January 30, 2012

SUDAN REBELS ARE SAID TO HOLD ROAD CREW FROM CHINA

Posted by The Himalayan Voice:
[China is a longtime ally of Sudan, backing the government in Khartoum against Western criticism over human rights violations, and it has invested heavily in Sudanese oil fields despite the political risks. Chinese energy executives say Western companies locked up most of the best oil fields in stable countries long ago, forcing them to seek reserves in more volatile locations.]

By Keith Bradsher And Jeffrey Gettleman


HONG KONG — More than two dozen Chinese road workers have been seized by a Sudanese rebel group, Chinese and Sudanese officials said Sunday, underlining the risks for China in sending ever-greater numbers of its workers into some of the world’s most turbulent countries.

The officials said the rebels struck a remote camp used by Chinese road builders in South Kordofan, an oil-rich state that has become a battlefield between the Sudanese government and rebels allied with the newly independent nation of South Sudan. Sudanese officials said that the rebels had kidnapped more than 70 Chinese and Sudanese workers. It was not clear if anyone was killed in the attack, a Sudanese Army spokesman said.

The abduction of the Chinese workers instantly became a national issue in China, where Internet chat rooms were full of discussion of their fate and the official China Daily newspaper led the front page with the news.

While China has been sending large work crews to unstable countries for decades, a rise in Internet usage and in the availability of information from abroad has made the Chinese public much more sensitive to what happens to these workers.
Liu Weimin, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said that diplomats from China and Sudan were holding emergency discussions. The state-run news agency Xinhua said that the missing Chinese workers were helping to build a road as part of an ambitious and long-delayed plan to link two remote areas.
However, just last week Western human rights groups accused the Sudanese government of embarking on a road-building campaign in South Kordofan as a way of bringing more troops into the region and crushing the rebels.
For their part, the rebels announced that they were holding 29 Chinese workers after a battle with the Sudanese Army, but reportedly claimed that it was done for the workers’ safety.
Intense fighting broke out in Kordofan in June, right before South Sudan split off from Sudan. The Kordofan rebels fought alongside southern rebels for years against the Arab-dominated government of Sudan. Many analysts believe that South Sudan is helping to arm the Kordofan rebels, and the Sudanese government is believed to be arming rebel groups in South Sudan.
China has moved aggressively to become a leading builder of infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions, taking on highways, airports, bridges, dams and other big projects in areas that Western companies avoid.
Chinese state-owned companies send thousands of employees to do much of the work instead of training local residents, an approach that sometimes produces faster results, but can also alienate local populations and put Chinese workers at risk.
China is a longtime ally of Sudan, backing the government in Khartoum against Western criticism over human rights violations, and it has invested heavily in Sudanese oil fields despite the political risks. Chinese energy executives say Western companies locked up most of the best oil fields in stable countries long ago, forcing them to seek reserves in more volatile locations.
Neil Ashdown, an Asia and Pacific analyst based in London for IHS Global Insight, a consulting firm, said that Chinese firms tend to send more people to work on projects abroad than Western companies do, and that the workers are more likely to be joined by their families, putting even more Chinese in dangerous locations.
At the same time, in the last three years Chinese Internet users have become much more vociferous in demanding that their government protect Chinese citizens in danger around the world, comparing Beijing’s efforts unfavorably with rescues mounted by Western nations.
“The Chinese government and the military should send in our commandos to infiltrate deeply into Sudan and rescue the kidnapped 29 Chinese workers, should talks fail,” wrote one Chinese blogger using the tag line, “Good luck to our military guys.”
Keith Bradsher reported from Hong Kong, and Jeffrey Gettleman from Khartoum, Sudan.

 

