Advertisement
Brought to you by the brilliant govenment officials
who know what the people really need...
You got it the -- same people who collectivized barley farming in arid Tibet
by insisting that the locals who know the land and whay grows there grow
rice instead. What greater progress can we expect? Yes! They're forcing
momads to settle down and kill their heards, therby creating a new class
of poor needing support. They can now bring even more Chinese into
this land Socialist paradise and land of plenty. Read the Glorious details...
BEIJING - China is forcing nomadic Tibetan herders to settle in towns to clear land for development, leaving many unable to earn a living, a human rights group said in a report issued Sunday.
Herders have been forced to slaughter herds of yaks, sheep and goats and Communist officials have paid minimal compensation and failed to protect Tibetans' legal rights, Human Rights Watch said. It said tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of people have been affected.
Chinese authorities explained the changes as a response to overgrazing by Tibetan herds that was causing soil erosion, Human Rights Watch said.
The group appealed to the government to suspend the resettlements until a review can be put in place and to allow Tibetans to return to their land if they were forcibly moved or received no compensation.
"Many Tibetan herders have been required to slaughter most of their livestock and move into newly built housing colonies in or near towns, abandoning their traditional way of life," the report said.
Human Rights Watch said the resettlements in Tibet and in adjacent ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces are linked to the effort, launched in 1999, to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it to the bustling east.
China's foreign ministry and the local governments of Tibet and the provinces cited did not respond to requests by phone and fax for comment.
The resettlements began in 2000 and have taken place more intensively since 2003, Human Rights Watch said.
"Many Tibetan agricultural communities have had their land confiscated, with minimal compensation, or have been evicted to make way for mining, infrastructure projects or urban development," the report said.
who know what the people really need...
You got it the -- same people who collectivized barley farming in arid Tibet
by insisting that the locals who know the land and whay grows there grow
rice instead. What greater progress can we expect? Yes! They're forcing
momads to settle down and kill their heards, therby creating a new class
of poor needing support. They can now bring even more Chinese into
this land Socialist paradise and land of plenty. Read the Glorious details...
BEIJING - China is forcing nomadic Tibetan herders to settle in towns to clear land for development, leaving many unable to earn a living, a human rights group said in a report issued Sunday.
Herders have been forced to slaughter herds of yaks, sheep and goats and Communist officials have paid minimal compensation and failed to protect Tibetans' legal rights, Human Rights Watch said. It said tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands, of people have been affected.
Chinese authorities explained the changes as a response to overgrazing by Tibetan herds that was causing soil erosion, Human Rights Watch said.
The group appealed to the government to suspend the resettlements until a review can be put in place and to allow Tibetans to return to their land if they were forcibly moved or received no compensation.
"Many Tibetan herders have been required to slaughter most of their livestock and move into newly built housing colonies in or near towns, abandoning their traditional way of life," the report said.
Human Rights Watch said the resettlements in Tibet and in adjacent ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces are linked to the effort, launched in 1999, to develop China's poor, restive west and bind it to the bustling east.
China's foreign ministry and the local governments of Tibet and the provinces cited did not respond to requests by phone and fax for comment.
The resettlements began in 2000 and have taken place more intensively since 2003, Human Rights Watch said.
"Many Tibetan agricultural communities have had their land confiscated, with minimal compensation, or have been evicted to make way for mining, infrastructure projects or urban development," the report said.
posted by:
|
SF Bay Area
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Sun, June 10, 2007 - 9:50 PMThank you for provving my point. large government is bad local control is best. -
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Mon, June 11, 2007 - 9:40 AMYour socialism will only ever produce this result over time.
It (or fascism for that matter) becomes everything you
fallaciously attribute to big business. Mao said: "Political
power grows from the barrel of a gun." They only difference
is that the governments have the guns and the monopoly on force.
When do learn to stop using force as a means for social benefit?
Voluntary exchange between individuals can accomplish all good
that is worthy of doing. "The Good" that requires a gun is dubious
to say the least. -
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Mon, June 11, 2007 - 3:22 PM[quote]Voluntary exchange between individuals can accomplish all good
that is worthy of doing. "The Good" that requires a gun is dubious
to say the least.[/quote]
Disagree with you on this one only in so far, that as long as one side is willing to resort to violence the other side had better be well practiced in the arts of war.
-
-
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 2:44 PMOk, so, none of the important questions seemed to be being asked or answered.
The Chinese government claims they were causing ecological damage. Were they? Traditional nomadic lifestyle calls for grazing in one area until the grass is gone or the seasons change, then moving to another area. The first area revives and the cycle continues. This works as long as the population density of the world stays small and as long as the nomad don't get access to decent health care (they die off fast enough to keep equilibrium.)
As the world population grows, their world will change. Their habits will change less rapidly. The "natural" method of change is for the survivors of a shift to adopt new ways of life. But, first, you have increased death rates as old food supplies expire. So, you have a choice: Let then face the death of their way of life "naturally" by letting their grazing areas die off, followed by their herds dying off, followed by the people dying off, or do you force them to make the change before the old ecosystem collapses.
This is not a choice between letting people live their old ways or forcing them into new. This is merely a question of who or what does the forcing, and when.
Does this mean the Chinese government is being honest and aboveboard in its announced reasoning? No. But nomadism will die on this planet no matter what. And, it's going to be rough for the generations that have to face the change. Now or later makes no difference in the long run. -
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Sat, June 23, 2007 - 4:17 PMWe are talking about a country the size of Western Europe
with a population of 5M. The Changtang northern grasslands
is about one third of the land and sparsely populated. Compared
with the occupying country (China) whose population is in Billions.
Tibetans nomads could sustain indefinately. -
-
Re: Collectivist Successes
Sun, June 24, 2007 - 11:25 PMThis is precisely the kind of information that was missing from the news article: size of the area and current population. What's also missing is the following:
- what are the sizes of the herds? It matters less how many people there are, since people don't eat the grass. It's the animals that do or do not cause the ecological damage. There is a tribe (or tribes) in Africa where prestige is determined by the size of herds. I can't remember the location (Ethiopia?), but the large herds the people maintain are destroying the grasslands. This is happening because the previous limit on herd sizes, water, has been supplemented by technology in the form of wells. If the nomads in Asia receive technological benefits that alter their sustainability equation, then those herds will overgraze eventually as well.
- how many people and animals can be sustained, long term, on the available land? How does technology alter this value? How fast is the available land shrinking because nearby populations are encroaching? Or, should those populations be forced off the land to let the nomads continue living in the old style? Forget the Chinese government. The nearby populations will grow into the nomads' land eventually whether a government intervenes or not, assuming their populations aren't limited by disease or recurring famine.
- how fast are the two nomadic populations, human and animal, growing? How long will it take to hit their land limit? Populations grow geometrically unless some barrier is hit, like starvation or disease. So, if they're getting medical care, and perhaps they are not, they will eventually hit the limits of their habitat. Maybe this is a long time, what ever "long" means in this case, but it is finite.
Information like the above helps me make an informed decision about the situation. My gut tells me that they're being oppressed by the Chinese government. But gut checks and uninforming news stories are no substitute for facts and numbers.
One last thing: What's being done to these people is not "collectivism." With collectivism, they would be part of the collective and they would get some say in their fate. What's happening to them is totalitarianism, though under a Communist rubric.
-
-
