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NEW ZEALAND Asia and Oceania Nicole Girard, Irwin Loy, Marusca Perazzi, Jacqui Zalcberg the country. However, this doctrine is opposed by nationalist groups, who interpret it as an attack on ethnic Kazakh identity, language and Central culture. Language policy is part of this debate. The Asia government has a long-term strategy to gradually increase the use of Kazakh language at the expense Matthew Naumann of Russian, the other official language, particularly in public settings. While use of Kazakh is steadily entral Asia was more peaceful in 2011, increasing in the public sector, Russian is still with no repeats of the large-scale widely used by Russians, other ethnic minorities C violence that occurred in Kyrgyzstan and many urban Kazakhs. Ninety-four per cent during the previous year. Nevertheless, minor- of the population speak Russian, while only 64 ity groups in the region continue to face various per cent speak Kazakh. In September, the Chair forms of discrimination. In Kazakhstan, new of the Kazakhstan Association of Teachers at laws have been introduced restricting the rights Russian-language Schools reportedly stated in of religious minorities. Kyrgyzstan has seen a a roundtable discussion that now 56 per cent continuation of harassment of ethnic Uzbeks in of schoolchildren study in Kazakh, 33 per cent the south of the country, and pressure over land in Russian, and the rest in smaller minority owned by minority ethnic groups. In Tajikistan, languages. In higher education, a slight majority ethnic Uzbeks have also reportedly come under study in Kazakh and just under half use Russian. increased pressure from the authorities, often for The number of students enrolled in university alleged membership of banned Islamist groups. courses taught in Kazakh has quadrupled Meanwhile, Chinese nationals in Tajikistan have since the early 1990s. However, in September, reportedly been targeted by new legislation tight- discontent with the speed of language reform led ening rules on marriage with foreigners, following to a group of intellectuals and opposition leaders public disquiet over the alleged acquisition of writing an open letter to the President, the Prime land by China in the country. In Turkmenistan Minister and parliamentary leaders, calling for the ‘Turkmenization’ policy continues, with removal of Article 7 of the Constitution, which school children now reportedly required to pro- guarantees that Russian can be used as well as vide evidence of their ethnic origin for unclear Kazakh in official communications. President reasons. Finally, in Uzbekistan the challenging Nazarbaev is reported to be categorically opposed human rights situation continues to affect all eth- to such a change. nic groups, while the increasing shortfalls in flow A snap election in April saw Nazarbaev of the Amu Darya River disproportionately blight re-elected with 95.5 per cent of the vote. Two the ethnic Karakalpak population, who live in its prominent opposition politicians did not take delta area. part because they failed to pass the required Kazakh language test. In elections for the Kazakhstan Majilis, the lower house of parliament, held President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan on 15 January 2012, about a quarter of the 98 has consistently voiced a desire for inter-ethnic candidates elected by party list appeared to be accord and tolerance in the country. However, from Russian-speaking ethnic minorities (of his government continues to tighten its control whom almost half were women). This represents over religious minorities. Since October 2009, a substantial increase on the previous parliament. President Nazarbaev has promoted a National A further eight out of the nine representatives Unity Doctrine put together by the Assembly of appointed by the Assembly of the People of the People of Kazakhstan – an umbrella body that Kazakhstan were from minority ethnic groups. represents the interests of minority ethnic groups – Two Assembly-nominated deputies were women, which stresses the consolidation of a Kazakhstani representing the Slavic and the Tatar-Bashkir identity drawing on the multi-ethnic nature of communities.

120 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2011 Over the past 20 years, about a million ethnic crackdown on these statements of religious faith Kazakhs have returned or migrated to Kazakhstan in some areas. under the state-run Oralman scheme (named after the ethnic Kazakh diaspora) – settling Kyrgyzstan largely in Mangistau, South Kazakhstan and Following the turbulence of the overthrow of Almaty provinces, and the cities of Almaty President Kurmanbek Bakiev and the clashes and Astana. They have come primarily from between ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz groups Mongolia, China, Afghanistan, Iraq and in 2010, during which over 400 people died Turkey, as well as Russia and other Central and many more were wounded and displaced, Asian republics. Reportedly these immigrants Kyrgyzstan had a quieter year in 2011. Elections have faced problems with land allotments, on 30 November saw the peaceful transfer of employment, and access to Kazakh- and Russian- power to Almazbek Atambaev, who had been language training. Another concern is the prime minister under interim President Roza acquisition of citizenship, though there have been Otunbayeva. Atambaev drew most of his support some measures taken to simplify this in 2011. from his native north of the country. Those Some politicians claim that failures in migration who voted among minority ethnic groups in the policy were partly responsible for strikes by oil south also tended to support Atambaev, whose workers in Mangistau and Aktau provinces in appeals to inter-ethnic unity reassured them more December that saw 16 deaths; and that ethnic than the nationalist rhetoric of the candidates Kazakh immigrants are linked to the new Islamist who came second and third. Though two ethnic groups purportedly responsible for bombings and Russians and one ethnic Kazakh were among the attacks on the police in 2011. initial 83 candidates, by the time of the vote, The upsurge in Islamist activity in 2011 only ethnic Kyrgyz were standing. Overall, the has caused concern among authorities. On 22 election campaigns were marked by an increased July, President Nazarbaev reportedly called for use of nationalist rhetoric by politicians and the increased surveillance of religious communities media, which implicitly scapegoated Uzbeks for and for unspecified ‘extremist religious ideology’ the 2010 violence and broader problems. to be ‘strictly suppressed’. A new Religion Law, Back in March, the grief of some ethnic Kyrgyz which came into force on 26 October, restricts – who lost relatives during the 2010 violence the rights of religious minorities in contravention and created the ‘Osh Martyrs’ movement – was of Kazakhstan’s human rights commitments. The channelled into demonstrations in Osh and new law imposes a complex tiered registration Bishkek against Atambaev, other members system, bans unregistered religious activity, of the 2010 interim government, and Uzbek imposes religious censorship and requires both community leaders, whom the group considers to central and local government approval to build be jointly responsible for the violence. or open new places of worship. The new law A new coalition agreement, formed after could mean that only the Muslim Board, which Atambaev’s victory, led to the exclusion of the is the state-backed religious authority for Sunni more nationalist Ata Jurt party from power, with Muslims, and the Russian Orthodox Church are the other four parliamentary parties agreeing recognized as top-tier religious organizations. the composition of a new government. Under Further plans are under discussion to build the new government formed in December on this law by banning all independent and 2011, Ravshan Sabirov, who in 2010 had ethnically based mosques (such as Uighur, Tatar become the first ethnic Tajik parliamentarian in or Chechen), taking over all formal Islamic Kyrgyzstan, became its first ethnic Tajik minister, education, and using the state-controlled Muslim responsible for social welfare. There are no other Board to control and report on all permitted representatives of minority ethnic groups in the Islamic activity. While there is no prohibition on new government. men wearing beards and women wearing hijab President Atambaev is likely to follow the in the new legislation, the introduction of the principles of the Concept of Ethnic Development new law appears to have been accompanied by a and Consolidation in the Kyrgyz Republic, drawn

