiting the number of monks and nuns in the plateau’s monasteries and desist from coercing the monastic population to conform to communist ideology. We also call upon the Chinese authorities to end its atheist campaign in Tibet.

×           TCHRD reiterates its appeal to the international community and governments to raise the issue of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the X1th Panchen Lama of Tibet, whose whereabouts are unknown since May 1995. The Chinese authorities continue to insist that the boy is safe and well but have provided no evidence of this to date. We demand the release of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

×           TCHRD appeals to the UNHCR to make arrangements with the Royal Government of Nepal to secure the release on 13 Tibetans who remain incarcerated in jails in Nepal for lack of residential permits and legal travel documents.

 

 

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHT

 

 

With its ratification of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) on 27 March 2001, China has undertaken to enact domestic legislation that implements the articles of the Covenant. Therefore, China is now obligated to recognise and provide implementation mechanisms to safeguard such rights as the right to work, the right to social security for all, and the right to an adequate standard of living.

 

The covenant has been critiqued as failing to deliver specific protections and for giving developing countries such as China a pretext to appear committed to safeguarding human rights.  They thereby can be seen to be bolstering human rights, when simultaneously supporting arguments for development superceding civil and political rights.  However, in recent years the international community has begun to push for economic and social rights to be taken more seriously and to be seen as interconnected with civil and political rights.

 

The promise of such rights is that they apply to peoples collectively. We consider, below, problems with the way in which countries like China have utilised economic and social rights. A key issue is that the implementation of the rights outlined in ICESCR is considered to be progressive; the ratifying country is only obligated to move towards the general objectives of the rights. It is noted that economic and social rights are to be “exercised under a guarantee of non-discrimination” except in the case of non-nationals.[1] 

 

This is an important qualification when we come to look at the privileges of the Chinese urban migrants and elites in the economic development of Tibet.

 

The vagueness and the aspirational tone of the ICESCR is the result of compromise by the international community to encourage developing countries such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to engage in a human rights framework, while recognising the difficulties faced by developing nations. 

 

In this light does ratification offer any real protection? China claims that the ratification

 

fully demonstrates the Chinese government’s positive attitude toward carrying out international cooperation in human rights as well as China’s firm determination and confidence in promoting and protecting human rights.[2]

 

Based on Beijing’s claim, TCHRD makes two observations.  The first is that the standards upheld are vague, the international community does not presently enforce them, and thus they do not count for much.  This may be the case in the short term, but at least in rhetoric the international community has moved towards taking a more rigorous approach to these rights.

 

This points the way to a second approach of warily testing the claims of China.  Through ratification, China has set standards for its own conduct, which Tibetans can rightfully test with due diligence.  For a long time the developing countries — including China — were insisting that social and economic rights were as important to human rights as civil and political rights. They used this argument to push for pro-development policies and a more equitable international economic system as a necessary corollary to the effectiveness of human rights in general.

 

In recent times, some of the major industrialised countries have also begun to stress the need to link development with human rights.  Arguments based on the right to development framework have highlighted that “development does not merely amount to economic growth, but also involves a human dimension; furthermore, it directly concerns not only governments but the whole population; consequently its realisation should not be to the sole advantage of ruling elites.”[3]

 

 

 

 

Right to Land and Housing in Tibet

 

Introduction

 

Land rights, housing, and sustainable habitats are economic issues, which are crucial not just to individuals’ personal rights, but also to the future of a country. A balance must be struck between affording individuals equitable access to quality land/housing, and ensuring that the settlements in which such housing is located, or the uses to which the land is put, are sustainable. This report therefore examines housing and land issues using a rights framework that embraces the right of a people to sustainable development.

 

In 1996 the PRC government made a public commitment to the full and progressive realisation of the right to adequate housing.[4]  In ratifying the ICESCR in 2001, China has made a legal commitment to recognise this right.  Over the past decade, the PRC has also regularly made submissions to the United Nations’ Committee for Sustainable Development claiming compliance to sustainable development including the right to land.  Despite this public face, there are serious violations of international law and principles currently occurring within Tibet.

 

In studying Tibet’s housing and land rights issues against the framework of both human rights and sustainable development, TCHRD hopes to contribute to the ongoing debate about the links between the two issues.  Many human rights NGOs participating in the Preparatory Meetings for the WSSD and the final conference were outraged at the exclusion of human rights discourse from the Summit platform.  The fact is no country can claim to be achieving sustainable development if it denies its people their fundamental political, civil, religious, economic, social and cultural rights. Sustainability is meaningless if people are not involved in creating or taking part in its benefits.[5]

 

Land Rights and Sustainable Land Use

 

There is no explicit international law, which states that people have a right to ownership or use of land. However, the right to land is implicit in many rights contained in the ICESCR and other covenants. In addition, equitable access to land has been recognised as central to sustainable development. 

 

The global organization, Habitat International Coalition[6] has pointed out that access to land is a prerequisite to the fulfillment of the right to housing, food and culture, which are contained in the ICESCR.[7]  Involvements in the development of economic policies and in the equitable use of land resources are also inherent in the first two Articles of the ICESCR.

 

The sustainable development principles formulated over the past decade have increasingly called for equitable land tenure systems. Agenda 21, formulated in 1992 after the Rio Earth Summit, advises governments to “establish appropriate forms of land tenure that provide security of tenure for all land-users, especially indigenous people, women, local communities”.[8] It also states that people should be protected by law against unfair eviction from their land.[9]

 

In 1996, the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) drew a link between land rights, housing rights and sustainable development by noting that “access to land and legal security of tenure are strategic prerequisites for the provision of adequate shelter for all and for the development of sustainable human settlements affecting both urban and rural areas”. [10] The Habitat Agenda arising from Habitat II committed governments to protecting “the legal traditional rights of indigenous people to land and other resources, as well as strengthening of land management”.[11]

 

Habitat International Coalition have proposed that the right to land can be stated in the following terms:

 

Land is a resource integral to survival, livelihood and adequate housing.  To this end, the state must ensure reasonable access to land. In particular, the state must ensure equitable distribution with emphasis on the provision of necessary resources for poor households and other marginalised and vulnerable groups. Governments must implement land reforms where necessary to ensure fair distribution as a public good. [12]

 

To this we would add: Governments must design and implement land reforms through meaningful consultation with, participation and consent of, local communities. Governments should also respect the skills, knowledge and rights of indigenous/local people developed through their long connection with the land.

 

 

Current Land Laws in Tibet

 

Article 10 of the Constitution of the PRC (as amended) sets out ownership of land in China as follows:

 

Land in the cities is owned by the state. Land in the rural and suburban areas is owned by collectives except for those portions which belong to the state in accordance with the law; house sites and private plots of cropland and hilly land are also owned by collectives. The state may in the public interest take over land for its use in accordance with the law. No organization or individual may appropriate, buy, sell or otherwise engage in the transfer of land by unlawful means. The right to the use of land may be transferred according to law. All organizations and individuals who use land must make rational use of the land.

 

The General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (1986) outlines the way in which state-owned land can be used (Article 80):

 

State-owned land may be used according to law by units under ownership by the whole people; it may also be lawfully assigned for use by units under collective ownership. The state shall protect the usufruct[13] of the land, and the usufructuary shall be obligated to manage, protect and properly use the land. The right of citizens and collectives to contract for management of land under collective ownership or of state-owned land under collective use shall be protected by law. The rights and obligations of the two contracting parties shall be stipulated in the contract signed in accordance with the law. Land may not be sold, leased, mortgaged or illegally transferred by any other means.

 

The full regime of land ownership and use rights is then set out in the Law of Land Administration of the PRC (1998) (LAL). The purpose of the LAL is claimed to be to protect the total amount of farmland and to “protect cultivated land against industrial development” (Article 4). To this end, governments at all levels have to compile general plans “in accordance with the national economic and social development programme”, environmental policies, land consolidation and construction projects (Article 17). 

 

The LAL declares that the State Council, on behalf of the nation, owns all land in urban areas or land occupied by state departments; while land in rural areas is owned by the village collective (Articles 2 and 8). The definition of “village collectives” is not contained in the LAL but is assumed to mean local villagers groups, generally conforming to the population of traditional villages. However critics have pointed out that the ambiguity in the definition of “village collectives” permits bureaucrats of “administrative villages” (which replaced the old production teams which existed under the commune system) to appropriate the rights under the LAL.[14]

 

The distinction between state-owned land (the rights of which can be exercised by county governments or higher) and collective-owned land (the rights exercisable by two-thirds of the village collective) is important because different land appropriation rights and compensation calculations apply. In rural Tibet most land would be held by village collectives so only these provisions shall be discussed in detail. The law in relation to urban Tibet shall be discussed under Section III on Housing Rights.

 

Article 10 states that “village committees” administer collective-owned land. Under the Organic Law of Village Committees (1987) village committees are elected by adult villagers.

 

Farmers’ contracts for their land are guaranteed for 30 years unless changes are approved by a two-thirds majority of the village assembly (Article 14). The law requires that “no unit or individual is allowed to let the land lie idle or go wasted”  (Article 37). The LAL also prohibits the sale or purchase of portions of land by the land-users themselves – any transfers must be done by the collective (Articles 2, 14 and 73).

 

Land owned by village collectives can be requisitioned by the state (represented by county, provincial or prefectural governments) for construction purposes (Articles 43-46) or, less specifically, “according to the law on public purposes” (Article 2). There doesn’t appear to be any Chinese law on public purposes so Article 2 effectively grants wide, ambiguous discretion to the state for requisitioning rural land. Similarly Article 58 permits the state to take back its own land (rather than land held by collectives) if it requires the land for “public purpose” or for urban reconstruction (this shall be further discussed in Chapter 7.2). The village collective can also itself take back land from farmers if they want to use the land for public facilities or if the land is not being used properly (Article 65).

 

The level of compensation given for loss of land varies under the LAL according to the purposes for which the land is taken. Where land owned by collectives is requisitioned by the state for construction purposes, the LAL sets out a compensation formula which includes “resettlement” costs and the value of the land based on the average output over the past three years (Article 47). Where rural land is requisitioned for water conservancy projects and hydroelectric power projects, the compensation and resettlement fees can be determined separately by the State Council (Article 51). Where the state wants to exercise its broad discretion in Article 2, the ambiguous “law on public purposes” would apply to compensation. Where the state takes back its own land (rather than requisitioning land held by collectives) compensation is merely to be “proper” (Article 58).

 

Where the state requisitions rural land from collectives, compensation is given to the village committees which are then obliged to pass the money onto individual farmers whose land has been taken (Article 49).

 

The LAL has been proclaimed by the PRC Government as imposing “the world’s strictest land-use regulations”[15] and a keystone to their sustainable development policies.[16] However, when considering the way in which the LAL actually works in the context of Tibet, it becomes apparent that the LAL’s strictness has the effect of consolidating control over land-use in the hands of the Chinese government, while Tibetan farmers are given few rights at all.

 

This lack of power stems from the fact that Tibetan farmers do not own land, but merely lease the land from village collectives. This means that farmers are vulnerable to having their land removed either by the village collective or by the State (county governments or higher). Farmers are not given rights to transfer portions of their land privately, to defend the requisition of their land, or to challenge the amount of compensation granted to them.[17]

 

Village collectives are also not perfect models of democracy. Many critics have noted that election processes for the committees often fall far short of democracy, and that village committees – particularly in politically sensitive areas such as Tibet - are controlled by higher levels of government or local Communist party officials.[18]

 

Despite the appearance that land use and allocation occurs at a village level, the requirement for government-developed plans (Article 17) means that land use and land management strategies remain controlled at county level. The people who know the most about the land – the Tibetan farmers themselves – have very little control over the allocation system or the use to which their land is put.

 

The level of compensation offered through the LAL (whether under the formula set out in Article 47 or through the ambiguous requirement for “appropriate” compensation) has been criticised as inadequate to actually compensate farmers for the loss of their livelihood.[19] The World Bank has also noted that the requirement for compensation to go through the collective before it gets to the farmers gives opportunities for corruption and embezzlement at the local level.[20] As one legal analyst says, government officials take contracted land away from farmers for development because they want to and they can.[21]

 

The LAL’s failure to protect Tibetan farmers’ land tenure, and its inadequate compensation regime, is illustrated by the following case study.  In this case land was taken from the farmer not for construction purposes but merely because the government wanted to farm it for its own profit.  In 2002, farmers from Dechen township, Taktse County (26 kms east of Lhasa city), have been forced to return 100 mu of land to the government for it to cultivate. A recently arrived Tibetan explained:

 

It is said that the government paid 3,000 yuan for a mu of land. It was for that year only, with no extra money being given in subsequent years. 3,000 yuan does not compensate farmers for the yield from the land over many years. ... There is no choice as to whether you want to sell your land or not. They said it is the government’s land, which has been leased to the Tibetans, the Tibetans do not own the land. The government will grow vegetables on the land with the profit going to the government. The local farmers criticise these confiscations of land for such a paltry sum but they can’t say anything in public.[22]

 

It is not wholly clear which provisions of the LAL support the government’s requisition of land from these Tibetan farmers. However given the wide discretion of both Articles 2 and 58, which permit the state to requisition or take back land for “public purposes”, the state can simply justify requisitions as being in the interests of the national economic and social development programme (Article 17). Thus an understanding of land use in Tibet requires an understanding of China’s development agenda for the plateau.

 

 

Development-based displacement from land

 

The United Nations’ Expert Seminar on Forced Evictions issued Human Rights Guidelines on Development-Based Displacement in 1997.[23] These guidelines relate to people who are evicted from land or housing to make way for developments ranging from urban expansion programmes to infrastructure construction such as dams and railways. The guidelines apply equally to developments carried out by governments and those initiated by private companies. The guidelines entitle people to be given information about the project; to be consulted in the resettlement plans; to defend eviction in an independent court or tribunal; to be protected against violence or intimidation in the process of eviction; to be awarded appropriate compensation if their land or property is taken from them; and/or to be resettled in a location agreeable to them.[24]

 

China’s population transfer programme has mostly focused on encouraging non-Tibetan settlers to move to urban areas of Tibet. The result has been a rapid growth of Tibet’s towns and cities. Urban expansion inevitably means a loss of land to farmers or nomads who use the land on the periphery. Most are not compensated sufficiently. Nowhere is this expansion more obvious than in the area surrounding Lhasa.  Lhasa city was no more than three square km in area and had a population of 30,000 and a mere 600 buildings in 1949, had grown to 53 square km in size with an estimated population of up to 400,000 in 2001.  Moves for further expansion of Lhasa are afoot. The Chinese Communist Party’s Five Year Plan for 2001-2005 envisages Lhasa’s urban area to expand to 70 square km by the end of 2005, while the goal by 2015 is for a Lhasa, which, at 272 square km, will take up half of the Lhasa municipality. [25] 

 

One initiative to expand Lhasa was the announcement in 2001 of a new Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Toelung Dechen County, just outside of Lhasa. The SEZ will centre around the Lhasa terminus of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, currently under construction. Reports from Tibetans indicate that Chinese investors have begun land speculation: it is not known whether offers of compensation or alternative accommodation have been made to Tibetan farmers in Toelung Dechen. A Tibetan former official, now living in exile, predicted that anyone protesting against evictions resulting from this development will be dealt with severely because “...they would be accused of being a ‘splittist’, as someone who wants to destroy the country”.[26]

 

Clearly where the Beijing government has plans, private individuals must forego any rights. China’s Constitution, Civil Law or the LAL permit the goals of the government to take precedent over individual rights. If there is an order from the State Council to confiscate land in autonomous areas for “economic development” then private individuals may end up with very little or no compensation.  Objectors to the development will be branded “splittists”.

 

One of the most fundamental elements of the UN Guidelines for Development-Based Evictions is informed consent.  There are reported cases of some Tibetan families were completely overlooked in the resettlement plans and ended up with no land. In early 2000, the local Chinese authorities called the 60 families of a township in Gonjo County, Chamdo Prefecture, “TAR” for a meeting.  The authorities explained that they would have to move out of the area to another area and if they did not they would have to pay a 70,000 yuan as fine.  A refugee who escaped from Tibet early 2002, from the same township recounts that:

 

“The area chosen for the families to move to was Kongpo Gyama County, Nyingtri Prefecture, “TAR” where the Chinese authorities spent nearly two years building new houses. In December 2001, the authorities told us that the houses were ready for us to move. All the 60 families were then loaded into about 100 military trucks and we travelled for five days. While the Chinese authorities did not ask the families to pay for transportation, the families had to pay for all other expenses on the trip such as food and water. 

