Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information CenterSouthern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center
HomeAbout UsCampaignsSouthern Mongolian WatchChineseJapaneseNewsLInksContact Us

<Back>

  Riding horses and camels, herder took to the streets in Southern Mongolia
   
SMHRIC
December 17, 2015
New York
 

 

 
Eznee herders demanding the local government provide an explanation to for a recent attack Chinese from the neighboring province of Gansu (2015-12-17)

 

 
 
Riding horses and camels Eznee herders marching toward the local government (2015-12-17)  

On December 17, 2015, riding horses and camels, nearly 100 Mongolian herders from western Southern (Inner) Mongolia’s Eznee Banner (“e ji na qi” in Chinese) of Alshaa League (“a la shan meng” in Chinese) took to the streets of Dalain-Huv Township, capital of the Banner. There, the protesters urged the local government to protect herders’ legal rights and punish Chinese from the neighboring province of Gansu for their illegal trespassing and frequent sabotaging over the past decades.

Around 3:00 pm local time, the herders, mostly in their traditional robes, arrived before the government building of Eznee Banner. They demanded the Banner Government provide an explanation for a recent attack to the local community by Chinese from the neighboring province of Gansu.

According to Chinese official news media, on December 6, 2015, around 3:00 am local time, over 100 masked assailants attacked a checkpoint of Eznee Banner, injuring 13 checkpoint workers and destroying the entire infrastructure and all equipment.

On December 10, the local public security authorities in Jin Ta Country of Gansu Province announced that ten suspects had been arrested and detained. However, the local herders complained that the Eznee Banner Government has long failed to protect herders’ grazing lands and other properties from the Chinese trespassers, mostly peasants, for decades.

“Our grazing lands have been occupied and destroyed by these Chinese for years,” a Mongolian herder and protestor named Tumur told the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) over the phone.

“They harvest medical plants, extract minerals, and open up oasis on our land to make profits, leaving our natural habitat destroyed and our very way of life threatened,” Tumur added. 

The protestors told the Banner Government that if their demands are not met, they will march toward Beijing to appeal to the Chinese Central Government.

Last May, herders from the same community staged another protest and demanded that the Chinese government halt military base expansion and immigration from the neighboring province of Gansu in order to stop illegal land grabbing and destruction of the oasis of Ezenee Banner.

Armed Chinese riot police rounded up the herders on their march to the Lanzhou Military Command Air Base No.14, training their guns on them in case they moved any further.

According to a written appeal the SMHRIC received earlier from the herders, the local government “against the will of the Mongolian people, arbitrarily allowed Chinese immigrants from Gansu Province to illegally seize their lands.”

The appeal mentioned that the Mongolian herders in this area had paid a heavy toll in 1958 for China’s so-called “national defense” policy to give way to China’s first missile test base.

As China expedites its expropriation of the herders’ grazing lands and extraction of mineral resources in Southern Mongolia, the once beautiful verdant region of Alshaa has been targeted by China’s booming mining industries. The scarce and precious underground water system has been depleted, and the fragile ecosystem has been destroyed. The expanding Chinese mines and encroaching Chinese settlers are threatening the very existence of the unique culture of Mongolian camel herders in this area.

 

Eznee herders protests (2015-12-17)

 

<Back>

 
From Yeke-juu League to Ordos Municipality: settler colonialism and alter/native urbanization in Inner Mongolia

Close to Eden (Urga): France, Soviet Union, directed by Nikita Mikhilkov

Beyond Great WallsBeyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

The Mongols at China's EdgeThe Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity

China's Pastoral RegionChina's Pastoral Region: Sheep and Wool, Minority Nationalities, Rangeland Degradation and Sustainable Development

Changing Inner MongoliaChanging Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

Grasslands and Grassland Science in Northern ChinaGrasslands and Grassland Science in Northern China: A Report of the Committee on Scholarly Communication With the People's Republic of China

The Ordos Plateau of ChinaThe Ordos Plateau of China: An Endangered Environment (Unu Studies on Critical Environmental Regions)

 ©2002 SMHRIC. All rights reserved. Home | About Us | Campaigns | Southern Mongolian Watch | News | Links | Contact Us