CHINESECRACKDOWN SEALS OFF ETHNIC UNREST

[Groups favoring more freedom for ethnic Tibetans say the shootings started in the middle of the month, when a crowd of Tibetans tried to take away the body of a Tibetan man who had set himself on fire in Aba, or Ngaba in Tibetan, northwest of Chengdu.]
By Michael Wines
Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Armed Chinese soldiers patrolled Chengdu in southwest China 
on Friday
CHENGDU, China — This regional metropolis is roughly 200 miles from the wave of protest by ethnic Tibetans that is sweeping the towering mountains of western Sichuan Province. But take a stroll through Chengdu’s Tibetan quarter, and the tensions generated by the distant unrest become palpable.
Faced with the largest outbreak of Tibetan unrest since riots in Lhasa and elsewhere in 2008, the government is taking no chances that the turmoil — which has included Chinese forces firing on and killing some demonstrators — will spread.
Armed soldiers in dun-colored camouflage trooped up and down Wuhouci Hengjie, a tree-shaded lane that is home to two government offices. Police cars, vans and even tow trucks, their red-and-blue light bars flashing, were stationed every 50 to 100 yards. Bands of police officers patrolled the sidewalks; on one corner, they upbraided an angry Tibetan man as anxious women grabbed his arms, pulling him away.
Asked about the heavy security, one shopkeeper sarcastically suggested the forces were in town to prevent rowdiness during the spring festival, a traditional Chinese holiday.
He added quietly: “I don’t dare talk. The police came to my shop and told me not to spread the word.”
But word of the unrest has spread anyway, despite a crackdown that has sealed off outside access to western Sichuan and, by some reports, disabled telephone and Internet communications in some restricted areas.
The Chinese government says it is only defending loyal citizens from revolutionaries who seek to sever Tibet from Chinese rule. Many outsiders, and perhaps most Tibetans, believe otherwise, casting the latest unrest as a continuing struggle against Chinese repression of political and religious freedoms.
The recent troubles appear to have intensified when four Tibetans set themselves on fire this month, accelerating a campaign of self-immolation that has killed at least 11 Tibetans since March 2011.
Groups favoring more freedom for ethnic Tibetans say the shootings started in the middle of the month, when a crowd of Tibetans tried to take away the body of a Tibetan man who had set himself on fire in Aba, or Ngaba in Tibetan, northwest of Chengdu.
Since then, the groups say, they have received reports of protests and more shootings, with three shooting deaths in the past week. Because of the security cordon, those reports could not be independently confirmed. The clashes have unfolded mostly in areas where Buddhist monasteries or schools have long been centers of opposition to Chinese rule.
Last Monday, the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet said, Chinese forces killed at least one person and wounded at least 34 in Luhuo, or Draggo, a monastery town west of Chengdu.
On Tuesday, another man is said to have died in Sertar, or Seda, a town that had been a center of Buddhist teachings, hosting nearly 9,000 students, until Chinese authorities ordered most of the Larung Gar religious academy vacated in the last decade.
And last Thursday, a man in Rangtang township, or Dzamtang, was fatally shot as Tibetans tried to stop the authorities from detaining another man accused of distributing leaflets about the self-immolations.
The government has acknowledged the shootings in Sertar, but it said its forces fired on protesters after demonstrators fired on them, wounding 14 officers.
It is likely that protests have also occurred elsewhere, both Tibetans and officials of advocacy groups said last week. “We heard from people coming from our hometown that people of our ethnic group have clashed with the People’s Liberation Army,” said one woman from Ganzi Prefecture. “We can’t fight them. There are too many.”
A reporter who sought on Thursday to drive to Ganzi was halted at a police checkpoint halfway to his goal and, after inspection of his journalist’s visa, politely but firmly turned away.
“There is thick ice ahead,” the police said. “It is not suitable for foreign guests.”
Two backpackers were also ordered to turn around, but were told that the area was unsafe because “the Tibetans are in revolt.”
By week’s end, a full-scale lockdown of the restive area appeared to be in effect, with milder restrictions from Chengdu to Lhasa, Tibet’s capital and the scene of the worst riots in 2008.
The Chinese government has said 18 civilians and a policeman died during violence that was directed at Han Chinese migrants, whose growing presence angered many native Tibetans. Tibetan groups say the violence left scores of Tibetans dead at the hands of Han Chinese residents and government security forces.
Security patrols have been significantly beefed up in Lhasa, and the authorities are conducting house-to-house searches to document the identities of residents, said Stephanie Brigden, the director of Free Tibet.
She said officials were letting residents know that they knew who had relatives outside the country, and that they expected the residents not to tell those relatives what was happening.
“They say that they know if they are making international telephone calls, and if they are, they shouldn’t discuss anything political,” Ms. Brigden said. “They’re really using intimidating tactics to make sure information isn’t disseminated.”
But some inside the locked-down area are getting their information out in other ways. Posts on Twitter and Chinese microblogs documented some of the local reaction to the strife before being deleted from Chinese sites.
“A cold morning in Danba County town,” one post stated. “It’s all very chaotic over here, with the police searching all nonlocal vehicles and all the hotels aren’t being allowed to accept Tibetans or foreigners.”