 

“The farming land we were moved to was of an inferior quality to our traditional land and it is difficult to grow crops. The houses are built in Chinese style and seem unsuitable for our needs. The houses are grouped into two areas with 30 families residing on each side of the area. The houses have three rooms each and no other facilities.

 

“To add to the already growing list of problems for these families, there were not enough houses built, with nine out of the 60 families having no accommodation built for them. Apparently, at the meeting in the village the previous year, the families had been required to register to have new houses built for them. Unfortunately, some families, including mine, were not present during the meeting and hence, no houses were built for us. [27]

 

 

Biased enforcement of land protection policies

 

In 1998 the Yangtze River flooded, causing a national disaster in Tibet and China. Environmentalists reported that the flooding was related to deforestation, and subsequent desertification, in Tibet.[28] The evidence of extensive logging in Tibet is immediately apparent to any travellers across the plateau. For example, several Westerners who travelled through Karze “TAP”, Sichuan in 2002 saw a 600 km stretch that had been completely deforested.[29] On their travels through the region they passed an estimated 20 logging trucks a day full of timber.

 

Beijing’s response to the advice of environmentalists was to introduce two initiatives to reverse the effects of desertification and lessen the likelihood of flooding; a ban on logging, and a programme of enforced plantation whereby Tibetan farmers had to plant trees and grasses on their croplands. Although few would argue that such environmental initiatives are crucial to restore the land and in the interests of sustainable practices on the plateau, these initiatives have been carried out in such a way as to penalise Tibetans and undermine their use of land, while leaving untouched the massive resource extraction by private and government enterprises.

 

According to reports from tourists and recently-arrived refugees, the logging ban is selectively enforced; the following Case Study explains that wealthy Chinese businessmen and enterprises have no problem continuing their logging on payment of large bribes to the forestry department.  A Tibetan who escaped into exile late 2000 gave the following testimony about corruption in the logging industry.

 

Officially, logging and trade in timber are prohibited in the forest regions of Tibet …. However, if you can manage to pay bribes ranging from RMB 5,000 to RMB 50,000 (US$600 to $6,000) to the right officer in the forestry department, an Authorisation Certificate can be obtained which would allow the logging and transportation of timber ranging from 30 to 100 lorry loads. Once you have the Authorisation Certificate, there is no one to stop you from transporting the timber to anywhere for sale for a massive profit. Most of this timber goes to China. Some of such illegally-obtained timber is also sold in Lhasa.

 

The local Tibetan inhabitants, particularly those who used to be dependent on the forest for their livelihood and have been adopting afforestation methods to sustain the supply of wood and timber, are now being forced out of work. They are required to obtain permission even to get wood for home use such as building a house or making furniture. The application has to be made through the local office of the forestry department and they have to pay all the charges set by the government. They are also required to plant exactly the same number of trees as those that are cut.[30]

 

Thus the Tibetans, who traditionally used and conserved forestland in a sustainable manner, are effectively being punished for deforestation caused by Chinese enterprises.

 

The replanting referred to in the above Case Study is another “environmental” initiative introduced in the wake of the 1998 floods in China. Tibetan farmers living in degraded areas have been ordered by the government to plant some of their cropland with trees and grasses in order to reverse the effects of desertification. Tibetan farmers in the Karze “TAP”, Sichuan told a recent traveller that the trees they are forced to plant are not indigenous.[31] Environmentalists have expressed concern that insensitive replanting such as these will therefore reduce biodiversity in the area and could cause unforeseen environmental damage.[32]

 

The government provides compensation to farmers for loss of land due to these enforced replantations but many families report that it is insufficient.[33]  Without sufficient land on which to plant crops, families suffer a drastic loss of livelihood. According to Lobsang, many farmers in Zakong Township, Derge County, Karze TAP, Sichuan were left destitute by enforced plantation.  According to him,

 

Once the local authorities have identified a particular area of land, the farmers are forced to plant vegetation. They receive some compensation but it is not sufficient to replace each farm’s loss of livelihood. By the end of 2000, Lobsang’s family could no longer survive and they were forced to move to Lhasa looking for work. Here they could find no work and so had to beg on the streets.[34]

 

There is no doubt that environmental protection is required in Tibet. However it is important that initiatives such as bans on logging and enforced plantations are enforced across the board without disproportionately harming small landholders such as Tibetan farmers. Research has shown that in China, land degradation has a direct relationship to rural poverty.[35]  It therefore does not make sense for environmental protection programmes to in fact cause further financial hardship for land-users. Tibetans have the right to alternative land allocations where their land has been lost due to degradation or environmental programmes, as well as adequate compensation for loss of livelihood.

 

Housing rights and sustainable development of human settlements

 

The right to adequate housing was first set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. In the last 10 years it has received increasing attention by the United Nations, particularly with the appointment of a Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing (as a component to an adequate standard of living).

 

The People’s Republic of China has signed and ratified many international treaties relevant to the right to adequate housing. These instruments include: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Finally, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is also relevant.

 

The most comprehensive provision regarding the legal right to adequate housing is embodied in Article 11(1) of the ICESCR, which states:

 

The States Parties to the present Covenant recognise the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognising to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

 

Article 2(1) of the ICESCR obliges a government

 

…to take steps…to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realisation of the rights recognised in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures.

 

In General Comment No. 4, entitled “The Right to Adequate Housing,” the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights defines the right as containing the concept of human dignity and the principle of non-discrimination. In addition to these two concepts,

 

…the full enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of association (such as for tenants and other community-based groups), the right to freedom of residence and the right to participate in public decision-making – is indispensable if the right to adequate housing is to be realised and maintained by all groups in society. Similarly, the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with one’s privacy, family, home or correspondence constitutes a very important dimension in defining the right to adequate housing.[36]

 

Other international laws also oblige governments to ensure that the right to adequate housing is granted to particular classes of people without discrimination. CEDAW obliges governments to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women, including in the provision of housing (Articles 1, 14). CRC obliges governments to ensure children have an adequate standard of living including housing (Article 27). In Article 5 of ICERD provides for the right to own property alone as well as in association with others, and the right to housing.

 

 

Existing housing laws and policies in Tibet

 

There are no PRC laws, which guarantee the right to adequate housing, for example by providing protection against forced evictions. In general the PRC reserves itself the right to evict tenants and appropriate property where it is deemed in the public interest to do so. While there are some laws claiming to protect the individual’s right to own private property, rights are somewhat illusory because it is extremely difficult for citizens to take legal action to ensure that their rights are enforced.

 

The Constitution of the PRC explains that urban land is owned by the State (rather than village collectives, as is the case for rural land). The Constitution also contains the right to own and maintain property (Article 13); the right not to have property expropriated by the State unless in the “public interest” (Article 10); the right not to suffer unlawful intrusion into one’s home (Article 39); and the right to be compensated if rights are violated (Article 41).

 

The General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (1986) also states that a citizen’s personal property including housing is protected by law, and no organization or individual may appropriate, encroach upon, destroy or confiscate it (Article 75).

 

The Urban Real Estate Administration Law of the PRC (1994) (Urban Property Law) details the “rights” of property owners. The state can lease a right of use of urban land which can include construction of property or ownership of property existing on that land (Article 7); these leases are to be written contracts (Article 14) with terms and fees set by the State Council (Articles 7, 13 and 15). The lease-holder’s rights, including their right to build or to use property on that land, are protected for the term of the contract except where the state wishes to take back the land “out of public interest” (Article 19). In this case, the land-user has the right to compensation “in accordance with the real term that the land has been used and the real conditions of the land development” (Article 19). These compensation levels are not detailed in the Urban Property Law. Instead the State Council reserves itself the right to determine the standard land and property values from time to time (Article 32).

 

Clearly the government still has a great deal of power to evict even property-owners from their own properties. Most importantly, the Land Administration Law (LAL) gives the state the right to recover the land use right where they require the land “for the sake of public interests” or to “adjust” land for the purpose of “re-building old city districts in order to implement urban construction plans” (Article 58). Under this provision of the LAL, compensation to land-users is merely to be “appropriate”. This makes it extremely vague as to whether private owners of properties in these circumstances would receive compensation equating to the value of their properties.

 

Some Chinese provinces have also enacted Administrative Provisions on the Dismantlement and Removal of Housing in Urban Areas, but it is unclear whether these provisions have been enacted in the “TAR” or provinces with Tibetan populations.

 

In general, where private houses in urban areas are expropriated to make way for urban development plans or other purposes in the “public interest”, it would appear that the owners do not appear to have much protection. In any case, few Tibetans own property in urban areas, so more relevant for this Report are laws relating to tenants’ rights.

 

 

The biased application of the hukou system

 

The bureaucratic registration system of hukou, allows the PRC to restrict its citizens’ freedom of movement, place of residence and type of residence. Hukou in general targets rural people who seek to move to urban areas. In Tibetan areas, hukou is particularly used by the PRC to restrict rural Tibetans from seeking work opportunities in urban areas. At the same time it has relaxed the strict application of the hukou system on Chinese migrants who come to live in the “TAR” or in Tibetan provinces now designated part of China. The result is that Tibetans are subject to close government control and restriction of movement while once again Chinese settlers are advantaged.

 

In the past decade, many rural Tibetans whose farming or nomadic livelihoods can no longer sustain them have drifted into urban areas hoping to find work. But they can only work in the formal, state sector if they have, at the very least, temporary urban hukou. Temporary hukou – or Temporary Registration Permits – generally are granted only if a person has obtained work in the area to which they are seeking permission to move. For rural Tibetans whose agricultural skills have no application to urban work, who do not speak or read Chinese, who have no influential connections in the Chinese-dominated urban areas, and who in many cases have progressed no further than primary level of education, work with the government or state-owned enterprises is simply impossible.[37] Work in the private sector is also very difficult, particularly to start up one’s own business, which requires a bewildering array of business permits, start-up cash, and deposits for bank-loans.[38] 

 

The lack of urban hukou exposes Tibetans to harassment by government authorities and ultimately expulsion. Individuals without urban hukou status can be subject to arbitrary administrative detention at any time under “Custody and Repatriation” (C&R). This allows urban authorities to detain people who do not possess the correct household registration and send them back from the city to their place of origin.[39] C&R is effectively a blank slate for police to harass anyone who they perceive to be a threat to law and order (for further discussion, see Section IV Homelessness in Tibet).

 

Tibetans on the streets of larger urban centres are regularly stopped by police for “on-the-spot” checks of their registration cards.[40]  In Lhasa, Chinese authorities regularly conduct house-searches in Tibetan areas for “unauthorised residents”. Often the searches and expulsions are motivated by a desire to quash political dissent. On 21 March 1989, during a period of martial law in Lhasa, all Tibetans without residence permits – estimated to be up to 40,000 people - were forcibly removed from the capital and returned to their birthplace villages.[41] TCHRD also receives many reports of police invading private households in urban areas of Tibet, perhaps initially to check hukou of residents, but resulting in arrests for the possession of “splittist” items such as photos, videos or writings of the Dalai Lama.[42]

 

These intimidatory searches, whichever their motivation, are clear breaches of the human right to privacy which is integral to the right to security of tenure. This right to privacy is also guaranteed in Article 10 of China’s Constitution. 

 

While the registration system subjects Tibetans to close government control, the Chinese government has relaxed the application of the system on Chinese settlers coming to live and work in Tibet. Indeed, to attract settlers into Tibet under Beijing’s development plans, Chinese migrants are given either permanent hukou or temporary hukou which allow them immediate access to housing and jobs. The “Implementation Opinions Concerning Policies and Measures Pertaining to the Development of the Western Region” released in December 2001 includes great flexibility in hukou registration for Chinese migrants to Tibet:

 

Individuals selected for assignment to a key national development task or key development project in the western region do not have to transfer their residency registration and instead may keep their work relationship with their original unit. .... The western region needs to accelerate the reform of the personnel, labour, and hiring systems and allow people from other parts of the country to invest, do business, and participate in its development while keeping their original residency registration.[43]

 

Although these measures speak of attracting “skilled” personnel, at the same time broader policies also encourage ordinary Chinese workers to move to the “impoverished” western regions, including Tibetan areas.[44] Thus Chinese workers coming to work on construction projects in the western regions would, at the very least, be granted Temporary Registration Permits or even permanent registration. This is in marked contrast to the difficulties faced by rural migrants who try to move to urban areas in China’s eastern regions. 

 

Chinese citizens from rural regions throughout China can therefore obtain urban hukou if they move to Tibetan urban areas, while rural Tibetans are excluded from the same offer. This is a clear breach of China’s constitutional “guarantees” of racial equality, is a clear breach of the non-discriminatory element of the right to adequate housing contained in ICESCR, and comprehensively violates the ICERD.

 

 

The possible effect of housing reforms

 

In the mid to late 1990s China’s housing policy changed radically. Housing was no longer perceived by government as a core welfare benefit available to all citizens; it is now seen as a commodity. While China’s housing system prior to these reforms was certainly imperfect and did not provide adequate housing to all its citizens, there are concerns that privatizing housing will not resolve these inadequacies and in fact may deepen inequities already present in the system, particularly for disadvantaged groups such as Tibetans. The inequity is most likely to be felt by tenants who remain in the public housing system or are forced to rent in the newly-emerging private rental system.[45] 

 

In 2001 the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing warned that the privatisation of housing and land markets can result in the increased marginalisation of disadvantaged people “as manifested by the growing numbers of people having to cope with land speculation, the commodification of housing, the application of “user fees” for housing resources such as water, sanitation and electricity and the repeal or amendment of land ceilings and rent control legislation.”[46]

 

This appears to be what is happening across China and Tibet. Rents in public housing were traditionally kept very low, usually less than one percent of average income.[47] However, under the housing reforms, rents are gradually rising, reaching around 10-15 percent of average income in 2000.[48] For many Tibetans this rent excludes them from accessing government-owned housing.

 

From 31 December 1998, the PRC Housing Authorities no longer allocate subsidised flats to new residents. People trying to access public housing have to pay spiralling rents which is often completely unachievable. Market rents in Lhasa, for example, have been estimated at 50 percent of the average income of Tibetans living in the old area, literally 100 times greater than the previous rent.[49]

 

There is already evidence that the promotion of a private housing market in Tibet will entrench the housing disparity between Chinese settlers and Tibetans. Chinese traders and other settlers have begun acquiring land and property in towns throughout the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. This is causing problems for Tibetan residents who simply cannot compete on the property market. To make matters worse, the current form of tenure registration is vague and insecure.

 

In Lhasa, Shigatse and metropolitan areas throughout Tibet, government authorities at county level have set up registers of property-owners and of land-use holders; under the Land Administration Law transfers of land-use rights must be registered.[50] But in rural Tibet the registration system has not materialised and people mostly conduct transactions in a more informal manner. Housing analysts note that this vague ownership registration system allows bureaucrats to exploit the system to their own advantage.[51] In a climate of racially-based disadvantage, it is also highly likely that the system will work to the detriment of Tibetans who lack the education, connections, or resources available to Chinese settlers.

 

TCHRD’s informant gave the following example of a situation in which a Tibetan from Sog County, Nagchu Prefecture was literally squeezed out of his home and business through a biased enforcement of the requirement for registration of land-use transactions.[52]  According to the interviewee,

 

I lived in a small shop/house with my family doing petty business and paid 30,500 yuan to purchase the building in 1997.  At the time of sale, the previous owner, a Tibetan, gave me a private declaration stating that I was the owner of the building.  In our County, the standard practice was to use private declarations, although the government in Lhasa and the bigger towns required sales to be registered with the government.

 

In 1998-1999 the Chinese authorities began demolishing all the old Tibetan shops in Sog Market place, citing plans to replace them with new Chinese-style shops. I was informed that as the land on which my shop stood belonged to the PRC Government and not to me, they could deal with my shop in whichever way they wished. The authorities then claimed that there was no evidence of registration, and therefore he was not entitled to compensation or to appeal the government’s decision.  In 1999 we were evicted and given no compensation.

 

 

The privatisation of the housing and land market is thus yet another policy proving to have a differential effect on Tibetans and Chinese people in Tibet.  

 

 

Urban reconstruction causing forced evictions

 

As with the housing allocation system, the planning and development of Tibet’s urban areas has been one-sided. Chinese authorities use the catch-cry of “development” as an excuse to neglect, or even worse, destroy the “old” urban areas, where the majority of Tibetans live. Many of these buildings have suffered decades of neglect by government authorities and are conveniently pronounced “dangerous” or “unhealthy”. From their ruins grow the ubiquitous Chinese concrete precincts composed of units of residential housing rented or sold at double the price of the old units, therefore out of reach of the average Tibetan family.

