May 30, 2011
By ANDREW JACOBS
HOHHOT, China — Ethnic Mongolians seething over the killings of two Mongolians by Han Chinese drivers took their anger to the streets of this capital of Inner Mongolia on Monday in a rare expression of antigovernment sentiment here.
The protests, which drew more than 100 people to the center of Hohhot and led to a series of detentions, followed a week of similar demonstrations across this vast borderland that have rattled the authorities.
The rally took place on the day that Chinese officials announced they would file murder charges against a forklift driver accused of striking and killing Yan Wenlong, who was among 20 people protesting a coal mine near Xilinhot on May 15.
The deaths of Mr. Yan and of another activist killed by a truck driver five days earlier have galvanized anger over the destruction of the Mongolian grasslands and stoked long-simmering resentment over Beijing’s governance of this resource-rich region.
On Sunday, the state-run news media reported that Inner Mongolia’s Communist Party secretary, Hu Chunhua, had met with students and teachers and promised justice in the killing of the other activist, named Mergen, a herder whose body was reported to have been dragged nearly 500 feet. Two Han Chinese have been arrested in connection with the death.
Until now, the authorities have met the protests with a heavy-handed police response and highly publicized efforts to appease ethnic Mongolians, who make up less than 20 percent of the region’s population of 24 million and have long complained that migration of Han Chinese is diluting their language and culture.
The acknowledgment of the anger, coupled with the large deployment of soldiers and police officers, suggested that the authorities were intent on avoiding the ethnic mayhem that struck other areas of China where indigenous groups, notably Tibetans in Tibet and Uighurs in Xinjiang, have bridled under the influx of Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group.
Until now, protests among Mongolians have been unusual.
In addition to promising to punish those responsible for the deaths of antimining activists, officials in recent days have announced plans for free tuition and textbooks for Mongolian high school and vocational students and $680 million in spending to improve drinking water, transportation and agriculture.
Enghebatu Togochog, president of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, an exile group based in New York, said government largess would not necessarily address the underlying grievances of the region’s Mongolians and might exacerbate them if development projects sought to move shepherds off the grasslands.
“The root cause of the problem is not money,” Mr. Togochog said. “The problem is the conflict between the Mongolian people’s efforts to maintain their distinct culture and way of life and the Chinese authorities’ attempts to exploit the natural resources of the region.”
Occupying 12 percent of China’s land, the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region has become an increasingly vital source of the coal, natural gas and rare earth elements that help fuel the Chinese economy. Critics complain that in addition to environmental degradation and forced relocations, mining provides few tangible benefits to ethnic Mongolians.
Last month, herders in the Xilin Gol area stepped up their campaign against coal-mining vehicles that zigzag across the steppe, chewing up the fragile pastureland and occasionally running down livestock. Mergen, the organizer of a local group of shepherds who was killed three weeks ago, was among a group of 40 men who sought to block a caravan of coal-laden trucks with their bodies, according to the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. Like many Mongolians, Mergen used a single name.
Word of his death has set off recurring protests in a number of cities, including one on May 25 in Xilinhot, a county-level city midway between Hohhot and Beijing, that was reported to have drawn nearly 2,000 people. Last Friday, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific deputy director, Catherine Baber, said martial law had been declared in some areas.
The protests in Hohhot took place under enormous security, with hundreds of soldiers and police officers patrolling parks and keeping thousands of students locked up on college campuses.
“We feel like animals that have been caged up,” said one student, Xiao Ming, 20. “This is about defending our culture and defending our dignity.”
Despite the heavy police presence and the severing of Internet and cellphone service in parts of the city, hundreds of Mongolians gathered near Xinhua Square, in the city center of Hohhot, on Monday morning. After a standoff against a phalanx of police officers, a few dozen men and women began shouting slogans in Mongolian on a traffic island and then tentatively marched down Xilin Gol Nanlu, one of the city’s main commercial arteries.
A placard that said “Protect the Grasslands” was held aloft, and as many as 150 people joined the throng. At one point, protesters and the police faced off against one another, with men in army fatigues shouting “Maintain social stability!” through bullhorns and protesters chanting, “Let them go,” a reference to those previously detained by the authorities.
The rally lasted more than an hour before riot police officers began dragging away demonstrators and the crowd melted away.
Shi Da contributed research.
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