Chinese authorities have reportedly made mass arrests in the ethnically Tibetan region of western Sichuan province amid protests against a giant hydro-electric dam project that would force villages to vacate and destroy ancient Buddhist monasteries. According to Radio Free Asia [9], authorities arrested over 100 villagers and monks at a Feb. 22 demonstration [10] in Wonpotod (also rendered Wongpo Tok; Chinese: Wangbuding) township, Derge (Chinese: Dege) county in Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan. The current status of those detained remains unknown.
Tensions began Feb. 20, when teams of county officials and police arrived at two monasteries in Wontoe township in preparation for their demolition to make way for construction of the Kamtok dam. Wontoe monastery and Yena monastery in nearby Shiba village are cultural landmarks believed to date back over 700 years, and the mural paintings [11] in the monasteries have historical importance. Monks and local residents, including the bursar of Wontoe monastery, gathered at the scene and peacefully appealed to the authorities for dialogue. The following day, the police detained up to 1,000 who were thought to have taken part in the gathering. Informants told Radio Free Asia [12] that the police told detainees to bring food and bedding from home, indicating that their detention would be long. Community members who visited the detention centers to appeal for the detainees' release were themselves detained.
The Kamtok dam is the sixth in a proposed series of 13 on the Dri Chu River, known as the Jinsha or Upper Yangtze in Chinese. They are being built as part of the West-East Electricity Transmission Project [7], to supply power to industrial cities in eastern China. (TCHRD [13], RFA [14], HRW [15], ICT [16])