 

Lhasa and Xining are the biggest cities on the Tibetan Plateau. Although Xining – capital of Qinghai (Amdo) - has a population of close to one million, there is very little housing for Tibetans whose proportion of the population is negligible.[53] Lhasa therefore provides the majority of urban housing for Tibetans.

 

Lhasa’s centrality to the religious and political life of old Tibet, it is hardly surprising that the PRC Government’s occupation of Tibet has wrought massive transformations on it. In 1949, Lhasa city was no more than three square km in area, and had a population of 30,000 and a mere 600 buildings.[54] In 1980, the Beijing government formulated a Lhasa Development Plan which projected a population of 200,000 by 2000, with the size of Lhasa extending to 42 square km.[55] Lhasa’s size in 2002 exceeds Beijing’s 1980 projections: it is 53 square km in size with an estimated population of up to 400,000.[56] The rate of population increase for the last decade is at least five times the officially claimed national average of 1.07 per cent.[57]

 

The period from 1994 to the present day has seen an even more rapid reconstruction of Lhasa. In 1998 China proudly claimed that “since the 1980s more than 300,000 square metres of old residential houses have been rebuilt in Lhasa, and 5,226 households have moved to new dwellings”.[58]

 

This has effectively meant the destruction of older Tibetan buildings in the “old city” of Lhasa, the Shol and Barkhor areas, which house the majority of Lhasa’s Tibetans. Lhasa has been described as “really two cities: a dense Tibetan core – all that remains of pre-1959 Lhasa – and a much larger modern Chinese city that has grown to encircle the shrinking Tibetan centre”.[59]

 

The residents of the old buildings do not automatically become residents of the new buildings.

 

On 24 and 25 April 2002 demolition began on two blocks of buildings in a Tibetan area located near the Barkhor, approximately three minutes’ walk from Jokhang square. The blocks contained many traditional Tibetan dwellings and some newer buildings, built in a Tibetan style several decades ago.  It is estimated that at least 75 families, up to 400 people, were evicted. The great majority of these families, if not all, were Tibetans; some had lived in the building for generations. Most of the families rented their flats but a few were actually owners.

 

Observers stated that while the buildings were in need of some renovation work, they were sturdily-built, the apartments of a decent size compared to other Tibetan buildings in Lhasa, and could have lasted for many more decades if they had been maintained properly or were renovated. Importantly for many of the residents, their homes were built in a Tibetan style, with rooms overlooking a communal courtyard.

 

Residents were offered accommodation in the new buildings replacing their old homes, but they were told the rent or purchase-price would be much higher and the size of the apartments much smaller than their current homes. One family who owned their own flat were offered 50,000 yuan as compensation, but if they wished to purchase one of the new flats they were told it would cost a minimum of 160,000 yuan.

 

Residents were given only five days eviction notice by the Residential Management Committee. Appeals to this committee were ignored. Tibetan families were seen during those five days frantically removing their belongings from their homes, loading them onto trucks, jeeps, and bicycle rickshaws, and driving away.

 

One evicted Tibetan woman who spoke to a witness said she had looked for an apartment in the older Housing Authority buildings where rent is generally cheaper, but there were no vacant apartments. Finally she found a vacancy in a new building. The rent is 300 yuan per month; this woman only makes 600 yuan a month on which she supports two children. [60]

 

These evictions are therefore clearly in breach of the right to adequate housing contained in the ICESCR, particularly the right against forced eviction. In addition, the razing of older, distinctively Tibetan housing to be replaced by new, Chinese-style, and more expensive accommodation also has the effect of discriminating against Tibetans and therefore contravening the ICERD. TCHRD has submitted to the Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing that few Tibetans will be able to afford the new housing units; the demolition of older-style housing in Lhasa will effectively displace Tibetans away from the city centre. There is little doubt that wealthier Chinese migrants will move in to take their place.

 

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that government authorities allowed these buildings to become run-down so that there would be an excuse for demolitions and evictions, thus freeing up the space for more lucrative developments. Research has shown that rehabilitating older buildings is in fact cheaper than building new constructions from scratch.[61] The fact that the Chinese government refuses to take up the option of rehabilitation points to a goal which is less about improving accommodation and possibly more about removing Tibetans from prime real-estate.

 

 

Loss of cultural heritage

 

These evictions and the subsequent demolition of buildings are not merely breaches of the right to security of tenure, they are also breaches of the right to live in homes which are culturally adequate, the seventh principle of the right to adequate housing. The loss of cultural heritage is also in contravention of Agenda 21’s requirement that cities should work with local residents to preserve “older buildings, historic precincts and other cultural artifacts”[62]

 

In the past, China rarely respected the principles of conservation of traditional buildings in Tibet. The Cultural Revolution saw the loss of thousands of significant religious and secular buildings, and Tibet today continues to suffer rapid loss of its unique built heritage. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the city of Lhasa.

 

Although the city of Lhasa was designated one of “China’s Historic Cities” in the tourist-oriented 1980s, the Lhasa Development Plan proposed destroying “Old” Lhasa, protection only being offered to the Jokhang temple, the Ramoche temple and a handful of historic homes. The “Historic City” regulations which stipulated that construction in the old city area had to have “national characteristics” turned out to mean “little more than giving new facades a Tibetan-style paint-job”.[63] A large proportion of Lhasa’s historic buildings were destroyed between 1980-1993.[64] From 1993 onwards it has been estimated that an average of 35 historic buildings are demolished every year.[65] By 1998 only 200 buildings remained from the 600 buildings recorded in Lhasa in 1949.[66]

 

Demolitions continue despite the best efforts made by international organisations to save traditional Tibetan monuments and housing. In 1994, UNESCO listed the Potala Palace on the World Heritage List; in 2001 the Jokhang temple and the Norbulingka also gained World Heritage protection.[67] The PRC boasts proudly of the money that it is spending on restoration of these sites.[68] However it conveniently omits to mention that the World Heritage Committee has asked the government to consider nominating the historic village of Shol and the Chakpori Hill,[69] and has also asked it to mitigate changes in the areas surrounding the World Heritage properties caused by “development pressures in the city”.[70] To date no residential buildings or areas in Tibet have been proposed by the Beijing government for World Heritage consideration.

 

Development plans which destroy traditional homes of indigenous or ethnic minorities, while constructing new buildings in a “modern” style which do not reflect the traditions or needs of those minorities, breach the seventh component of the right to adequate housing articulated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: the right to cultural adequacy. Traditional Tibetan housing expressed cultural values, for example by allowing families to interact in central courtyards. It was also designed to minimise intrusion onto the land.  The new buildings in Tibetan cities, and the new settlements across the plateau, pay no respect to the traditional culture, climate or lives of Tibetans.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Since 1949 Tibetans have been denied the ownership and effective control of their own land. Commencing from China’s redrawing of the map of Tibet, continuing with the mass confiscation of land, through to the dictation of resource-management directives and policies, Tibetans have had little say in the use of their traditional lands. Culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable land management systems and housing design are to this day being rapidly destroyed by Beijing’s policies. This eradication of knowledge and culture is an immense loss not just to the Tibetan people, but ultimately to the world. 

 

Underlying the inequality and discrimination of both land and housing developments is the continuing flood of Chinese settlers into Tibet. With regards to housing, the dominant issue for Tibetans is massive inequality and discrimination in the allocation, construction and type of housing available to Tibetans. Tibetans simply do not have the same access to services as Chinese. Tibetans are also rarely consulted regarding plans for new constructions, which may meet their cultural needs, as opposed to Beijing’s “development” plans. Such discrimination and non-consultation contravenes the Habitat Agenda’s requirement for “equitable human settlements”, the right to adequate housing in the ICESCR, the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of race in the ICERD and the general provisions of equality and non-discrimination in the UDHR.

 

Right to Livelihood

 

Introduction

 

The right to livelihood, although not explicitly stated in the ICESCR, is deeply embedded in the principles of the Covenant.  It is implicit in the articles of the Covenant, and encompasses such rights as the right of a person not be deprived of his own means of subsistence (article 1.2); the right to work (article 6.1); the right to fair and equal remuneration (article 7); and above all, the right to an adequate standard of living including adequate food (article 11). 

 

Even under Chinese law there are provisions for safeguarding the right to livelihood. Article 13 of the PRC Constitution provides that:

 

The state protects the right of the citizens to own lawfully earned income, savings, houses and other lawful property.

 

 

Although these provisions appear on paper, their implementation in the form of mechanisms to provide protection is extremely lacking.  It is evident from the testimonies of recently-arrived Tibetan refugees that the main violators are those who are assigned with the task of guaranteeing the rights.

 

At the heart of the complexities surrounding livelihood issues for the Tibetan people is the fact that the PRC does not recognise the right of Tibetans to self-determination and their right to freely pursue economic, social and cultural development.[71]

 

The UNDP China Human Development Report 2002 has placed Tibet at the very bottom in its ranking of the human development index for the PRC.  The income index in Tibet (0.5034) is lower than even Inner Mongolia (0.5414), another poor region under the PRC.[72]  Tibet today is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped regions ruled by Beijing.  There is a huge disparity between the incomes of the rural and urban population. This disparity in income indicates a very high ethnically defined inequality between Tibetans —who are mostly rural — and Han and Hui Muslim Chinese, who are mostly urban.

 

Rural subsistence

 

Subsistence, especially in a developing country context, is usually equated to a rural household that consumes most of what it produces and relatively speaking has little exchange with the larger economy.  This is primarily the case in rural Tibet.

 

The bulk of the Tibetan population is residing in the rural areas.  Official Chinese statistics reveal that around 80 percent of Tibetans are based in the countryside.  Chinese statistics on average rural income in recent years reveal that 80-90 percent of Tibetans live on approximately 1,000 Yuan per annum while the poverty line is 2,600 yuan  Despite the PRC’s claims — and its successes in alleviation of poverty and hunger elsewhere in Mainland China — there are many indications that in Tibetan areas poverty and basic subsistence issues dominate and blight the daily structure of life.

 

Rural Tibet is almost exclusively agrarian with farming and animal husbandry forming the two most important economic activities.  Crop and livestock production continue to dominate agricultural output but there has been a lot of fluctuation in the output. This fluctuation is due not only to climate variations but also to inappropriate and frequent changes in agricultural policy and input over time.[73]  Subsistence depends on families combining agriculture with pastoralism and trade.

 

The Chinese propaganda machinery has recently been active in promoting Beijing’s initiatives in undertaking development plans to diversify farming in Tibet.  Chinese reports claim that the area sown with grain crops has been cut by 4.7 percent while the area sown with economic crops has risen by 3.2 percent and that of fodder crops has gone up by 2.3 percent.[74]  Initiatives like these, which are not accompanied by the involvement of farmers, tend to jeopardise rural incomes.

 

A 12 November 2002 Xinhuanet article claims that the “TAR” has set up 16 experimental bases for the breeding of goats, yaks and sheep. The region has also established companies for the purchase of vegetables, milk, butter and other animal byproducts from herdspeople.  The reality is that often Tibet is used as a testing ground, and that experiments with forms of agriculture unsuitable to the Tibetan ecosystem and environment have been disastrous in the past. What is needed is a less centrist approach to policy in Tibet and more Tibetan input in finding suitable local solutions to local problems. 

 

 

Lacking Food Security

 

Article 11(1) of the ICESCR states that," The State parties…recognise the right of everyone to …adequate food and (2) recognising the right of everyone to be free from hunger, shall take…the measures…which are needed…"

 

China repeatedly declares that making Tibet self sufficient in food production is a major goal in its development policy.[75]  Tibet's long history of self-sufficiency ended with the Chinese invasion in 1950.  Today, poverty is widespread across the plateau, mainly due to the PRC government's policy of taking surpluses and subsistence produce from farmers and nomads. Taxation imposed on farmers, usually usurped in kind as a percentage of their crop and animal products, is excessive and frequently leaves the family without enough to eat.  Moreover, TCHRD has reported cases of the authorities controlling what the farmers should grow in the field.  A peasant from Labrang County, Gannan TAP, Gansu Province reported that the authorities compulsorily make them plant trees. He further said that:

 

We plant the trees in the field where we usually grow barley and wheat.  Some families have to grow grasses while others have to plant trees.  They don’t give any money but come to inspect the work. [76]

 

Many TCHRD interviewees told us that they hardly had enough to sustain themselves after paying the local tax and the other arbitrary budgetary extortions.  The economic level of farmers is too low to enable them to purchase food and other necessities on the open market.  Farmers have to often resort to borrowing in order to purchase necessities.

 

Local farmers depend upon a subsistence food production system to sustain their livelihoods.  The yield from fields is very poor since most farmers have to depend on rain for irrigation.  Interviews upon interviews with recent arrivals who are farmers give evidence to the fact that very little is forthcoming from the government as an incentive in the form of irrigation facilities and fertilisers.  On the contrary, Tibetan farmers and nomads are additionally forced to sell a certain proportion of their crops, animals and animal products to the State at a fraction of their fair market value.  In her interview with TCHRD, Tsetan Dolma (32) from Karze County, Karze “TAP”, Sichuan recounts that:

 

After the harvest of the barley and the peas, we have to give 1,000 gyama of barley and 500 gyama of peas to the authorities.  You give according to the size of the household and this is the limit imposed on a 13-member family.  When we give 1,000 gyama of barley to the government they give money only for 500 gyama.  They give only 30 yuan for 100 gyama of barley and not a single penny for the 500 gyama of peas.   In the market, 100 gyama of barley would fetch 80 Yuan. [77]

 

The policy of settlement and fencing

 

The PRC’s policy in relation to grasslands has focused on changing the land tenure system from communal pastoral land to individual ranch-style enterprises where Tibetan nomad families are restricted to certain portions of land. There are many reasons put forward for this change of land-tenure and land-use. China has historically seen pastoral land as wasteland, and pastoralists as primitive; central authorities have consistently sought to sedentarise the nomads as part of a project to “civilise” the pastoralists. The PRC claims that this will protect the land from overgrazing and will increase efficiency.

 

By the 1980s China realised its compulsory communalisation of the grasslands was a disaster. The degradation, desertification and salinisation of rangeland is derived from the 1960s and 1970s when the land was made to carry huge herds, far beyond the carrying capacity of a frigid upland prone to blizzards and vulnerable to unstoppable erosion.[78]

 

In 1985 the Grassland Law of the PRC (the Grassland Law) came into effect, signalling a renewed attempt by the PRC to settle nomads through allocating fixed portions of land.

 

The purpose of the Grassland Law is to (inter alia) “enhance prosperity of local economies of national autonomous areas” (Article 1). Grassland is owned by the state, and county governments are authorised to contract out portions of the land falling within their boundaries “to individuals for pursuits of animal husbandry” (Article 4).  Disputes between individuals or counties regarding boundaries of land are to be resolved by the people’s government (Article 6).

 

Under this policy, high mountain villages have been allocated the high land surrounding them while low-lying villages are given low land in some cases. Low-lying villagers then have no access to the high grazing land in warmer months, and high-land villagers have no access to low-lying land in the winter.  Thus, the essential and effective method of seasonal rotation for grazing herds was destroyed. 

 

The implementation of policies on fencing and sedentarisation of nomads have been enforced more vigorously in the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan —merged into Mainland China since the invasion — where a large chunk of Tibet’s population reside.  In fact there are more Tibetans residing outside the “TAR” than inside the region.  In these merged provinces, herds were not only redistributed to individual families after the communes were disbanded under the reform era that began in the late 1970s, but each family was allocated land use rights to specified pastures on which the family was expected to settle, build permanent housing and fencing, usually by going into debt.[79]  Some nomadic families, such as those of Lobsang Tsultrim’s relatives in Gade, Golok “TAP” in Qinghai Province had to even sell their cattle because of limited grazing space.[80]

 

With the implementation of the grassland policy, nomads were expected to carry out fencing at their own cost.  To ensure compliance to the policy of enforced settlement Chinese government authorities impose penalties on nomads who do not comply with their orders.  Khundrup, a 28-year-old nomad from Karze “TAP”, Sichuan narrates his personal experience:

 

The authorities ordered that the boundaries of the grazing areas be fenced. Nomad families had to buy the fencing material from the government and build the fences themselves. The amount each family had to pay for the fencing was calculated according to the number of animals owned by the family. A bundle of fencing wire costs 1,500 yuan. We owned 100 animals so we had to buy six bundles of fencing wire, which is 9,000 yuan. It was very difficult for us to find this amount of money and we had no choice but to borrow money from outside.

