Over 70,000 people from Golok and Yushul areas have been gathered and forced into labor camps in Tibet’s Qinghai Province under the pretext of developing international theme parks.
[Posted on T.T Tibetan site 3rd December 2020 ] A source who wishes to remain anonymous told Tibet Times that China had built two forced labor camps in Golok and Yushul areas within Qinghai Province. Beginning October 1st, the county leaders and village leaders of Qinghai Province’s Golok and Yushul areas, divided into 12 counties and 72 villages, have publicly announced the project and forcefully gathered nearly 70,920 labourer consisting of Tibetan nomads and farmers.
According to the same source, people between the ages of 20 and 55 are mandated to work at these camps, and an announcement on October 13th decreed that workers must submit two photos of themselves, as well as photos of the first page of their residential and national identification card by October 25th.
The source also said that a forced labor camp had been built in the Zamar area, which is approximately 25 kilometers away from Domda village in Kyegudo’s Tridu County. Laborers from 36 villages are being gathered for that camp. Similarly, another forced labor camp is built in Dokha area, 18 kilometers away from Lake Kyaring in Golok’s Mato County.
Various sections are in operation within the forced labor camps, such as a carpet factory, vegetable cultivation, highway construction, vehicle repair, cordyceps, and herb collecting equipment, and cattle rearing. The laborers are, however, paid minimally, with female labor earning only 900 Yuan and male labor earning only 1200 Yuan per month. The laborers must spend their own money on expenses related to food items.
As per the plan to build an international theme park near Lake Kyaring in Golok’s Mato County, the government finished building a highway connecting Mato County to Lake Kyaring in August. The site for the proposed international theme park was cleaned several times by the local public. In 2013, 900 households from two villages in the Kyaring area were relocated to the Matoe, Zora, and Machan areas.
In August, a German anthropologist and Xinjiang researcher published a report supported by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) stating that since the beginning of the year to July, under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s poverty-eradication policy, Chinese authorities have built forced labor camps in Tibet housing 5,00,000 Tibetans laborers.
Following the release of the report, the 63-member IPAC released a statement that categorically condemned the forced labor camps and urged China to stop operating these inhumane forced labor camps.
