2014-08-20
Chinese People’s Liberation Army airforce helicopters at a military base near the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Base in Inner Mongolia’s remote Gobi desert, in a file photo.
AFP
Ethnic Mongolian herders from two border areas in China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region say they have been forced to move from traditional grazing lands as the region is taken over by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Herding communities in Dorbod Banner (in Chinese, Siziwang Qi) in Ulanqab (Wulanchabu) prefecture and Sonid Right Banner (Sunite Youqi), which border Mongolia, say they have been moved off vast tracts of grassland by the military to make way for exercises.
“They have been forced off their land by the army to make way for a military exercise area,” an ethnic Mongolian resident of Dorbod, who gave a single name, Uilji, told RFA.
“They have petitioned higher levels of government, but to no avail,” he said. “The PLA is carrying out military exercises with Russia now, and the herders have been chased out.”
Meanwhile, Dabushilat, a resident of Sonid Right Banner in neighboring Xilingol (Xilinguole) prefecture, said the army had begun claiming land across the two banners in 2011, taking over more than 800,000 mu (hectares) in Dorbod Banner—the administrative equivalent of a county—and displacing 470 households.
He said the herders had signed a lease for the land that runs from 1998-2027, but that authorities had paid it no attention.
“They forced the herders off the grasslands in Sonid Right Banner on Aug. 7,” Dabushilat said. “So they sat in on Highway 208 with protest banners, but no one paid any attention to their protest.”
“There wasn’t anything we could do about it, either.”
Canceled contract
He said the cancellation of the grasslands lease contract had come with a subsistence payment of 500 yuan (U.S.$81.37) a month, but that health care and social security were only offered to herders who moved to the main town of the banner.
“On April 21, more than 130 people from both banners went to the national complaints office in Beijing and the Central Military Commission to complain,” Dabushilat said.
“Officials from the banner government and local police tried to stop us from petitioning,” he said.
In total, 470 households and 1,760 people in Dorbod had been forced from their ancestral grasslands by the land grab, he said.
“We lost 1,596,000 mu in the two banners, in Sonid Right Banner and Dorbod Banner,” Dabushilat said. “We signed a 30-year contract, but we only had the land from 1998 to 2011, hardly any time at all.”
“Then they suddenly issued the order.”
A second local resident, Batuskh, said families are now trying to eke out a living from farming nearby.
“They took our grasslands away,” Batuskh said. “We are relying on a flock of sheep for our living.”
“We used to have more than 8,000 mu of land, but they took 6,000 mu away from us, and all we have left is 2,000 mu,” he said.