 

If a group of families did not put up a fence within the time stipulated by the authorities they were fined 300 yuan per day. As a result, the nomads had to work all day to complete the fences as fast as possible, sometimes until their hands were bleeding.[81]

 

This haphazard policy of sedentarisation has also resulted in familial disputes.  With the fencing and distribution of grassland, the semi-nomads and nomads encounter problems with land that has either grass with no water or water with no grass.  Under such circumstances, according to a nomad from Dzoge County, Ngaba “TAP”, Sichuan:

 

Animals come to the neighbour’s fence for grass or water and lie there against the fence. If the neighbour is a kind man then he allows the animals to drink water or eat grass in return for what his grassland does not have.  Often times, there are fights that can lead to a court battle.[82]

 

In 2000 a dispute over access to grassland between nomads from two counties in Karze "TAP", Sichuan, caused several deaths.[83]  After county officials failed to mediate the dispute, Trulku Tenzin Delek from Lithang County stepped in to mediate before further deaths arose. However he was accused by the Chinese authorities of interfering and they tried to arrest him.[84]

 

The PRC justifies sedentarisation and compulsory fencing as necessary to protect lands from overgrazing and also to increase productivity.[85]  At the heart of these policies is a belief that traditional migratory grazing systems do not protect the land and are an inefficient use of land, measured in terms of animal production per square kilometre.[86] However, international land experts, including the World Bank, are increasingly recognising that customary tenure systems such as those employed by Tibetan nomads are in fact the most sustainable and efficient use of such land.[87]  Furthermore, the Chinese government has argued that sedentarisation has in fact helped the economy by allowing poor families to be serviced with health care and education and for extremely poor ones to receive income support.

 

These policies of sedentarisation have greatly affected pasture quality by reducing mobility and flexibility of rangeland management in a highly unpredictable climate in which flexibility is essential.  Sedentarisation intensifies pasture degradation, reduces yields and forces many families into malnutrition and poverty. 

 

 

Insufficient Sources of Income

 

Guo Jinlong, Party Secretary of “TAR”, stated during the Fourth Work Forum on Tibet in 2001 that the per capita net income of farmers and herdsmen reached 1,410 yuan - a 5.9 percent increase over the previous year.[88]

 

The household net income per rural Tibetan household (1,331 yuan) for the year 1999 was the lowest in comparison to other provinces of China.[89]  There was an increase of approximately 22 yuan from the previous year.  The actual purchasing power of rural incomes in Tibet did not change between 1990-2000.[90]  In fact, in 1998 it became the lowest of all incomes in China.  This stagnation of rural incomes summarises the economic conditions of most Tibetans.

 

Tibetans in the rural areas subsist on land for their livelihood.  In most cases, for the farmers and semi-nomadic families, the produce from the land is barely enough to sustain the household.  Very often they have to look for other avenues of income. In many regions, collecting yartsa gumbu (cordyceps sinensis) has become a supplementary

source of income and in some cases the main source of income for the rural masses.  In other regions, plucking of droma (small sweet tubers) or looking for minor construction work has been the trend. 

 

Avenues of income such as plucking yartsa gumbu are also an erratic source.  A 39-year-old from Tengchen County, Chamdo Prefecture, “TAR” from a mixed farming and livestock rearing background, reports how difficult and unrewarding the venture can be. According to the interviewee,

 

In our area, we pluck yartsa gumbu for two months from April to June.  This year we did not get more than three sang which is very little.  10 sang makes a gyama.  When we go to pluck, we have to give 100 yuan per person to the County authorities.  Plucking yartsa gumbu forms the largest part of the income in our area.[91] 

 

Full time unemployment is almost unheard of in the rural areas since the bulk of the population is engaged in labour-intensive agriculture. But during the after-harvest period people are left with no jobs.  Rural incomes are dependent on meager farming profits, and there are hardly any opportunities for non-farm employment.  More specifically, rural non-farm economic activities appear to have been prohibited, perpetuating poverty. 

Alternative avenues such as working for development projects are closed during the winter months precisely when the employment crisis strikes.  Under-employment is common even though winter could be a time for adding value to non-perishable rural products, such as transforming wool into garments.  But there is no market created for such products.

 

There have been reported cases of forced labour schemes mandating farmers and nomads to work on construction of roads, et al, and being fined for non-attendance. An employee of the Forestry Department originally from Chentsa County, Malho "TAP", Qinghai, in

 

his testimony to TCHRD expressed that:

 

Officially, for only 15 days in the year, the government can come in and cut five truckloads of wood per day. For the rest of the year the forest is technically closed to logging. However in practice, throughout the year, I would receive orders from Chinese government officials to "clean-up" the forest. This meant getting 20-30 local Tibetans to come in and cut trees, which are then transported to China in logging trucks. None of these Tibetans are paid for their labour.  It is considered a form of "tax" which the local village owes to the government. No local Tibetans were permitted to cut trees from the forest for themselves." [92]

 

 

Burden of Taxation

 

The Chinese Statistical Yearbook 2001 indicates that the revenue that the government collects in Tibet is not up to the mark and that in fact the government is pumping in subsidies to bolster the economy.  This is true to the extent that much of the taxes imposed does not figure officially because of its arbitrary nature.  Moreover, the official statistics do not give detailed figures or breakdowns for tax collected at the county level or below.

 

It seems that in many provinces, the imposition of taxes occurs at the discretionary power of local officials and it is not clear how the levels or types of tax are set or what proportion is remitted to the higher authorities.  There is a clear absence of any accountability or provision for appeal against harsh and unfair taxes.

 

With little or no correlation between the amount of money spent in subsidies and the severe taxation policy imposed on the rural population, one must question whether the taxation policy is yet another means through which Beijing’s bureaucrats discipline the Tibetan polity into submission?  This question comes up especially since the revenue

from taxes does not make a significant contribution to the economy.  A closer examination of the lives of the Tibetan poor would clearly evidence the efficacy of taxation as a tool of oppression. 

 

The taxation policy covers almost every aspect of the right to subsist — ranging from taxes on human life, crop yield, animals, water, grass, herbs, and education.  Thus, while there exists a right to subsist, the means to it are severely impaired.

 

China itself faces widespread unrest in the countryside, as farmers complain about arbitrary and burdensome taxes imposed by local officials.[93]  The very same arbitrary impositions of budgetary changes in addition to local taxes are common in Tibet, but in “minority” areas there are few mechanisms to prevent local cadres from extorting the poorest in the population.  A nomad from Darlag County, Golog “TAP”, Qinghai confirms that taxation is exorbitant and says that:

 

My family has to pay 3,600 yuan in the form of cattle tax and grassland tax annually. Then we have to sell two yaks to the authorities each year.  They give you only 500 yuan for a yak but a private businessman pays 1,200-1,300 yuan for a yak. Then we have to give butter tax.  Each person has to give two gyama of butter. Each person should give one gyama of cheese.  The authorities also collect 25 yuan per person, which is said to be used for old age pension, but my parents are both in their sixties and they do not get any pension. [94]

 

 

Urban livelihood

 

A little over 15-20 percent of the Tibetan population resides in the urban areas of “TAR” and in regions outside “TAR”.  The challenges faced by urban Tibetans with regard to their livelihood are very different from those encountered by rural Tibetans.  Generally, they have to compete with Chinese migrants who are more often than not have “connections” to get better jobs.  In comparison to the Chinese migrants, Tibetans are disadvantaged by a lack of Chinese language skills —the language of the colonisers —, which is critical for getting any employment, particularly in State-run institutions.

 

Chinese migrants who now flood Tibet’s urban areas have monopolised the economy thus marginalising Tibetans in the economic sphere as a whole. In addition, there is the heavily enforced registration system (ch: hukou), which everyone must adhere to in order to find jobs.  Each citizen must have these identity documents, which control where they live and work, thus giving employers and factory managers a powerful tool over to control the labour market. This keeps wages down and employers can use it to control every aspect of the lives of workers.  In Tibetan populated regions, hukou is particularly used by the PRC to restrict rural Tibetans from seeking work opportunities in urban areas. At the same time it has relaxed the strict application of the hukou system on Chinese.[95]

 

Work opportunities for Tibetans in their own land began to be greatly undermined in the mid 1990’s when the market was opened for competition, and privileges were systematically accorded to Chinese settlers.  The preferential treatment enjoyed by Chinese settlers in all spheres of employment exacerbates the discrimination faced by Tibetans today.  This inequity was accelerated by the July 1994 Third Work Forum in Tibet, which launched 62 projects in the “TAR”, many of which were major construction ventures undertaken by contractors using imported workers or Chinese already living in Tibet.[96]

 

These hyped development projects, supposedly intended for the economic progress of the region, have been concentrated in the urban areas.  One of Beijing’s acknowledged goals in launching the western development plan, which was unveiled in 1999, was to bolster stability and unity in the PRC’s less developed western regions. Beijing’s fear is that as the economic gap widens between the booming east coast and the undeveloped —and often restive —west, the “unified motherland” will begin to fragment.  In the past three years, government has poured money into the western regions, creating an artificial boom in cities such as Lhasa.  The external subsidies provided to major cities are also a solution to the need to generate employment for Han Chinese from other provinces along with controlling the “troublesome” Tibetan plateau. 

 

During the Fourth Work Forum on Tibet in June 2001, President Jiang Zemin emphasised that the development, stability and security of Tibet are closely related to the implementation of the strategy of developing the country's western regions, national unity and social stability, national reunification and security, as well as China's image.[97]  But little of this development largesse is trickling down to the 80 percent of Tibetans living in villages and on farms.

 

According to an aid worker, "Nothing is being manufactured," and "It's just the reselling of things. No new wealth is being created."[98]

 

 

The prevalence of guanxi

 

Obtaining employment in Tibet often centres around guanxi (connections) or “bribery” that are utilised rather than reflecting the skills or suitability of the applicant.  Chinese settlers in Tibet are far more likely to have access to high-ranking Chinese officials, putting them in a better position to obtain employment; business permits and fulfils associated paperwork.  As a result, Tibetans resort to attempting to gain employment through illicit means, referred to as “guanxi”.  “Connection” also reportedly works to the advantage of ethnic Han (who tend to be in higher-ranking positions), and it is more difficult for Tibetans to get permits and loans to open businesses than it is for ethnic Han.[99] 

 

A Tibetan from Qinghai reports that “Without a good connection with high up Chinese officials there is no chance of getting employed.”  He states that “Even higher qualifications do not count in terms of finding a job unless you have equally good Chinese contacts...it is through personal contacts and backdoor connections that good jobs are obtained.”[100]

 

In addition to guanxi, bribing is necessary in order to start up a private business.  A Tibetan from Lithang who has experience setting up his own enterprise reports:

 

I bought land worth 20,000 yuan and gave 6,000 yuan as a bribe. If you don’t pay bribes it is difficult to get land, and even if you do get land they will make it very expensive and will create continuous problems.[101]

 

While recognising the need for development to improve living conditions, Antonio Cassese, an international lawyer, points out the problems created by developing countries such as China. In such countries, it is not unusual for political leaders to be inclined to act more in the interest of the ethnic group or the elite to which they belong than in the interest of the whole population.[102]

 

This is clearly the case in Tibet where development is motivated by broader Han nationalist agendas. The Chinese government policies are fixated upon centralised top-down models of development rather than locally appropriate and sensitive models and the need to accommodate an ever-increasing Chinese population.

 

Under the red banner of development, China is today pouring billions of dollars into Tibet and other remote western areas in an ambitious plan to develop the strategically important hinterland. But the money is largely benefiting government officials, local elites and well-connected entrepreneurs from affluent coastal regions.  The biggest infrastructure projects -- railways, gas pipelines, water schemes and electricity transmission lines -- are all aimed at sending western resources to China’s privileged east coast.

 

 

The Tourist Dollar

 

Tourism is being referred to as one of Tibet’s “pillar industries” and projected as one of the main sources of revenue by the Beijing authorities. According to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, with the number of visitors growing from 3,525 in 1980 to more than 840,000 in the first 10 months of 2002, tourists now bring 900 million yuan in income to the region, accounting for six percent of Tibet’s Gross Domestic Product.[103]

 

Local officials estimate that 700,000 tourists visited Tibet in 2001 — the majority of them Chinese.[104]  World Tourism Organisation, a UN agency based in Spain, has recently completed a master plan for the development of tourism for Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Qinghai and are now completing one for the “TAR”.

 

Where do the Tibetans figure when it comes to reaping economic benefits accruing from this much-hyped industry?  In fact in certain areas the infrastructure for the industry are displacing Tibetans from their ancestral land.  A nomad from Dzoge County, Ngaba “TAP”, Sichuan, described a tourist development around one of the Machu River’s famous “bends” which sparked a dispute over communal grasslands — traditionally the community’s winter pastoral area.  He corroborates that:

 

There was a dispute over the site; the sixth village said that the area belonged to the village; the monastery claimed that it belonged to them, and the Dzoge County government said that it belonged to the county. The land was of no use to the monastery but the sixth village needed it as grassland for its animals, and also wanted to build some storerooms for families. But the county wanted to run a tourist place and make some money from it.

 

The case was taken to Ngaba Prefecture. Both the prefecture and the county jointly made the decision to allow the county government to run the tourist project.

 

Initially the county had told the sixth village that half the income would be given to the village. However, when the prefecture authorities made the final decision, there was no compensation given to the village. The government ordered the village to stop constructing storehouses on the land. The county has constructed a big building there where county administration staff stay, and they have pitched many tents where tourists sleep. There is a tent for playing games. There are boats on the river. Chinese government officials have a long holiday in summer and they come here during that time. Last year when I was about to come here, about 50 to 60 tourist buses came there per day. Most of them come from Chengdu and Beijing.[105]

 

Tourism will drive Tibet's economy in the future, so it is essential to train the “autonomous” region's tourism professionals, says Li Yuezhong, an official with China National Tourism Administration (CNTA).[106]  However, the trend has been to exclude the Tibetans from employment — even as tourist guides.  There is anecdotal evidence that in schools with programmes to specifically train tour guides, where courses are offered in Tibetan culture and language, the enrolment is mainly Chinese.

 

There are reported incidents of “TAR” authorities pressuring employers to dismiss staff who were raised or educated in India - especially in socialised professions such as the tourism industry.  Lhasa tour agencies are continuing to be forced to dismiss Tibetan tour guides educated in Nepal or India.  These guides are then required to seek employment with the “TAR” government’s Tibet Tourism Bureau (TTB).  Prior to being employed by the TTB, applicants must pass an examination on Tourism and Politics.  Many — if not most — Tibetan tour guides educated abroad reportedly fail this examination.  Tourist hotels and restaurants are also “encouraged” to dismiss ethnic Tibetan employees educated abroad.[107] 

 

 

Pouring in of Chinese migrants

 

Since the early 1990s, Tibet has been subject to a mass influx of Chinese migrants.  This has been encouraged by government-sponsored infrastructure projects, mining, the gold rush in Qinghai and Northern Tibet, and relaxation of regulations governing private enterprises.  Chinese from the Mainland have been encouraged to start businesses in Tibet with loans made easily obtainable.[108]  The process was further enhanced after 1992 when Lhasa was declared a Special Economic Zone, leading to an increase in both skilled and unskilled Chinese moving to the “TAR”[109]. 

 

Tibetans form the majority in the rural areas within “TAR” and some prefectures of Sichuan and Qinghai outside “TAR”.  However, in the urban areas of the aforementioned regions, Tibetans are being driven to being a minority in their own homeland.  They are also being rendered a minority in many of the “Minority Nationality Autonomous Areas” (MNAAs), particularly those close to urban centres such as Xining and Lanzhou.

 

At a news conference on 7 August 2002 in Lhasa, Jin Shixun, Deputy Director General of Tibet's Development and Planning Commission, admitted that in urban Lhasa, about 50 percent of residents are ethnic Chinese migrants.[110]  He further informed 12 foreign correspondents on an official visit to Tibet that: "There are more and more people from other provinces of China who are coming to Tibet to open up their businesses or make investments here."

 

Jin further added that Tibet needed the skilled labour and investment from other regions to help maintain the average GDP growth rate and that the influx will bring unprecedented prosperity and stability to the region.[111]

 

Official Chinese statistics fail to clearly differentiate between ethnic Tibetans and Chinese migrants now living in Tibet.  Unfortunately, the official census does not give figures below prefecture level. It is extremely difficult to determine the number of Tibetans vis-à-vis the Chinese since the ethnic classification would appear only if county level figures were shown.

