Tuanhuar, a 25 year old Mongolian woman, was pulled by her four limbs and kicked and punched from every direction by police more photos...

More than 500 Mongolian villagers in Doloodai Village, Honghurtal Som, Naiman Banner of eastern Southern (Inner) Mongolia clashed with more than 50 Chinese police and government officials on August 18, 2006, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the Banner Electric Power Bureau’s bulldozers from turning up a 15 Mu ( 1.1 hectare) woodland from their already shrunk useable land to build a power substation. Many villagers were severely beaten up during the clash, and two Mongolian women, Tuanhuar and Wanshii, were arrested at the hospital by the police and Power Bureau personnel and used as hostages until the villagers were forced to give up their original claim on compensation. According to the victims, at least seven Mongolian women, namely Tuanhuar, Wanshii, Zhaoyenmii, Yinhuar, Yenhuar, Yenmii, and Yenfei, were brutally beaten by the police and government officials while they were attempting to cross the police surveillance line to stop the bulldozers from proceeding.

Tuanhuar, a 25 year old Mongolian woman, was dumped into the bulldozer’s newly dug dirt pit after being pulled by her four limbs and kicked and punched from every direction and fell into coma for more than an hour. She was taken to the Banner Hospital by an ambulance. Another woman named Wanshii (58), sister-in-law of Tuanhuar, was also severely beaten by the police, but the ambulance refused to give her a ride to the hospital for medical treatment. To receive necessary treatment and assist her sister-in-law in the hospital, Wanshii went to the same hospital with the help of another villager who took her there with his own three wheel tractor. Upon her arrival at the hospital, she was arrested by the police and transferred to the Banner Public Security Bureau Detention Center where her sister-in-law Tuanhuar was already being held. Both women were again severely beaten unconscious by the police and thrown on the street at midnight. After waking up from two hours unconsciousness, Tuanhuar and Wanshii headed toward the Banner Government to sit-down to protest against the authorities’ outrageous act. On the morning of August 19, they were arrested again by the police and sent back to the Banner Public Security Bureau Detention Center where they were injected with a heavy doze of unknown drug that kept them sleeping for more than 48 hours until they were released.

“I don’t know what drug they injected to me. I slept through more than two days and two nights, and when I woke up on the morning of August 21, my arms swelled and I felt extremely uncomfortable through my whole body. I have a heart problem, and the drug made it from bad to worse. Even now, my hands are still trembling when I hold the telephone,” the victim Wanshii told the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center over the phone. “While I and Tuanhuar were held hostage at the detention center, the government intimidated and forced the villagers to accept a deal which says we will be released if and only if the villagers give up their claim of 158,000 yuan (19,000 USD) compensation.” According to a villager who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, “our entire village, home to more than a hundred Mongolian households with a population of five hundreds, was paid only 58,000 yuan ( 7100 USD) for the land. The original compensation amount appearing on a contract privately done between the Gachaa leaders and the government last year was 158,000.” Officials who met with the villagers to impose this deal include the chairman of the Bureau of Letters and Calls (信访局) surnamed Dong, vice chairman of the Banner Public Security Bureau surnamed Chen, director of the local police station surnamed Zhang, deputy town chief of Daachintal Town surnamed Wang, and chairman of the Banner People’s Congress surnamed Wang.

“The contract itself is not a valid one, because it was not done with the consent of two- thirds of the Village Committee members. Even if it is valid, what we want is not money but our land where we maintained our livelihood through investing our love and care for hundreds of years. ” said another villager who also asked not to be identified taking a strong position against the idea of measuring land with money. However, a handful of villagers insisted that getting some cash is better than getting nothing because the government is powerful enough to take over their land without paying a single penny’s compensation to them. This fear is not unfounded, for many government officials have recently told the villagers that “if the government want the land, it will get it anyway, no matter whether the villagers agree or not.”

“We can’t open our windows even in the summer, because the wind flowing from the chemical plant is so offensive,” Wanshii complained about the air pollution by the Naiman Chemical Industry Zone that took over the village’s 10 square kilometers (1000 hectare) grassland. Home to several chemical plants including the Tong-liao Ming-zhou Chemical Sulphoacid Plant and Tong-liao Lan-yu Chemical Dye LLC, the Chemical Zone has not developed a proper pollution treatment system to process its wastes. All industrial sewage is directly poured into makeshift ponds dug on the grassland. According to Wanshii, another large oil refinery is under planning nearby and it will take over at least 165 Mu (12 hectare) land. 

It is very common in Southern Mongolia that both private firms and government sectors compete to take over grasslands of indigenous Mongols under the government’s slogan of “western development” and “industrialization”, especially since a new policy was adopted in 2003 by the Autonomous Region to encourage Chinese from all parts of China to buy, rent, and use the land of Southern Mongolia. With little regard to the native Mongolian communities and their natural environment, those Chinese businesses are not only threatening the livelihood of the Mongols by taking over their land but have also destroyed their natural habitat through unfettered industrial pollution.

<Back>