From: Tibet-Relay@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Four Arrested in Mining Village
Date: 20 Aug 92 06:43:00 GMT
Reply-To: tibet.info@gnosys.svle.ma.us

Original-Sender: robbieb@gn.apc.org

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TIN News Update / 19 August, 1992 / total no of pages: 2


 - Four More Arrests In Mining Village -


Four more Tibetans have been arrested from the village of
Gyama Trikhang, scene of continuing nationalist unrest.

The four youths, Sonam Rinchen, Kunchok Lodro, Sonam Dorje,
and Samten Gyatso, were arrested in the village on 30th June
after they disrupted an official meeting by shouting pro-
independence slogans, according to unofficial sources in the
Tibetan capital.

Samten Gyatso is the third member of his family to be
imprisoned for political activities, said one report.

The village, 58 km east of Lhasa in the county of Meldro
Gungkar, first came to prominence in July when local
inhabitants smuggled out an appeal saying that armed police
had been deployed in the village in response to long-running
resistance by the villagers to Government mining and
deforestation in the area.

Three farmers were arrested from their houses for "counter-
revolutionary activities" in March this year, and on 15th
June three monks from the village were detained after staging
a demonstration in Lhasa.

The latest incident came at the end of several weeks of
political re-education in the village, part of a country-wide
campaign by the Chinese to increase loyalty to socialism. The
Gongzuo Dui or Work Team leading the re-education sessions
held a further re-education meeting on the afternoon of 30th
June, attended by several hundred villagers.

The afternoon session was the second meeting held that day.
In the morning of 30th June villagers had attended a rally at
which crimes committed by local criminals were condemned and
sentences were announced.

As the afternoon meeting was coming to an end the four youths
unfurled a Tibetan national flag and shouted slogans calling
for Tibetan independence, for long life for the Dalai Lama
and for the "red Chinese to go home". One source said two of
the youths carried stones in their hands, but did not suggest
that the stones were used.

Other members of the public joined in the slogans, according
to one report. "It went on until the police appeared, armed
with pistols and machine guns, ready to shoot", said an
unofficial source in Lhasa.

Another source said the local Party Secretary had drawn a
pistol and had been about to fire into the air when he had
been disarmed by villagers.


Villagers are said to have indicated support for the arrested
demonstrators by burning incense and throwing tsampa, roasted
barley flour, over the youths as they were being taken away
by police. Tsampa-throwing, a special ritual calling on
deities to lend support to leaders, was banned in Lhasa in
October 1989 when police realised it indicated support for
the Dalai Lama.

After the arrest of the four youths the villagers in Gyama
are said to have convinced the Party Secretary in charge of
the local Work Team that the ritual had no political
implications and that it was regularly performed on the last
day of each month.

Reports said that the villagers demanded and received an
undertaking from the Party Secretary that the youths would
not be injured by police, but later reports said that they
had been transferred to Gutsa jail, a notorious detention
centre in Lhasa.

One unconfirmed report said that three other people had been
arrested for involvement in the incident and were held in the
Meldro Gungkar local jail, but no further details were
available.

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