 

Article 8 of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development mentions that “states should undertake…all necessary measures for the realisation of the right to development and shall ensure…equality of opportunity for all in their access to basic resources, education, health services, food, housing, employment and fair distribution of income.”

With the Chinese policy of organised transfer of population from China to Tibet, even the lowest jobs in society are filled by Han migrants, which in practical terms leaves very little scope for the local Tibetan people.  Chinese have taken over even the traditional trades of the Tibetans such as thangka painting, wood carving, and tailoring. 

 

According to a recent visitor to Lhasa “One needs to take a 10-yuan ride in a taxi in any direction away from the Potala to discover who are the real beneficiaries of this progress. Just a peep into the multi-storeyed houses, government offices and glittery shopping arcades will tell you that a large majority of houses, jobs and businesses belong to the Chinese”.[112]

 

Taxi drivers and shopkeepers in Tibetan cities are overwhelmingly migrants from China's ethnic-Han majority, who appear to be getting most of the benefits of the urban boom. These newcomers often sneer at the Tibetans. 

 

A Chinese businessman who owns a fruit stand in the Tibetan city of Shigatse has this to say, “They (Tibetans) just play around. They don't understand anything about business."[113]

 

The mega Qinghai-Tibet railway project initiated in 2001 will further facilitate the economic integration of Tibet into China and increase the number of Chinese settlers in Tibet.  There has always been a sense among Beijing planners and the military that Tibet cannot be fully assimilated without a rail link to the Mainland.[114]

 

A taxi driver in Lhasa who is Han Chinese from a poor central province of China tells me the government has made it easy for migrant workers to come to Tibet. A few dollars buys a temporary residence permit. There is money to be made here, he says, adding that many other people from his village have come to Tibet. [115]

 

 

Race-based Discrimination

 

CERD recognises various grounds as constituting discrimination, defining it as: “Any distinction, exclusion, or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex or religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation”[116]  Article 5(e) of the same Convention states that, “Everyone without discrimination should enjoy the right to...work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work and favourable remuneration.”

 

Going by the letters of the Convention, the volume and consistency of testimonies gathered in exile confirm extreme discriminatory practices even against those who are employed.  These policies further economically marginalise Tibetans in their own land.  “Discrimination in employment reportedly is rampant; ethnic Han are hired preferentially for any jobs and receive greater pay for the same work. Ethnic Tibetans reportedly are fired discriminatorily from some jobs.” [117]

 

Pema Dolkar, a 28-year-old former taxi driver from Lhasa claims that racial bias has permeated throughout the Chinese settlers in Tibet, resulting in Tibetans being deprived of opportunities and profit.[118]  She asserts that Chinese help each other to establish businesses and in other matters.  Further, “Chinese people never ride in taxis driven by Tibetans, they always seem to prefer taxis driven by fellow Chinese.”  Given the high percentage of Chinese living in urban areas, and their higher disposable incomes, this discrimination has a significant effect on Tibetans employed in private transport.  Pema Dolkar also testifies to the “alarming number of shops, restaurants, factories and almost every business establishment owned and run by Chinese civilians”.

 

Conclusion

 

At the 16^th CCP Congress concluded in Beijing in November this year, the nation’s leaders showcased economic progress and their ostensible ability to fight unemployment, corruption and other obstacles to developing a more prosperous, more capitalist country. However, their achievements in these fields in the region of “TAR” and outside “TAR” where Tibetan people subsist are negligible.

 

Tibet is a glaring example of a country where mismanagement plus authoritarian colonial governance has led to unprecedented economic woes and an inadequate standard of living — not to mention the ongoing abuse of civil and political rights. China has failed miserably on both scorecards.  And this leaves Tibetans doubtful of the utility of so-called economic and social rights, and fearful of the consequences to Tibetan lives and culture of continued bad governance and race-based discrimination in the country’s economy.

 

 

Right to Education

 

Introduction

 

“If governments wish to prevent certain groups from equally participating in the political, social, economic or cultural life in their countries, one of the most efficient methods is to deny them equal access to education...”[119]

 

Since it’s takeover of Tibet in the 1950’s, the Chinese government has used the system of education as a means to systematically discriminate against Tibetans.  Instead of education catering to the human development of the Tibetan children on the plateau it has been the medium of inculcating loyalty to the government in Beijing.  Such an exercise of power is a blatant violation of international law.

 

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ratified in 1992 by China, makes a number of provisions for State parties.[120] Article 29 of the CRC states that

 

...the education of the child shall be directed to...the development of respect  for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living, the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own.[121]

 

China, being a State party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is obligated to submit a four-yearly periodic report to the UN.  China is yet to submit its second periodic report which is long overdue since March 1999.

 

This chapter is a comprehensive review of the state of education in today’s Tibet,  incorporating sections on school curriculae, Tibetan as a language and Beijing’s minority education policies and practices in Tibet.

 

The PRC’s White Paper on Minorities[122] Policy of 1999 states that the education of China’s “minorities” shall be “of paramount importance to the improvement of the quality of the minority population and to the promotion of economic and cultural development in ethnic minority areas”.[123]

 

Yet independent studies and anecdotal evidence from all over Tibet reveal that there is minimal educational development in the “TAR” as well as in provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan which now incorporate most of the traditional eastern Tibetan provinces of Kham and Amdo.

 

According to China Human Development Report 2002 released by the United Nations Development Program, the educational index for Tibet[124] stands bottom against China’s other 31 provinces. The gross enrolment rate and adult literacy ratio for Tibet are also the lowest in comparison with provinces of China.

 

In June 2002, David Strawbridge, education advisor to Save the Children Fund (SCF ), an organisation with much experience in Tibet, said that,

 

the Tibet Autonomous Region still lags behind other provincial areas of China in education and equipment, and therefore all parties should continue to increase cooperation in this field.[125]

 

China frequently publishes inflated and often inconsistent statistics on the number of schools across the plateau and the government funding to them but they conceal the actual educational experiences of pupils. Statistics on the number of school buildings and employees in these institutions tell us nothing about the quality of services provided, the cost to users, or the qualifications of those providing the services. When one looks more closely at quality, qualifications, budgets and the crucial question of who pays, a very different picture emerges.

 

The level of education continues to be low among Tibetans for multiple reasons.  Many more remote areas do not have schools and parents are reluctant to send their children to boarding schools for various reasons including their inability to pay the fees. 

A significant number of children escape across the Himalaya  to the Tibetan exile community in India each year to recieve a proper Tibetan education.[126] Children under the age of 18 constitute more than half of the Tibetans annually seeking asylum in India.  In 2002,[127] 715 children under the age of eighteen - mostly in the age group of seven to thirteen-arrived at the Tibetan Reception Centre in Dharamsala, north India. These minors who risk the treacherous and sometimes fatal journey across the Himalaya escape primarily to enrol in exile schools and receive broad-based education. Most are sent by their parents paying guides and trusting strangers to accompany them.  The only impetus for Tibetan parents to send their children alone –often parting them permanently- to India is the sheer lack of viable education in today’s Tibet.  

 

Children arriving in India receive free and high quality education in a country-wide network of various schools set up in exile by the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government- in-Exile. “Whoever has gone to Dharamsala will acknowledge that the education of the refugee children is a success story.”[128] Unfortunately, though well-educated and professionally competent, these students will face a difficult time overcoming prejudices from Chinese institutions if they decide to return to their homeland.

 

Politicised Education

 

Education in Tibet is designed to inculcate love for communism and the “motherland” and demands the denunciation of the Dalai Lama and his “clique” in the exile.  The school curriculum is based on the Marxist analysis of history placing cultures as being at different stages of development.[129]  The Han Chinese are regarded as being at the apex of development and superior to the Tibetan race who are portrayed as backward and ignorant barbarians.  The state propagates the myth of a Chinese people descending from the Yellow Emperor although Tibetans themselves have a myth of descending from monkeys: a myth which may make more sense to Darwanian science.  However Tibetans are made to forget this and embrace ‘Chinese’ identity. This doctrine of superiority is specifically prohibited by article 4 of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)[130] which states that

 

States Parties condemn all propaganda and all organisations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form, and undertake to adopt immediate and positive measures designed to eradicate all incitements to, or acts of, such discrimination...

 

The Tibetan students are taught China’s version of history and world view and  are deprived of knowledge of  their own independent history.  Repeating patriotic slogans about the great motherland, its “great” leaders and atheistic sentiments are a daily ritual in classes.

Tenzin, an 18-year-old student from Chenduo township, Jyekundo County, Jyekundo “TAP”, Qinghai Province,  who arrived in Nepal on 1 April 2002,  said,

 

 The students are highly discouraged from attending any religious functions or visiting temples. They are also barred from displaying images of the Dalai Lama.[131]

 

Any form of politcal discussion or dissent in political connotation in the classrooms is quelled with threats of severe repercussions, including being reported to the state’s armed police, the Public Security Bureau (PSB).  Tenzin reported TCHRD of a classroom incident that occurred in 1999 when he was in higher middle school. An anti-Dalai Lama news item shown on television sparked a strong reaction from the students. The headmaster, on learning about the protest reprimanded the whole class.  Tenzin says,

 

In a very stern tone, he reminded us of what he had talked about at the meeting with the whole school at the beginning of the semester. He told us again that we must follow the path shown by the Chinese communist government with their Marxist and Leninist ideology, and we should not think of anything incriminating. He told us that we should not believe in the Dalai Lama’s misleading preaching about Tibet’s independence, which is simply not attainable. We were warned that if that sort of incident happened again, he would not hesitate to expel the whole class from the school and hand us over to the Public Security Bureau.[132] 

 

Beijing’s “Patriotic Education” campaign, launched in 1996 in Tibet, seeks to undermine loyalty to the Dalai Lama through the promotion of atheism.[133] The campaign involves re-educating Tibetan monks and nuns in Chinese communist ideology and China’s version of Tibetan history, denunciation of the Dalai Lama and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the XI^th   Panchen Lama chosen by the Dalai Lama.[134] This campaign which was originally meant for monastic institutions has now been extended into the lay populace too. Though the campaign is not formally launched in the schools of Tibet but it is very much prevalent.

 

Chinese authorities reportedly require professors, particularly those from Tibet University’s language department which is viewed as a potential source of dissent, to attend political education sessions and purge course studies and materials in an effort to prevent “separatist” (political and religious) ideas and activities on campus. Many ancient or religious Tibetan texts are banned from the curriculum for the fear of generating Tibetan nationalism by studying them.

 

Beijing’s 2001-2005 Five-Year Plan requires more Chinese nationals to be recruited to fill teaching posts in the “TAR” ostensibly to develop education in the region. This threatens the Tibetan teachers job security. This suggests that existing Tibetan teachers are likely to be marginalised and liable to lose their jobs to Chinese migrants recruited deliberately for Tibet.

Beijing’s strategy  to transfer Chinese teachers to the “TAR” is to upgrade the teaching of  communist theory and indoctrination to  Tibetan children.  Students look to their teachers for knowledge and emotional development, with more Chinese teachers in Tibet’s classrooms, the influence of “Middle Kingdom” thinking and culture on young Tibetan minds can only spiral in future.

 

Assimilation Through Education

 

People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, reported on 8 November 2002 that “Since the first Tibetan class was set up in an inland school in 1985, more than 20,000 Tibetan students have graduated from such classes offered by more than 20 provinces and cities over the past past 17 years. Some 10,000 are university graduates.”[135] 

 

China’s central government has allocated special funds to set up Tibetan middle schools in mainland China.  The students are selected after medical examinations and on the basis of their school results.  These mainland middle schools are distant from Tibet, and so the students must stay continously for three years. [136] Some young Tibetans who were chosen from primary school age spent a many more years’ continuously in China.  Teng Xin (Tib: Tenzin), a scholar, fully endorses this policy and states that students need to be isolated so that they can learn and not be affected by their fatalistic surroundings.

 

TCHRD questions why these elite schools are being provided in Mainland China and not where they are most needed, in Tibet. Beijing’s rationale is that these students, upon graduation, would become trusted leaders and bureaucrats under the socialist system when they are assigned government positions in the “Tibet Autonomous Region”. The PRC calculates that it can more easily control Tibet’s population by installing leaders of an ethnic Tibetan origin who nevertheless follow the correct path over development, socialism and anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric.

 

This “minorities” education policy of taking the brightest Tibetan students to special schools in China and indoctrinating them in communist ideology and political worldview is part of a series of systematic schemes to assimilate Tibetans into the Chinese mainstream and blur the distinctness of Tibetan language, customs, culture and history.

 

 

Tibetan becoming a moribund language

 

The Tibetan language policy has been one of the most significant issue in education in Tibet, particularly since the temporary period of liberalisation in the early 1980’s.  The Tibetans regard their language as the root of their ancient culture whereas the Chinese authorities view it as the symbol of nationalist sentiment.

 

The Tibetan language is seen by some Chinese leaders as the proper target of both the current campaign against the pro-independence movement and the campaign throughout Tibet to eradicate traditional beliefs.  In October 1995 Communist party leaders in the “Tibet Autonomous Region” are reportedly circulated a document arguing that separatism was partly caused by schools teaching too much religion and using the Tibetan language.[137]

 

In fact, China’s 1995 Education Law provided for teaching nationalities in their own languages.  Article 12 of the Education Law[138] states that

 

Schools and other educational institutions primarily for ‘minority’ nationalities may use the spoken or written language in common use among the ethnic group or in the locality as the language of instruction

 

While teaching of Tibetan has been permitted in some village schools, the best equipped and staffed schools continue to teach in Chinese medium.

Two foreign tourists who travelled extensively in Tibet in the month of April-June 2002 commented that

 

Chinese schools (like in Dartsedo) were taught in Chinese and no Tibetan subjects are taught, not even Tibetan language although in some cases most of the students are Tibetan. Chinese medium schools in which Tibetan language is taught just as another subject and all other subjects are taught in Chinese only. Tibetan history, philosophy and arts are not taught in these schools. This is the type of school most prominent in Tibet[139].

 

By the end of July 2002, the Chinese authorities closed down Tsangsul School.  This Tibetan-run school was  first founded in 1988 through the joint effort of three Tibetan individuals to promote and preserve Tibetan language.  The primary reason for the school to be closed was due to its popularity for giving emphasis to Tibetan culture.  Parents removed their children from the government school, Yuethong school no.1 to admit them to Tsangsul school.  The school followed the curriculum similar to the other middle level school in addition to the fact that Tibetan was given the main emphasis.[140]  At the time of its closure the school had 500 students, of whom 60 students –all orphans- received free education while the others, who generally were unable to pay the reguler exorbitant fees asked by other schools, paid a nominal fee of 20 Yuan per semester.

 

The written Tibetan language is suffering the most drastic deterioration.  Business and government reports, especially at a higher level, usually are written in Chinese. Computer software in Tibet usually is formatted to write in Chinese.  Even well-educated Tibetans are losing the ability to write in their own language.

 

Beijing claims that Tibetan is widely used in the media and in publications.[141]  In fact the opposite is true as most newspapers, books and periodicals in Tibet are written in Chinese and not in Tibetan.  John Billington, an independent observer noted that there were 408 magazines for sale in Chinese, but saw only one in Tibetan.[142]

 

Tenzin Rabgyal, a refugee who arrived in Kathmandu on 25 May 2002 reported that 

 

In 2002, the Chinese authorities virtually closed the Cultural Development Society (a forum for pure cultural exchange through showcase of  literary talent) in Rebkong County, Malho “TAP”, Qinghai Province. The Chinese are always against anything that promotes Tibetan culture. On the pretext of the society having underlying political tones, the Chinese authorities ordered for its closure without prior notice. There was no political significance attached to the aims and objectives of the society.[143]

 

Even among the policy-making elite in Lhasa of educationist, intellectuals and officials, there are varying views.  One group argues the importance of the language and calls for education in all its extensions to be in Tibetan whereas the later group advocates importance of economy calling for the language to be sidelined in favour of economy.  In the post 1987 political climate, the second group has emerged dominant with the government giving importance to economic reasons and the de-emphasis of Tibetan culture.[144]  Chinese is increasingly the language of business and government in Tibet—a development that many critics say has worrisome implications for the embattled Tibetan culture.[145]

 

Kunchok Gyatso (Ch: Goinqog Gyaco), a linguist with the Tibet Regional Academy of Social Sciences said, “the Tibetan language face a challenge in the wake of globilization and cultural influences”.[146]  Tibetan is still the main language in rural Tibet’s villages and farms, but ambitious young urban Tibetans, immersed in Chinese pop culture and aspiring to higher-paying jobs in a Chinese-dominated system, find fewer and fewer reasons to speak their native tongue.[147]

Students who attend the Chinese schools master Chinese better than those who attend the Tibetan schools.  Since a high level of Chinese language is prerequisite for any government job, those attending the Chinese schools have better chances.[148]  Tsering Yangtso, 17, originally from Dingri (Ch: Tingri) County said,

 The students pay more attention to Chinese classes, and it is common knowledge that learning Tibetan doesnot offer much scope in future career.”[149] 

 

 Most affluent Tibetans tend to sent their children to mainland China  to study in Chinese language schools.  Tsering, a successful businessman, when asked why he had sent his children to mainland China said, “ I want them to find good jobs in Tibet when they graduate.”[150]

 

Linguistic scholars warn that younger Tibetans are having trouble communicating with their older relatives, becoming  “aliens”  in their own communities.

