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Repayment thorns prick Tibet’s ‘comfortable housing’ beneficiaries
20 May, 2010
China said May 10 that it had “helped” 1.2 million farmers and herdsmen from 230,000 families in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to shift to newly built houses during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period" (2006-10), with the project having been completed more than a year ahead of schedule. Unofficial sources say, however, that the project has been forced on unwilling Tibetans most of whom did not want to relocate and, in any case, did not have the means to repay the loans they have been required to take for their new homes.
Nevertheless, the controversial project continues. This year, the TAR Government plans to “help” 43,000 farmers and herdsmen with relatively poor housing conditions live in new houses, reported China’s online Tibet news service eng.tibet.cn May 10.
But describing this so-called "comfortable houses" programme as controversial programme, the Dalai Lama has said in an interview which appeared in the May 10 edition of Newsweek magazine: “Three years ago, a Tibetan monk who visited his native home near Lhasa attended a public event where the village chief mentioned how the party and government were of immense help, that they had new houses, and everything was very good. After one or two days, he visited the chief's home and asked privately about the conditions. Then, the chief said, the money received from the government was not sufficient so they had to take a loan. Then everybody became completely worried about paying back the debt.”
He also referred to the project’s debilitating effect on Tibet’s nomadic community, saying: “For thousand of years nomads had a certain culture that fit in with their way of life. Initially they received subsidized housing and they were happy, but once they had spent the money they were given, they had no way to earn more. They had no experience in how to build a new life, so they are now facing immense difficulties.”
The eng.tibet.cn report also said the government would invest 260 million yuan to improve the conditions of 500 administrative villages in the TAR. The amount, it said, will be used to provide safe drinking water for about 250,000 people, provide electricity to 150,000 farmers and herdsmen, install telephones in 88 percent of administrative villages and provide postal services in 85 percent of townships and towns.
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