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EDICOLA / KIOSK | LADINBolzano/Bozen, Göttingen, Hamburg, 13. September 2006
On the opening of the Chinese-European Economic Summit and of
the China Time celebrations in Hamburg the Society for Threatened
Peoples (GfbV) on Wednesday together with Tibetans, Uyghurs and
the Tibet Initiative Deutschland e.V. against China's depletion
of the mineral resources of these peoples. "Without the
plundering of the forests and rivers, the mining, oil and natural
gas in Tibet and East Turkistan (Xinjiang) China's economic boom
would be unthinkable", said the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius.
"Hamburg is showing only the Sunday face of China", criticised
Delius. The catastrophic results for Tibetans and Uyghurs of the
hunger of the People's Republic for energy and natural resources
have received no mention. "But those who like the city of Hamburg
make so much profit out of China's economic boom must no shut
their eyes to the catastrophic consequences of the resulting race
for natural resources". This was the demand of Delius. The
Chinese prime Minister, Wen Jiabao and the German Minister of
Commerce, Michael Glos, opened in Hamburg today a three-day
European-Chinese economic summit. The Hanse city is with its
harbour one of the most important centres of the European trade
with China.
For Tibet's nomads and for hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs in
neighbouring East Turkistan the economic boom means the downfall
of their traditional society. For to make sure of obtaining the
mineral resources China is systematically pressing the settling
of Han Chinese and the construction of dams, gas and oil
pipe-lines and railways. "The plundering of nature means that an
increasing number of Tibetans and Uyghurs in the rural areas will
be losing their existential foundation", warned Delius.
"Simultaneously the authorities in both regions are tightening up
the repression against the traditionally resident population in
order to obtain in the long run the control over the raw
materials." In Burma and Indonesia too the deforestation in the
name of the Chinese economic boom means the destruction of
several hundred thousand indigenous inhabitants. To satisfy
China's hunger for raw materials tens of thousands of hectares of
forest are being felled and in Indonesia large areas of tropical
forest are being cleared for the setting up of palm oil
plantations.