 

In the light of current political situation of Tibet, Tibetan as a language faces the danger of becoming a moribund language should Beijing donot hold fast to the illustrious provisions in their constitution in regard to minority education.

 

The much publicised promotion of Tibetan language law approved at the 15^th session of the Seventh Regional People’s Congress of the Tibet Autonomous Region on 23 May 2002 will remain to be speculated for its effectiveness with the common understanding that such an approval will remain an approval only and just a hollow law out of many in the Chinese constitution and its provisions for the minorities.

 

 

“Minority Education” in Tibet: An Unfulfilled Promise

 

Under the classification of Tibet as one of China’s so-called minority nationalities, Tibetan children should enjoy enhanced educational rights under international law. Article 30 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stipulates that

 

States in which ethnic, religious or linguistics minorities or persons of indigenous origin exists, a child belonging to such a minority or who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.[151]

 

 China is thus obligated to ensure that Tibetans enjoy the enhanced protections that “ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities” receive under certain international treaties, including the CRC, which establishes the right of each “minority” child to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practice his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language.[152]

 

The fact that the populations of the 55 “minority nationalities” recognised by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) live predominantly in poor rural areas, combined with the often neglected state of education in the countryside, means that ethnic minority children face particular difficulty getting proper schooling.[153]

 

The Han-centric curriculum, taught largely in standard Mandarin Chinese (Ch:Putonghua) and obligatory throughout China regardless of the ethnic composition of the region, generally does not create an environment in which Tibetan children do not  feel their cultures, languages and histories have value.[154]  The government as nurturing separatist sentiments views the Tibetans.[155]

 

With shrinking government subsidies, minority colleges have begun to enrol more and more Han Chinese students:  Han students account for half or more of the enrolment in most minority colleges now.[156] China’s minority colleges are at a crossroad, and where they will go is as uncertain as trying to predict the future of historically black colleges in the United States.  To meet their expenses, minority colleges have begun to enrol ethnic Chinese students at an astonishing rate, and focussing on departments, such as English and computer science, that attract those students.

 

Beijing claims that to foster education in Tibet and as part of its preferential policies toward local ethnic groups, a flexible method of enrolment is applied in all schools by lowering the passing marks of local ethnic groups and then taking into account their test results.[157]  While it is true that admission to the University of Tibet in Lhasa does not require high grades, Tibetans must pass an entrance exam in Chinese to enroll in the university.  So they lose many places.  On top of that the preferential policies are often misused by Han Chinese who reclassify themselves as Tibetans (or other minority) to take advantage of these program.[158]  Tibetan students lose their seats to Chinese students who have failed entrance exams in their homeland.  These individuals then go to Tibet, where they have an advantage of passing the test due to their command over their mother language and more importantly the prevalence of corruption.

 

A detailed account of how Chinese usurp places ostensibly designated for Tibetans was given to TCHRD by a Tibetan who recently arrived in exile.

 

  In 2001, approximately 300 Tibetan students were denied their opportunity for higher education in the Tibet Autonomous Region. These courses included specialised fields such as medicine, secretarial studies, banking, accountancy, police force etc. According to an exclusive bulletin on exam results published on 30 July 2001 by the ‘TAR’ Department of Education, the cut off score was 225.  Four days later, a revised higher schore was announced on TV causing great distress to the students and their families who had already been celebrating their admittance into university.  When asked about the change, the Lhasa City Education Department gave no apparent reason which made the students and their parents proceed to the ‘TAR’ government office.  There, they protested against this abrupt and unexplained change. A junior official played down the whole episode as an unfortunate typist error. The assertive parents and students were singled out for insinuative threats. One of the ill-fated student stated, “Chinese officials take bribes to recruit Chinese students in the reserved seats meant for the Tibetans in the category of  ‘ethnic minority group’.”

 

Many Chinese are stealing those few opportunities that are extended to Tibetan students. This speculation is supported by the fact that in 2001, of the 1019 students who qualified for these specifically allocated positions, only 405 were Tibetan and the remaining 515 were Chinese students. [159]

 

 To limit the number of students accepted, age restrictions also apply.  Here too, Tibetans are underprivileged because they begin school later than students in Central China.[160]

 

A factor that affects Tibetan children’s primary education is the ethnic composition of their schools.  This often reflects the demographics of the local population in the school’s area.  But in state-run institutions it may also depend on connections (Ch: guanxi) a factor that tends to favour students whose parents work in government offices or administrative positions in the school system.[161]  Dolma, 18, easily moved to Gannan Prefecture Middle School from her previous Machu County Middle School, Gansu Province.  She said,  “one needs private connection with the school principal which I fortunately have and was able to change my school”.[162]

 

Even for school teacher’s family connections matter a lot in securing their job. Choeyang, a village primary school teacher in Jyekundo County (Ch:Yushu), Qinghai Province commented that the process of securing employment or having their position secured is not difficult for those students whose families have money or good family connections.[163]

 

 

Conclusion

 

The Beijing government is fearful of political unrest in Tibet.  To suppress this unrest education has been given high priority by the government as a means to inculcate loyalty to the state.  The main aim of education in Tibet is to Sinicise the Tibetan population and indoctrinate them with political dogma.  At every opportunity the government emphasises the rhetoric of love for the great motherland and insist on inculcating the rhetoric into the masses.

 

The official language is Chinese and this discriminates against Tibetans in every sphere of life.  Tibetan as a language though promoted sometimes is merely done with the aim of disseminating government policies and ideology.  Despite illustrious provisions in the Chinese national law and regulations passed in the regional government, Tibetan as language is bound to become a moribund language as it is not the medium in all forms of mass communications in Tibet.  Tibetan language is sidelined in favour of much acclaimed economic prosperity of the Tibetan people.  Beijing has managed to create a demand for Chinese to be taught and taken seriously by laying the trap of unemployment in the job market if Tibetans insist on studying in their native language. And those who insist faces the repercussion of having separatist sentiments and inciting the people against the government.

 

The minority education facilities for Tibetans is as minor as in its name.  The so called minority education exist in name only as the  reservation seats for Tibetan people in getting higher education are being stolen by Han Chinese who fake Tibetanness by changing their name and their house registration. [164]  The authorities willingly entertain these mainland failure Han Chinese students by issuing them false house registration and identity.[165] 

 

The so-called inland schools for Tibetan children are nothing more than for effective control of Tibetans as they will act as community leaders for China upon their graduation. These students are thoroughly brainwashed in the communist ideology and make the perfect leaders to unleash the government policies.  These inland schools are a breeding ground for China’s stooge Tibetan rulers.

.

China promised to uplift and educate Tibetans but the actual reality experienced by so many Tibetans is that these are empty promises. China often refer to development when countered on  certain policies. Unless there is human development in Tibet, there will be no sustainable development in Tibet.  Education is sustainable development.

 

Until education in Tibet improves enormously, the basic economic and social human rights of the entire people will be denied.

 

 

Right to Health

 

 

Health is perhaps the most important aspect of human life, indivisibly linked to other rights and to human happiness and wellbeing.  However, there are many people in this world, including Tibetans, who are still deprived of this basic right.  The right to health is comprised of many small yet significant rights, including the right to free or affordable health care and services, the right to access medical services within a reasonable distance, and the right to information regarding public health issues. 

 

The right to health has been addressed in international instruments, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and the conventions and declarations on refugees, racial discrimination, migrant workers, prisoners, women and disabled people.

 

The “enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health” has been recognised as a “fundamental right” by the international community since the adoption of the constitution of the World Health Organization in 1946.[166]  UDHR provides that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including…medical care and necessary social services”[167].

 

Treaties such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), ratified by China prohibit racial discrimination in the enjoyment of the right to public health and medical care,[168] “recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health” and to facilitate for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health,[169] and bar discrimination against women in the field of health care “in order to ensure, on the basis of equality of men and women, access to health care services.”[170]  Article 14(2)(b) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) provides the rights of rural women’s “access to adequate health care facilities.” 

 

In addition to these international obligations, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has committed itself to providing health care to its citizens in its domestic laws.  In the Constitution of the PRC, China purports to “develop medical and health services, promote modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, encourage and support the setting up of various medical and health facilities by the rural economic collectives, state enterprises and undertakings and neighbourhood organisations, and promote sanitation activities of mass character”.[171] 

 

While China has made significant strides in improving health in urban China, the health conditions of Tibetans continue to lag far behind national averages, and fall far short of international standards of adequate health care.  The lack and cost of primary care and the shortage of trained village-level health workers contribute to preventing Tibetans from achieving the highest attainable standards of health. 

 

Tibetans on the plateau have very limited or no access to health care facilities.  The few facilities available in rural areas are curative rather than preventative, and are extremely expensive.  Modern medical amenities are generally concentrated in areas where large numbers of Chinese migrants reside. Urban bias is strong.  Even in these regions, however, Tibetans face many problems accessing the available medical services as compared to their Chinese counterparts.

 

TCHRD has received complaints of discrimination, high fees, and an absence of Tibetan-speaking staff, all of which combine to pose a significant barrier to Tibetans who want to use these medical facilities.  Tibetans consistently report that not only money is needed in order to gain admission to medical facilities or examination by a doctor, but also connections (Ch: guanxi) that Tibetans seldom have. 

 

The plight of Tibetans living in remote areas is even worse.  With distance being their main barrier, they also face discriminatory problems.  The general claims of the Chinese government are negated by specific testimonies by Tibetans indicating that they are charged up front for all medical services, often in a biased manner.  Health care is no longer a right.  It has become a favour, made available to those who can pay and have the right connections.

 

The lack of public health education among Tibetans living in Tibet is also a cause of major concern.  With estimates of up to one million HIV positive persons across China this year, China has now started taking this epidemic seriously, calling the situation “very dangerous”. For “the first time it has lavished that kind of attention on a disease”.[172]

           

The issue of the reproductive rights of Tibetan women is of major concern too.  Tibetan women are subjected to strict birth control measures.  Although these measures are also imposed on Chinese women, the methods forced on Tibetans are of an extremely biased nature.  Forced sterilisation and other birth control measures have been taking place across the plateau on an enormous scale under the governance of the PRC although it is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.[173]  The huge fines that are imposed on families exceeding the official quota often result in late abortions and other serious threats to the health of Tibetan women. 

 

Grave concern may also be raised over the health conditions of political prisoners.  Cases of custodial deaths are reported every year from Tibet’s prisons and labour camps and the cause of many such cases frequently turns out to be inadequate medical care, unhygienic and inhumane conditions of the prisons and inadequate food and drinking water.

 

 

Political Prisoners: Health in Peril

 

As of late 2002, there were approximately 208 Tibetans who remained incarcerated in various prisons in Tibet.  The deaths of around 10 political prisoners were reported in the year 2001.  Lobsang Dhargyal, a Tibetan prisoner of conscience, died on 19 November 2002 in a Manufacturing Unit for Hydro-Electricity Power Plant, a "reform-through-labour" camp in Siling Township, Golog “TAP”, Qinghai.  It is almost certain that Lobsang Dhargyal's demise was due to torture and maltreatment in the forced labour camp.  He is believed to have suffered a brain hemorrhage at the time of death.[174]

 

TCHRD has recorded the death of 79 political prisoners since the year 1986.[175]  Some of these deaths have occurred due to torture inflicted in the plateau’s prisons; others have succumbed to the unhygienic and inhumane conditions that are prevalent in prisons in Tibet.  We do recognise the declining number of Tibetans in prison but then one of the reasons for the decline is that prison authorities in Tibet are increasingly releasing prisoners with serious health problems on medical parole. This tactic of releasing of critically ill prisoners—usually on medical parole—is to avoid responsibility for their deaths and criticism over denial of adequate, timely and effective medical care.  Chinese authorities have routinely employed this strategy of releasing prisoners whose critical health condition is beyond recuperation.

 

Conditions in almost all the prisons where Tibetan political prisoners are detained or imprisoned continue to be poor and fall far below international standards.  According to Amnesty International:

 

Reports continued of torture and ill treatment of detainees and harsh conditions in the ‘Tibet Autonomous Region’ prisons. Many prisoners suffered health problems because of poor food and sanitation.”[176]

 

Prisons in Tibet are an exceptionally unhealthy environment.  When asked what are their most acute problems, ex-prisoners interviewed by TCHRD generally cite overcrowding, lack of medical care, low-grade food.  Proper sanitary conditions are key elements of humane and decent treatment.  They impact on a prisoner’s health, morale and to a large extent determine the quality of life in prison.  But prisons in Tibet have primitive provisions for defecation and urination. 

 

This complaint is corroborated by the case of Dhak Lobsang from Jheney Village, Lithang County, Karze Prefecture, who escaped to exile after serving a five-year sentence at Ngaba Prison in Sichuan.  Dhak Lobsang, along with two other Tibetans, was sentenced on charges of involvement in “counter revolutionary activities, incitement and propaganda” during a closed trial at Karze Intermediate People’s Court.  While recounting the torture he suffered at the hands of the prison officials, Lobsang described the cell conditions at Karze PSB Detention Centre where he was held before being sentenced.  He said, “ I was kept along with more than 11 people inside a small room.  The place was so congested that there was hardly any place to move.  Each of us had less than one-foot breadth of space to sleep.  We could only sleep sideways.

 

            “There were two open-ended buckets meant for toilet in the cell. The foul smell of the toilet along with the congestion was unbearable and suffocating. But we had no other option.

“The food provided was not fit enough to eat. It was so bad and meager that many of my fellow prisoners fell sick.”[177] 

 

 

- Failure to comply with minimum standards of treatment:

 

The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners sets out detailed rules for the treatment of prisoners and detainees.  It provides that:

 

10. All accommodation provided for the use of prisoners and in particular to sleeping accommodation shall meet all requirements of health, due regard being paid to climate conditions and particularly to cubic content of air, minimum floor space, lighting, heating and ventilation….

 

11. The sanitary installation shall be adequate to enable every prisoner to comply with the needs of nature when necessary and in a clean and decent manner.

 

12. Adequate bathing and shower installations shall be provided so that every prisoner may be enabled and required to have a bath or shower, at a temperature suitable to the climate, as frequently as necessary for general hygiene according to season and geographical region…

 

13. Prisoners shall be required to keep their persons clean, and to this end they shall be provided with water and with such toilet articles as are necessary for health and cleanliness….

 

19. Every prisoner shall, in accordance with local or national standards, be provided with a separate bed, and with separate and sufficient bedding which shall be clean when issued, kept in good order and changed often enough to ensure cleanliness.[178]

 

Political prisoners ought to be kept in situations as envisaged by the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.  Prison conditions in Tibet are often harsh with inadequate food and medical care and many prisoners suffer from serious illness as a result.  Testimonies often bear complaints of prisoners being punished by exposure to temperature extremes.

           

Takna Jigme Sangpo, Tibet’s longest serving political prisoner, was released on medical parole on 31 March 2002.[179]  During one of his prison days, Takna recounted, “I was dragged from my cell and beaten so severely that my body became numb.  I was then placed in solitary confinement.  Six weeks later, I suffered from a new form of ‘cold cell’ torture.  My cell was lined with wet sheets that were designed to lower the cell’s temperature.  Permission to put on extra clothing was denied when the average winter temperature in Lhasa is minus 3.5 degrees Celsius and can drop as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius.”[180]

           

Political prisoners are frequently denied medical care until their condition becomes particularly severe and treatment, which is often incomplete, is given.[181]  This is corroborated by cases like that of Soepa from Mancho Village, Dzogang County, Chamdo Prefecture, “TAR”. Soepa underwent five years’ imprisonment at Lhasa’s Drapchi Prison.  During an interview with TCHRD, Soepa recounted cases where his fellow inmates suffered severely due to a lack of medical attention. 

