2015-02-10
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Rights activist Munkhbayar Chuluundorj protests in front of the Chinese embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Feb. 6, 2015.
(Photo courtesy of SMHRIC)
Chinese authorities in the Inner Mongolian region have begun a probe into complaints by local herding communities over the loss of their traditional grazing lands, after hundreds of ethnic Mongolians gathered outside government offices in protest on Monday.
Armed police prevented most of the protesters from entering the county-level Ar Horqin Banner government buildings over a long-running land dispute with a state-run forestry station, participants said.
“The riot police at the gates wouldn’t let us in, so we picked 10 people [to represent us], and they spoke with the leaders for a while,” Ar Horqin herder Bayaarshiguleng said.
“We held up a banner for a while outside the gates, but there was no slogan shouting or anything like that,” he said.
An official who answered the phone at the complaints office said protests had taken place on Jan. 30 and Feb. 9 over the takeover of the community’s traditional grazing lands and the deaths of a herder and livestock in 2003.
“They came on Jan. 30, and held a meeting with our Banner head and various departments,” the official said. “They had three items they wanted to petition about.”
“They came again on Feb. 9, and this time they had 10 items,” the official said. “We are liaising with the various departments, and we have set up an investigative team to look into this matter.”
Herders from Ar Horqin Banner told RFA that state-owned Hanwula Forestry Station began taking over their grazing lands as early as the 1980s, although they had not received compensation for the loss of access to the grasslands.
The complaints official said the office couldn’t give a definitive response to the herders’ petition without further liaison with other departments.
“We can’t give concrete decisions to petitioners,” the official said. “The responses we give come from the relevant departments, and all we do is mediate them.”
No official paperwork
One herder who joined Monday’s protest said people’s land had been taken over in 2003 and their livestock slaughtered by the forestry station with no official paperwork.
