China clamps down on Inner Mongolia
Posted: 30 May 2011 1507 hrs
XILINHOT, China: China's Inner Mongolia was under tight security on Monday as authorities guard against possible new protests by ethnic Mongols seething over Chinese rule, AFP journalists and a rights group said.
The northern region bordering Mongolia has seen a wave of demonstrations triggered by the May 10 killing of an ethnic Mongol herder which have laid bare simmering resentment over what some perceive as Chinese oppression.
Universities and public squares were sealed off in a handful of cities - a possible sign of mounting unease by authorities already jittery about anonymous online calls for nationwide protests emulating those in the Arab world.
Authorities are also likely fearful of another major outburst of ethnic turmoil following deadly unrest in Tibet in 2008 and the remote northwestern Xinjiang region in 2009.
"It's kind of sensitive around here right now," a uniformed police officer told AFP outside a vocational school in the old town of Xilinhot, the government seat of the Xilingol area -- the epicentre of the unrest.
Two local residents told AFP that students from the school had been involved in the protests, but declined to offer further details. AFP journalists were denied access to the premises, where police were guarding the entrance.
Armed police were also seen at a nearby middle school, but streets were open to traffic in the area, and AFP journalists did not see any signs of people gathering.
A male resident in the Left Ujumchin Banner, or Xiwuqi in Chinese - another area hit by unrest - said police were carrying out identity checks and stopping cars but roads were open. A banner is equivalent to a Chinese county.
The unrest - which has involved thousands of protesters in different areas over the past week - erupted after the herder, Mergen, was run over on May 10 by a truck driven by a member of China's dominant Han ethnic group.
In the last reported incident, hundreds of students and herders took to the streets of Chifeng on Saturday, according to the US-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, which has many contacts in the region.
Riot police and soldiers quickly dispersed the demonstrators, it said in a statement.
Residents of the regional capital Hohhot told AFP on Monday that riot police had been deployed. The city's main square and major universities have been cordoned off.
"Controls are very strict. Many riot police wearing headpieces are standing in the streets," one hotel operator near Xinhua Square told AFP.
Universities have been sealed off in the cities of Tongliao and Ordos, the Mongol rights group said.
The group had called for a region-wide protest on Monday "to demand the government of China respect the human rights, life and dignity of the Mongols in China and to resolve the case of Mergen in a just and fair manner."
China is home to an estimated six million ethnic Mongols who have cultural and linguistic links with the Republic of Mongolia to the north.
Many harbour resentment over alleged Chinese repression and encroachment on pasture lands by Han mining and energy interests, in grievances similar to those reported by minorities in Tibet and Xinjiang.
The herder who died had been among a group of Mongols who attempted to block a caravan of coal-hauling trucks in Xilingol, the Mongolian rights group said.
They had been angered by an influx of miners that had displaced herders, destroyed grazing lands and killed livestock.
The Xilingol government said four people were arrested over the killing and the destruction of pasture lands.
- AFP/fa