 

Prisoners who fall sick in prison are not attended to immediately.  They are left unattended until other prisoners start protesting and demanding for medical attention.

 

Soepa recounts the case of his fellow inmate, Bhugo from Maldrogongkar County, “TAR”.

 

Bhugo fell ill in prison but he was ignored for a long time.  Bhugo was bedridden for almost four months.  His condition was so severe that he could not even stand on his own feet and would even defecate in his pants.  It was not until fellow inmates started protesting and demanding medical attention that the prison officials admitted Bhugo to the Army hospital.  He was hospitalised for around 19 days. 

 

Soepa also experienced a similar case with Gonpo Gyaltsen from Drayab County, Chamdo Prefecture, “TAR”. 

Gonpo suffered from tuberculosis but he was not given medical treatment for almost three months.  Gonpo would scream all night begging for medical attention but to no avail.  Finally, Gyamtso, a prison official took him to the hospital.”  Soepa also recounted that many of his fellow prison inmates suffered from appendicitis, which he believes is caused by the poor quality of food in prison.  He recalled that during his prison term around six prisoners suffered from appendicitis.[182]

 

Prisoners in Tibet are vulnerable to contracting TB and Multi-drug-resistant TB.[183]  It has been documented that epidemics such as tuberculosis (TB) can become a great problem in Chinese prisons as they are generally in crowded and unhygienic conditions.[184]

 

Tibetan prisoners—especially political prisoners who should not have been imprisoned in the first place—are often subjected to discrimination regarding health.  Prisoners are forced to perform harsh labour even when they are not medically fit to do so.  An ex-political prisoner Thupten Namdrol, from Gyatsa County, Lhokha Prefecture, “TAR”, died in 2002. Thupten Namdrol had spent over 27 years in prison before being released in 1995. Reportedly, Thupten fell ill while in prison but then prison officials continued to force him to perform hard labour.  In recent years, many ex-political prisoners have died following their release due to illnesses, which they reportedly contracted while in prison.[185]  A prison sentence can become a death sentence.

 

On 31 May 2002, while clarifying the official stand over cases involving the accidental death of prisoners in Tibet, the warden of Drapchi Prison admitted to the death of 15 prisoners due to illnesses in the past five years.[186]

The completion of a new punishment block at Drapchi Prison was reported in August 2002 and photos of it have been published.  This facility holds prisoners undergoing stricter punishment than the normal regime and new male arrivals.[187]  Conditions in this block, known as “Tsonkhul” (Detention Area) Nine, are reportedly the prison’s harshest.  Tibet Information Network reports that Detention Area Nine, which appears to have become operational around mid-2000, has a total of 24 cells.  Out of the 24, two are for solitary confinement and 21 are two-person cells.  The two-people cells measure roughly three by three meters.  All cells are reportedly poorly ventilated.[188]

 

The first prison hospital in Tibet reportedly will soon admit inmates.  This hospital is situated just outside Drapchi Prison and is supposedly designed to improve medical conditions for Tibet’s three prisons: Tibet Regional Prison (Drapchi), Lhasa Prison and Bomi Prison.[189]  The building of a hospital to treat prisoners in Tibet was long overdue and urgently needed.  While the Chinese government is to be commended for opening this hospital, whether or not the new facility proves helpful for Tibetan prisoners remains to be seen.

 

Large-scale letter writing campaigns calling for the improvement of the conditions of political prisoners were organised by the International Campaign for Tibet and other Tibet Support Groups this year.[190]  If the Chinese government is really able to fulfill the claims they made, then perhaps we will witness some improvement in the prisoners’ health problems —but all we can do now is wait, monitor and hope.

 

 

Psychological implications

 

Prisons in Tibet do more than deprive political prisoners of their physical freedom.  Prolonged solitary confinement in horrendous cells, especially after harsh beating and torture, often leads to psychological imbalance in prisoners. The effects of long-term isolation can be highly destructive.  Tortures such as deprivation of sleep and food and exposure to extremes of cold or heat may leave fewer marks on the body but can be just as destructive to the human body and personality as electric shocks or battering.  Such torture not only inflicts physical agony but also brings about mental anguish.

 

Testimonies of former political prisoners who were placed in solitary confinement reveal that during such detainment their hands and legs were often manacled and the food that they got was considerably less than usual.  The sizes of the solitary confinement cells in Drapchi Prison are very narrow, with just enough room for a prisoner to lie down. The rooms reportedly are completely dark, without windows or electricity.[191]

 

The UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners further provides that:

 

31. Corporal punishment, punishment by placing in a dark cell and all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment shall be completely prohibited as punishments for disciplinary offences.

 

32(1). Punishment by close confinement or reduction of diet shall never be inflicted unless the medical officer has examined the prisoner and certified in writing that he is fit to sustain it.

 

However, as a direct contravention of the UN’s suggested rules, prisoners are routinely placed in dark cramped cells under harsh conditions like inadequate diet and sanitary facilities.[192]  It is clear from ex-prisoners’ accounts that these rules are not adhered to in Tibet.

 

- Breaches of Medical Ethics

 

The International Code of Medical Ethics set out a doctor’s obligation to practice for the good of the patients and never to do harm.  Unfortunately the participation of doctors in systematic torture usually in the form of inadequate or denial of medical treatment often contributes to the health problems faced by prisoners in Tibet.

 

The Vienna Declaration in paragraph 58 calls for special attention to be given to the following principles of medical ethics and for these principles to be accorded universal respect and effectively implemented.

 

Principle 1:

Health personnel, particularly physicians, charged with medical care of prisoners and detainees have a duty to provide them with protection of their physical and mental health and treatment of disease of the same quality and standard as is afforded to those who are not imprisoned or detained.

 

Principle 3:

It is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel, particularly physicians, to be involved in any professional relationship with prisoners or detainees the purpose of which is not solely to evaluate, protect or improve their physical and mental health.

 

Contradictory to the above principles, testimonies also show indifference on the part of medical workers.  Worse, in some cases denial of proper care is used as a form of punishment. Lhakpa Tsering, a former political prisoner interviewed by TCHRD, reports that during his prison term he once overheard a conversation between prison nurses.  He heard them say, “If the prisoner is from the fifth division (usually for political prisoners), you can give them any kind of medicine, it doesn’t matter what their complaints are.”[193]

 

- Prisoner’s Right to Food:

 

UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, in his Millennium Report said that the first priority in today’s world was to fight hunger and realise a new human right – the right to food.[194]

           

According to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food[195],

                       

“The right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and unobstructed access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free from anxiety.”[196]

           

States Parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have a legally binding obligation to take steps to respect, protect, facilitate and fulfil the right to food.  Nevertheless, even after the ratification of this International Covenant on 27 March 2001, China has failed to realise the right to food when it comes to the rights of political prisoners.

 

Prisoners are routinely starved.  The meager quantity and poor quality of prisoners’ diets is something that Tibetan interviewees repeatedly complain of.  Food is a fundamental human need and should be supplied to all.  Further, it should not be something that is distributed on a discriminatory basis, or withdrawn as punishment.  Testimonies by ex-political prisoners sometimes reveal that lack of food is used to punish the prisoners, for instance when prisoners are first arrested and interrogated and also when they are placed in solitary confinement.[197]

 

Rule 20 of the UN’s Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners provides:

           

Every prisoner shall be provided by the administration at the usual hours with food of nutritional value adequate for health and strength, of wholesome quality and well prepared and served.

 

In stark contrast to the above-stated rule, prisoners’ accounts often show us a disturbing picture.  Lhakpa Tsering, who was detained in Drapchi Prison for a period of three years, states:

 

 The food is prepared in a very unhygienic way.  To avoid washing the huge utensils, the kitchen staffs would leave the utensils out in the sun to dry.  Both the kitchen and the cooks were very dirty.  In the mornings we were given a handful of tsampa (roasted barley) with salted black tea and salt.  The tingmos (steamed bread) that we got would sometimes be two or three days old and the vegetable was more like vegetable broth as there were no trace of vegetables in it.”[198]

 

Women and their wellbeing:

 

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) instructs State parties “to eliminate discrimination against women in all means of health care and take gender-specific measures in all areas of pre-natal and post-natal care and services”.[199]

 

The BPFA (Beijing Platform for Action)[200] states that women have “the right to employment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”.[201]  The BPFA also takes into consideration that women, in regards to health care, have the right to privacy, to be educated about HIV/AIDS etc.

 

The Beijing Conference also states,

 

“Good health is essential to leading a productive and fulfilling life, and the right of all women to control all aspects of their health, in particular their own fertility, is basic to their empowerment.”[202]

 

BPFA further states:

“The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.” [203]

 

However, the issue of the reproductive rights of Tibetan women under Beijing regulations has been a cause of major concern. Although all women in the PRC are subjected to strict birth control measures, the measures forced on the Tibetans are of an extremely biased nature.  Forced abortion and sterilisation and other extreme medical interventions have been taking place on an enormous scale under the governance of the PRC—a State that is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.[204]

 

Huge fines imposed on families who exceed the official quota for children often bring about late abortions and other serious threats to the health of Tibetan women.  Fines for “illegal” births are common as the testimony of a 38-year-old nomad from Drango County, Kanze “TAP”, Sichuan, shows,

 

No one in our village has four or five children.  If anyone has more than three children, a penalty of 1,400 yuan (US $169) per year is imposed on the family.  A fine is imposed on every additional child and this is paid until the child reaches 18. If someone was unable to pay the penalty, then the family planning officials would take away cattle and other possessions from the house.

 

Another Tibetan, from Trika County, Tsolho “TAP”, Qinghai reported that three women in his area were made to pay a penalty of 2,000 yuan (US $242) for exceeding the official limit of children a family can have.  He recounted,

 

All three women had to pay the penalty and were taken to hospital for an operation.  At the hospital you are not allowed to refuse to undergo the operation.”[205]

 

In its 1998 report to CEDAW, the PRC makes no specific mention of health care in relation to Tibetan women.  However, China does claim that, there has been an increase in the general health services to women and this has resulted in the “general improvement of women and children’s health”.[206]  But anecdotal evidence reveals that Tibetan women have not benefited at all from the so-called development claims made by the Chinese government.  

 

Sources indicate that Tibetan woman, especially in rural areas, have literally no access to any basic health care, or even if they do, services are far too expensive for them to use. Lhakpa from Tingri County, Shigatse Prefecture, “TAR” recounted in an interview with TCHRD that there are no medical centres or hospitals in her county.  She states, “A medical team comprising of two or three Chinese people visit the county only during the warmest five or six months.  During their visit, all women having reached the official child-quota are given injections in their shoulders.  This injection makes a woman infertile.” [207]  The long-term effects of this injection have not been monitored to date.

 

In many cases women are deterred from seeking health care services because they feel that they might be victims of forced sterilisation or abortion.  Tibetan women endure discriminatory health care practices under China’s birth control policies, despite purported concessions to “minority” groups, by being subjected to sterilisation and abortion procedures against their will.

 

Abortions and contraception procedures performed on Tibetan women are often dangerous.  They take place in makeshifts facilities, with no medical follow up or medication.  Due to negligence there are many cases of post-operation death.  The operation usually involves full sterilisation or the administering of a long-term contraceptive.[208]Forced and coerced sterilisation, contraception and abortion, including advanced-term abortion, take place commonly. These practices because they prevent birth, because they inflict physical and cognitive suffering, and because they sometimes result in deaths constitute acts which lead to serious mental imbalance in women patients.

 

The health situation for Tibetan women detainees is also of grave concern. In addition to being subjected to torture, women prisoners face degrading treatment in the form of denial of basic health needs such as the failure to provide sanitary materials for menstrual cycles and facilities for bathing.  The condition in prison for Tibetan women falls far short of international standards laid down as norms for human detention.  They are subjected to hard labour, forced exercise and other cruel forms of physical and psychological torture.

 

The case of Ngawang Sangdrol, a 24-year-old nun who was released nine years early from Drapchi Prison on 17 October 2002, reportedly for good behaviour, clearly proves the use of torture and the serious lack of medical care in prisons.

 

An informant from Tibet revealed that Sangdrol continues to receive medical treatment at her home. Another source, Passang Lhamo, a former Drapchi inmate currently in exile in Dharamsala, added,

 

“Sangdrol had endured extensive beatings and torture during her imprisonment, especially for her participation in the May 1998 protest.  She suffers multiple chronic ailments such as stomach, intestinal and heart diseases”. These are often related to anxiety and stress.  It is strongly believed that Sangdrol was almost certainly released more on medical grounds than for the stated reason of “good behaviour”.[209]

 

Grossly inadequate medical care in detention—as well as the apparent collusion of medical personnel—are major problems to be addressed by professional international ethics organisations. This is especially urgent since the release in 2002 of the report “Dangerous Minds”[210], on the use of psychiatry by the Chinese State to repress, incarcerate and forcibly medicate political dissidents.  Many female political prisoners — most commonly nuns —have died due to lack of medical care after being tortured.[211]

 

Tibetan women are discriminated against in the field of health care in Tibet on the basis of both their gender and their “minority” status as Tibetans.  This not only violates International Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws but also contributes to the lack of power and human dignity experienced by women in Tibet.

 

HIV/AIDS: The epidemic

 

HIV/AIDS was first reported in China in 1985 and is today a worldwide epidemic of global concern. While the world is spending heavily on AIDS awareness campaigns, the case does not seem to be so under the Chinese government. Testimonies and research show that there is a serious lack of AIDS/STD-related awareness and education among Tibetans.

 

Many newly exiled-Tibetans are even oblivious of the very existence of such sexually transmitted diseases and the ones who are aware complain of inadequate medical facilities, indifference and negligence on the part of the health authorities in Tibet in tackling the problem.  There are some signs that the central government in Beijing is waking up to the danger, but AIDS education and prevention across this vast country has barely begun.[212]  The Chinese government, despite international obligations to work towards the progressive realisation and confrontation of the HIV/AIDS virus, are seriously behind in the field of HIV/AIDS and other related diseases. China is where AIDS is a near-certain catastrophe, where the government doesn’t want to talk about it, where physicians fighting the disease are arrested, not assisted. [213]

 

China is estimating that 850,000 people are infected with HIV virus, a tremendous rise as compared to last year’s figure.[214]  According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, by the end of last year the Ministry of Health had recorded 30,736 people with HIV virus, among whom 1,594 had AIDS and 684 had died of the disease.[215]  UN health experts believe China has a much worse problem than the government acknowledges, with as many as 1.5 million HIV cases.[216] 

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese health officials too have admitted for several years that the official figures are way too low.  Their unofficial estimates for the number of HIV carriers in China have risen steadily from 400,000 in 1999 to 500,000 in 2000 to 600,000 in 2001 and now 850,000 in 2002.[217]  The United Nations says China could have 10 million HIV/AIDS sufferers by 2010 unless it acts decisively.[218]

 

 

With such alarming estimates, HIV poses a threat to Tibetans both inside and outside the “Tibet Autonomous Region”. AIDS is already alarmingly common in almost all areas surrounding Tibet, including the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan to the east, Xinjiang to the north, and Nepal to the south.  The economy China has imposed on Tibet depends on long-haul trucking, and Chinese policy encourages much commercial traffic with Nepal.  These factors, along with the huge military presence on the plateau, make an AIDS outbreak in Tibet a high risk.

 

Although infection rates in China are still lower than in Africa, health experts say China has all the preconditions for a massive AIDS epidemic: a large mobile population, widespread prostitution and increasing sexual promiscuity among young people.[219] However, on the plateau the biggest risk factor is the huge size of the commercial sex industry in all Tibetan cities, catering primarily to Chinese employed to work in Tibet.  Their number has swelled recently with the introduction of innumerable work gangs of semi-literate poor Chinese workers constructing the Gormo-Lhasa Railway.

