Party, Government Launch New Security Program, Patriotic Education, in Tibetan Area

May 5, 2008

Official Chinese Communist Party and government sources in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, have published unusually detailed accounts of anti-separatism and patriotic education activity in Ganzi county, and of a pilot security initiative underway in selected villages. A January 4, 2008, Ganzi Daily article (translated in OSC, 12 February 2008) noted that the county's remote location and "historical reasons" (a reference to Ganzi's reputation for pro-independence sentiment) had made the work of "maintaining public order and safeguarding stability . . . very arduous."

Official Chinese Communist Party and government sources in Ganzi (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Sichuan province, have published unusually detailed accounts of anti-separatism and patriotic education activity in Ganzi county, and of a pilot security initiative underway in selected villages. A January 4, 2008, Ganzi Daily article (translated in OSC, 12 February 2008) noted that the county's remote location and "historical reasons" (a reference to Ganzi's reputation for pro-independence sentiment) had made the work of "maintaining public order and safeguarding stability . . . very arduous." Ganzi, one of 18 counties in the prefecture, has been the site of more known political detentions of Tibetans (55) by Chinese authorities than any other county outside the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) since the current period of Tibetan political activism began in 1987, based on data available in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Political Prisoner Database (PPD).

Political instructor Chun Mei of the Ganzi County Domestic Security Corps told the Ganzi Daily, "From 1999 to 2006, we solved a total of 44 cases of [ethnic] separatism and apprehended 33 suspects, thus effectively puncturing the arrogance of the national separatists." Chun referred to three separatism cases by date (May 14, 1999; February 27, 2000; May 31, 2006), but he did not name the defendants or link the dates to specific events in the legal process, such as detention, formal arrest, or sentencing. As a result, the CECC cannot match the dates with certainty to any of the PPD's 46 cases of known Tibetan political detention and imprisonment in Ganzi county between 1999 and 2006.

Security officials in Ganzi county are implementing a pilot security program in five villages to recruit rural residents to augment local police work, according to a December 24, 2007, article (in Chinese; CECC translation) posted on the Ganzi Prefecture Development Planning Committee (GDPC) Web site. Testing such a program may signal that the county's security establishment, coupled with programs such as patriotic education, have failed to achieve widespread acceptance by Tibetans of Party policies toward Tibetan culture, religion, and the Dalai Lama. (See the CECC 2007 Annual Report for more information.) After successful completion of the pilot project, officials intend to extend the program throughout the county, according to the GDPC. There are 220 villages in Ganzi county, according to the Ganzi Daily article.

The GDPC article outlined the experimental rural security program's principal features.

  • Officials will "invite" selected villagers to "assume the duties of [a] public security head." Duties include "transmission" (e.g. transmitting information about security policies to villagers), "notification" (e.g. notifying public security officials about security incidents), and "reconciliation" (e.g. seeking to mediate conflicts between villagers). The objective of such duties is to "[safeguard] public order and [promote] harmony and stability."
  • Public security heads must hold the position of village-level Party secretary, be "politically reliable," and "enjoy prestige among the people." Empowering village Party chiefs to perform defined support services for public security offices would strengthen the Party's capacity to utilize government police powers to promote Party interests.
  • Party and public security officials will travel to each village to train public security heads. Training topics include legal issues relevant to the duties of village public security heads, as well as the scope of power that they may exercise.
  • Local public security officials will supervise and evaluate the work of village public security heads. The purpose of oversight and review is to clarify to the public security heads the limits on the scope of their power, urge them to "develop their work according to law and in a standardized way," and address any abuses of power.
  • The program will offer incentives for village security heads to provide information about village activity to police. If the information helps police prevent or solve an act considered to be a crime, authorities will grant the village security head an award for each such instance. The GDPC article did not disclose details about the type or size of the awards. Incentives could, for example, encourage village security heads to inform police about villagers who possess photographs of the Dalai Lama or copies of his religious teachings, as well as about other cultural and religious matters that Chinese officials deem to endanger state security by "inciting splittism" (Article 103, Criminal Law).

Ganzi Daily reported that, along with the increased security measures, a new round of patriotic education is underway in all of Ganzi county's villages, schools, monasteries, and nunneries. Officials have used devices such as "propaganda and cultural service kits" and "mobile propaganda banners" to convey the campaign throughout the county, including to the pastoral areas where Tibetan nomads live. As a result, "100 percent" of the monks and nuns who are officially permitted to reside at the 42 monasteries and nunneries located in the county signed or thumb-printed a pledge to "firmly safeguard nationality solidarity and the unity of the motherland."

In preparation for the recent round of patriotic education, officials sent teams to every monastery and nunnery in Ganzi county to "[get] to know what was on the mind of the numerous monks and nuns," Ganzi Daily reported. Based on their findings, authorities decided to make an example of Dargye (Dajin) Monastery. Ganzi Daily placed Dargye's selection in the context of the county's "complex political background" and its "special political status . . . at the forefront of the combat against separatism and infiltration." In one incident linked to the monastery, hundreds of Tibetans converged at the county police detention center in October 1999 after authorities detained Sonam Phuntsog, a senior teacher at Dargye, according to a July 2004 International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) report (p. 77). The Ganzi Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to five years' imprisonment for splittism after he urged "crowds of people to believe in the Dalai Lama and recite long life prayers" for him, according to a translation of the official verdict by The Dui Hua Foundation in Selection of Cases from the Criminal Law (Volume 13, August 2003).

For more information, see Section IV, Tibet: Special Focus for 2007, in the CECC 2007 Annual Report; Section V(d), Freedom of Religion, and Section VIII, Tibet, in the CECC 2006 Annual Report; and Section III(d), Freedom of Religion, and Section VI, Tibet, in the CECC 2005 Annual Report.