DHARAMSHALA, August 30: Days after the death of a Tibetan protester in an anti-mining demonstration, Tibetans in Gade region of Golog, eastern Tibet carried out a protest against Chinese gold miners at the sacred Dringye Ngo Sorma mountain in the region.
According to the Washington based news service RFA, Tibetan nomads in the region drove out Chinese gold miners and vowed to protect the site, the abode of a local god, even at the cost of their lives.
“They set fire to the gold miners’ tents and launched 24-hour patrols around the mountain located in the Tibetan-populated Gade county in the Golog (in Chinese, Guolo) prefecture in a bid to keep the gold miners at bay,” RFA quoted sources as saying.
The Chinese gold miners arrived at the foot of the mountain on August 10, as local Chinese authorities warned Tibetans not to interfere in the work of the miners.
However, Tibetans in the region continue to guard the sacred mountain round the clock against officials orders and have vowed not to allow the extraction of “even one handful of soil.”
On August 15, around a thousand of Tibetans marched to a mining site in Markham, protesting the large-scale operations, which they said was environmentally hazardous.
Chinese security personnel responded by firing tear gas and live rounds on the protesters, leading to the death of the Tibetan male identified as Nyima and the arrest of six others.
The Chinese government has officially stated plans to intensify efforts in exploring Tibet’s mineral reserves.
Zhang Qingli, the then Tibet party secretary had noted that “little exploration” has been done so far on Tibet’s “abundant mine reserves”.
“We have to accelerate exploration to know what we have before planning how to make use of it,” Zhang had said.
In November last, the Qinghai Land and Resources Department announced plans to invest nearly 18 billion Yuan ($2.82 billion) in the coming five years to exploit minerals in eastern Tibet.
The Department said that it aims to earn revenue of 17.9 billion Yuan within five years for excavating coal, iron, gold, potassium salt, copper, lead, zinc and cobalt.
According to China’s official statistics, the Tibetan plateau has China’s largest chromium and copper reserves with most of its rich iron, gold, silver, potassium, oil, and natural gas reserves unexploited.