 

Prostitution is a growing problem in Tibet as it is elsewhere in the country.  Hundreds of brothels operate openly in Lhasa. Yuden, a 20-year-old from Lhasa recounted that prostitution is being widely practiced in the capital.  She said,

 

Most sex workers in Tibet are ethnic Han women—mainly from Sichuan.  However, a substantial number of ethnic Tibetans, mainly young girls from rural or nomadic areas, also work as prostitutes.  The main reason for the growth in the number of Tibetan prostitutes is the poor financial status of Tibetans in Tibet.[220] 

 

Yunnan and Sichuan register significant levels of confirmed HIV/AIDS cases, Yunnan recording the highest HIV/AIDS rate in China.[221]

            The principal risk factors for Tibetans are:

·        A tendency to reside in poor rural areas.  The economic situation in such areas encourages people to engage in illegal blood sales, and in prostitution, in order to earn extra income

·        A high rate of poverty, which has a demoralising effect that can in turn lead to intravenous drug use

·        A high risk of HIV-contraction through blood transfusions and other medical procedures if universal precautions are not followed

·        A lack of educational HIV/AIDS-prevention programmes.[222]

 

 

Denial of Right to Information

 

 

Beijing went public with its fight against AIDS in 2001 in the wake of the rampant spread of HIV in rural Henan province, Central China.[223]  In November 2001, China’s First National AIDS Conference was held in Beijing where experts warned that the number of HIV-positive people could top 10 million by 2010 if their number soars by 30 percent.[224]  However a UN report states that Beijing had not done enough to educate the public about AIDS and how it is spread, with many Chinese still believing it can be contracted through mosquito bites or shaking hands.[225]  The vast majority of Chinese do not know how AIDS spreads, what causes the disease or how to protect themselves from it.[226]  The findings emerged from the first representative survey of AIDS knowledge in China, a country with one-fifth of the world’s population—almost 1.3 billion people—where an estimated 850,000 people already carry HIV, the AIDS virus.[227] 

 

Among other findings:

·        Two-thirds of Chinese didn’t know condoms can protect against AIDS or that people could be infected through unsafe transfusions

·        More than 80 percent didn’t know they could avoid AIDS by not sharing hypodermic needles or that an infected mother could transmit the virus to her newborn baby

Such knowledge about AIDS and measure to prevent it are equally limited in the case of the Tibetans in Tibet. Interviews and testimonies from recent arrivals in India reveal the noticeable lack of health education regarding this rampant epidemic in Tibet. One interviewee recounted, “In our village, the AIDS Awareness posters are all written in Chinese.”[228]  This shows the indifference and discrimination on the part of the Chinese authorities towards Tibetans’ health and wellbeing in Tibet.

 

Racist Exclusion from Health Care

 

Article 5 (e)(iv) of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination guarantees the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, national or ethnic origin, to enjoy:

...The rights to public health, medical care, social security and social services.

 

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights  (1966) also specifies that steps should be taken by State Parties to create

...Conditions which would assure to all medical services and medical attention in the event of sickness.[229]

 

Although the PRC Constitution does not itself speak of the right to health, China has continued over the years to place health care at the forefront of its White Paper propaganda, and claimed substantial improvements in the Tibetan sector each year.

 

Such claims are negated by cases like that of a Tibetan (name withheld) from Tingkye County, Shigatse Prefecture, “TAR” who was a monk at the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.  Upon leaving the monastery he went back to his hometown.  He recounted the changes he noticed on his return. He said,

 

“The County had economically developed but the public facilities like schools and hospitals have deteriorated.  In the case of hospitals, earlier there were doctors directed by the government but these days they don’t give medicines to people even when they need them. In the hospitals, there are doctors but the medicine supplies are very poor. Sometimes people have to go to long distances to get medicines, which cost them a lot.”[230]

 

Testimonies reveal the serious lack of medical centres or hospitals at village or township level.  Recent escapees from Tibet mostly complain that medical institutions are largely confined to county capitals and larger towns, which can be substantial distances for the estimated over 80 percent of Tibetans living in rural areas.  A Tibetan from Darlag County, Golog Prefecture, Qinghai, when asked about the hospital in his area recounted,

 

“We have a small hospital with just one doctor.  If you have a headache he gives you medicine; if you have fever he has medicines for it.  If you have stomach ache he has the medicine. But if you are seriously ill he doesn’t know the treatment.”[231] 

 

Rinzin Palmo from Nangchen County, Jeykundo “TAP”, Qinghai, reported that her elder sister is a cataract patient. She recounted, “ My sister could not be treated at the township hospital so we had to go to the county hospital. There we were told that the operation would cost thousands of yuan, which we could never afford. My sister is still suffering from cataracts.”[232] 

 

Racial Discrimination is defined as

 

Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.[233]

 

Over the years, international concerns have been expressed at the gross violations of Civil and Political Rights by Chinese authorities in Tibet. Among the most prominent areas is the health sector where large-scale violations of Tibetans’ health rights are still carried on.  Many Tibetans interviewed by TCHRD report that in order to be admitted to a hospital ward, or even to be examined by a doctor, it is necessary not only to pay all costs in cash up front, but even prior to this it is necessary to have connections among the Chinese staff in order to even get in through the door.  They report the professional staff do not see themselves as providing a service to all who fall ill; rather they have the power to dispense favours to those who merit them, according to their connections.

           

Two foreign travellers to Tibet, debriefed by TCHRD after their tour through the Amdo, (Ch: Qinghai) region, looked closely at the current situation in the areas they visited.  When asked about the health and medical infrastructure in the areas they visited they recounted,

 

In Darlag County, Golog Prefecture, there were small clinics only around the market area.  These clinics were just one-room clinics.  The clinics are supposedly the main health care centres that provided both Tibetan and allopathic medicines.  There are no clinics at all in the large nomadic area for which the town is the administrative centre.  The methods of treatment are still very primitive; for example the IV drip packets were merely suspended by a nail in the wall.  Most of the clinics were poorly stocked”.  However they added, “ But this could be progress for the Darlag area”.[234]

           

Two other foreign tourists, Yaki Platt and Sinead Ni Ghairbhit, travelled extensively in Tibet in the months of April-June 2002, mainly through the Kham (Ch: Sichuan) and Amdo (Ch: Qinghai) regions.  They stated,

 

In Lithang County, Kanze TAP, Sichuan Province we met a man who had broken his leg a month before. He had been bedridden since he could not afford the 400-yuan (US $48) he would have to pay if he wanted to get treated in the hospital there.  So heath care facilities are not free in Tibet and, like the roads, they have improved only in areas populated by Chinese.”[235] 

 

 

Systemic Inequalities

 

China was once famous for its vigour in extending basic health care to all through its “barefoot doctors.”  For decades now, though, China at a national level has abdicated almost all responsibility for health.  Instead, China makes those least able to pay solely responsible for their own health care costs.  The result is not only poor health for the rural masses, but also a concentration of personnel and facilities in cities and urban centres where treatment requires up-front cash payments, and connections.  This works well for those with sufficient incomes, such as Chinese immigrants who are on high salaries paid by Beijing, and who are well connected.  It is a system that works badly for nomads and farmers who have little cash income and few political connections.[236]

 

The World Bank’s fieldwork demonstrates in detail China’s failure after 50 years to deliver the basic prerequisites of health care development.  The World Bank found:

 

            The provision of health care is extremely decentralized in China. By expenditure shares, the Central Government accounts for only two percent of total budgetary spending on health and sub-national governments the rest.

            China National Development and Sub-national Finance, World Bank, 2002[237]

 

China’s allocation of funds for health care in Tibet constitutes only a fraction of total funds expended. However, the case gets even worse when the funds allocated for Tibet’s health sector is siphoned off into developing infrastructure—most commonly in areas where a significant Chinese population has settled.  The story of an impoverished Tibetan village that received a donation from one of China’s wealthy eastern provinces is a case in point.  Instead of spending the money on health or education, the entire donation was spent on a monumental archway at the entrance to the village.[238]

 

The World Bank fieldwork investigation of two counties in Gansu Province, adjacent to Tibet, showed in great detail how unequal China’s health care delivery presently is.  According to its May 2002 report, China: National Development and Sub-national Finance, rural people are now without medical insurance schemes and so must pay directly all the costs of the expensive health care system.

 

“More than 90 percent of the rural populace or 700 million people [in China] are now without any coverage from risk-pooling [medical insurance] schemes. During this period the government’s share of the total health spending has fallen and the personal out-of-pocket portion has risen rapidly. The Government finances a small proportion of the total health expenditure – very low compared to other countries.”

                                                                                    World Bank Report, 2002

 

The cost of rural health care has risen twice as fast as income rose in the 1980s and 1990s.  This erodes the basic human right of equitable access to health care.[239] 

 

The World Bank’s China report also remarks that government subsidies are highly concentrated in urban areas with as little as 82 US cents per person per annum going from the centre to rural township health centres.  Sixty percent of total government health expenditure goes to the urban sector with 30 percent of the population, and only 40 percent goes to the rural sector.  As a result,

 

many township health centres are severely run down and poorly equipped, reflecting years of neglect of maintenance, repairs and replacement of equipment.  In theory, the local government that owns the health facility should finance these costs.  When budgetary appropriations are insufficient even to meet wage costs, health centre managers have to choose between maintenance and repairs and bonus payments to staff.  They have mostly chosen to meet the immediate expectations of their [mostly Chinese] employees.[240]

 

Compared to worldwide statistics in recent years, China’s achievements in health indicators are modest.  In China, nine percent of the population is malnourished, 17 percent of young children are under height for their age, the maternal mortality rate is 55 per 100,000 live births, girls at birth have 79.4 percent chance of living to 65, and boys a 70.9 percent chance.[241]  All these indicators of basic health show even worse picture in the case of Tibet. 

 

China manages to secure a mid-position in the UN Human Development Index, in company with South Africa, Turkey and Sri Lanka, whereas Tibet is close to the bottom, in company with the most unfortunate places ruined by war and disaster.[242]  Half of all children in Tibet suffer from stunted growth as a result of malnutrition.[243]

 

The Chinese authorities claimed that maternal and infant mortality rates on the plateau had dropped to a “historic low” in 2002, and linked this decrease to the “democratic reforms” in Tibet since 1959. Zhang Wengkhang, Minister of Health, stated in May 2002 that maternal death in childbirth has dropped from 715.8 per 10,000 to 324.7 per 10,000 in 2001.[244] The same report stated that infant mortality[245] had dropped from 91.8 per 1,000 to 31.3 per 1,000 in 2001.[246] The reliability of these statistics is not known; Chinese birth and infant mortality calculations are known to be under-reported.[247]

 

Tibet’s environment is a challenge to the human body.  Due to the high altitude and excessive exposure to ultra-violet rays, Tibetans have a cataract incidence rate double that of Mainland China.  Although a state-sponsored medical programme known as “Sight First China Action”[248] helped nearly 1,280 cataract sufferers in the “Tibet Autonomous Region” regain their eyesight last year, yet most counties and townships in Tibet have no eye hospitals.[249]

 

This year, the independent medical aid organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) made the decision to pull out of Tibet after 14 years of working with Tibetans on humanitarian and medical assistance projects.[250]  This decision certainly will have a negetive impact on Tibetans who have benefited from their projects. Since 1993 MSF has worked to combat Kashin Beck Disease (KBD) or “Big Bone Disease” in the “Tibet Autonomous Region”, which has one of the highest incidences of this disease in the world.  This is an extremely painful and crippling condition, which has been investigated to some extent by Chinese researchers, with no effective treatment yet available.

 

Overall, health care costs have escalated rapidly across the “Tibet Autonomous Region”.  In 1990, an urban household’s per capita living expenditure on medicines and medical services was barely 10 yuan.  In 1995 the expenditure spiralled to 109 yuan and subsequently 265 yuan in 2000.[251]

 

Taking the number of health institutions, beds and health personnels by region, if we compare the statistics for the year 1999 with those of 2000 we see a graph of declining development. Overall the number of “health institutions” fell from a high of 1,324 in 1997 to 1,237 in 2000. [252]

 

Conclusion

 

 

The PRC’s Five-Year-Plans make healthy-sounding predictions and allocations for the country’s medical services, and Beijing’s White Papers list impressive statistics. All these claims and promises are not borne out by independent reports and anecdotal evidence emerging from Tibet. 

 

If there is any goal in achieving improved standards of living, it should be the attainment of good health for all.[253]  But, as a minority nationality under occupation in their own country, Tibetans face discriminatory practices—which may or may not be seen in future to constitute genocide—when it comes to the application and distribution of medical services.

 

According to the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, any act which is committed “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”, constitutes genocide.[254]  This includes the imposition of measures intended to prevent births within a group.  The outcome of China’s birth control policies, in tandem with Beijing’s ongoing population transfer of Chinese onto the plateau, has already reduced Tibetans to a minority within the traditional territory of pre-1950 Tibet. Whether the “intent” to destroy Tibetans as a group is official State policy is yet to be established.  But it is certain that China’s birth control and immigration policies are widely viewed by Tibetans as long-term strategies to limit and reduce the ratio of the Tibetan population.[255]

 

Additionally, recent arrivals in exile in India unanimously complain of inadequate healthcare services, escalating costs and low quality of treatment, plus the distance in accessing facilities and the racial discrimination faced by Tibetans in urban areas.

 

Mr. Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General in his December 2002 message to the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference, highlighted the need for stronger efforts to promote women’s rights, and greater investment in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning.[256]  However, China’s allocation of funds for the health care of women and children constitutes only a fraction of total funds expended.  A lack of financial resources has led to inadequate long-term inputs, and primarily accounts for the difficulties in providing health care services for women and children and in the protection of the vulnerable.[257]

 

The ability of individuals to exercise their human rights is directly related to their awareness of the rights to which they are entitled.[258]  Thus the importance of health education over adequate nutrition and preventable, communicable diseases is paramount.  However, interviews with recent arrivals from Tibet reveal a serious lack of education on HIV/AIDS on the plateau.  The level of ignorance is dangerous and sets the scene in Tibet for an HIV/AIDS crisis alongside the epidemic predicted in China. 

 

TCHRD’s immediate concern is over the health and wellbeing of prisoners in Tibet’s labyrinth of jails and reform-through-labour camps. With torture still endemic for political prisoners, and hospital care arbitrarily denied, China’s detention facilities continue to be the major violators of Tibetans’ human rights.

 

 

 

Tibetans’ Right to Development

 

During the year 2002, China made major claims of bringing development and modernity to Tibet.  All through the year, the highest Beijing authorities and “TAR” officials made several statements like “Tibet has seen eight straight years of double-digit economic growth” and the “inhabitants of Tibet now have a standard of living which exceeds average for the rest of China.”[259]

 

Further, to support this claim the China’s media quoted western delegation that visited Tibet during the year.  People’s Daily reported on 31 October 2002 that

 

Foreigners who have visited China’s Tibet cannot but have a fresh understanding of new Tibet, …a land which has undergone the process from darkness to brightness, from backwardness to progress, from poverty to prosperity, from autocracy to democracy and from closure to openness over the past 50 years since its peaceful liberation in 1951. 

 

“TAR” Governor Legchog went to the extent of saying,  “Now is the best time in Tibetan history in terms of stability and economic development”.  Whether it is the best period for economic development for Tibetans – the custodians of Tibet for millennia – remains to be seen and to be debated in the light of Tibetans’ Right to Development guaranteed under international law. 

 

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) states that all peoples have the right to pursue their “economic, social and cultural development”.  According to the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD), governments must “formulate appropriate national development policies that aim at the constant improvement of the wellbeing of the entire population and of all individuals, on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of benefits resulting there from”.[260]  The UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, Vienna Declaration of 1993, further recognised and established, “the right to Development, as a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights”.

 

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) stated in its White Paper on Tibet’s March Toward Modernisation 2001(hereafter “White Paper on Modernisation”), “social and economic development has improved the [Tibetan] people’s material and cultural life remarkably”.[261]  The White Paper then goes on to list various economic statistics, making it clear that for China, when it refers to development it means an increase in productivity, economic investment, the gross domestic product (GDP) or average incomes.

 

However, this definition of development as economic advancement is clearly not the same as the definition conceived by the United Nations.  The right to economic, social and cultural development detailed in the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development (UNDRD) is as follows:

 

The right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized.[262]

 

This right to development has been defined by the UN as “a universal and inalienable right and an integral part of fundamental human rights law”. [263]  It views development as a process in which “fulfilment of civil and political rights and the freedom to participate in both the decision-making processes and the enjoyment of the fruits of development in all spheres” is integral.[264] Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize laureate for Economics, has articulated a framework of development, which is used by the UN Independent Expert on the Right to Development.[265] Sen states in Development as Freedom:

 

In judging economic development it is not adequate to look only at the growth of GNP [gross national product] or some other indicators of over-all economic expansion. We have to look also at the impact of democracy and political freedoms on the lives and capabilities of the citizens.[266]