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 121 and Indigenous Peoples 2011 Above: Children in a damaged mahalla or cultural and language policies focusing on Kyrgyz Uzbek neighbourhood in southern Kyrgyzstan – identity. Approval of this document shows that an area affected by the inter-ethnic violence nationalist ideas have broader support in parliament in the summer of 2010. Sofia Skrypnyk/ than just within Ata Jurt. One contentious Nonviolent Peaceforce. issue, for example, is the current provision that internal passports state a person’s ethnicity. In his up under Otunbayeva to increase levels of trust inauguration speech, Atambaev spoke of his desire between different ethnic groups. The principles to see this provision removed, in order to promote call for the rule of law, respect for human rights civic rather than ethnic nationalism, while senior Ata and cultural diversity, preservation of the identity Jurt figures wish to see it maintained as a symbol of ethnic groups and non-discrimination, ensuring of identity. There are ongoing efforts to reconcile equal opportunities for political participation and these two approaches, and the results of this policy transition from ethnic identity to civil identity. debate will be crucial for peace-building efforts in The concept also calls for an education system in Kyrgyzstan in the coming years, and will have major which young people from all minority groups learn repercussions on ethnic relations. to speak Kyrgyz, the state language, rather than The situation in southern Kyrgyzstan remains continuing to rely solely on Russian for inter-ethnic strained. While inter-ethnic violence has largely communication. The draft concept was adopted abated, and many houses have been built with by the Assembly of the Peoples of Kyrgyzstan, an international support to replace most of those umbrella body for minority ethnic groups, on 17 destroyed in the violence, widespread economic, June 2011. social and legal harassment of the Uzbek community However, in the same month, parliament voted continues. Local newspapers in the city continue to approve a document developed by the Ata Jurt to publish derogatory and inflammatory articles party, which proposed another approach to ethnic targeting the ethnic Uzbek population. policy, founded on the notion of Kyrgyz ethnicity Human rights organizations continue to as the central element of nationhood, and set out document arbitrary detention and torture in

122 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2011 police custody, predominantly of ethnic Uzbeks. Between July and September, Human Rights Case study Watch (HRW) recorded 10 cases of arbitrary arrest and torture of ethnic Uzbeks; two died as a result of torture. Trials stemming from the June Land scarcity fuels violence in southern Kyrgyzstan have also been marred by physical attacks on lawyers and ethnic ethnic conflict in Uzbek defendants. Police and other officials have refused to intervene, and only one investigation Kyrgyzstan into these attacks has so far gone to court. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the crimes committed during the violence, Several violent incidents revived fears of disproportionately those targeting ethnic ethnic conflict in December 2011. Such Uzbeks, remain unsolved. Women who have disturbances in rural areas of Kyrgyzstan been victims of gender-based violence and are caused by a complex range of factors, often now face serious psychological and health including migratory pressure driven by problems, feel unable to approach the authorities poverty, and perceived injustice caused by for support because of their community’s historical disparities between ethnic groups. conservative traditions, and the hostility of This case study seeks to shed light on these the overwhelmingly ethnically Kyrgyz police. ongoing tensions. Prolonged detention of Uzbek men, and When two brawls broke out between increased outflow of migrant workers to Russia teenagers of Kyrgyz and north Caucasian from already high levels have led to a rise in ethnicity in the northern Chuy Valley female-headed households in the city. in December 2011 and January 2012, Prominent government figures have alleged analysts feared these had the potential to that support for militant Islamist groups has provoke wide-scale inter-ethnic conflict. increased among ethnic Uzbeks. However, some There have been various sizeable minority analysts see the reports as merely a pretext to farming communities that have had justify further discrimination and persecution relatively good relations with local Kyrgyz against the minority. neighbours in the Chuy Valley since the Official approval of some houses that have 1930s. However, the lack of economic been rebuilt in ethnic Uzbek areas of central viability in remote mountainous areas Osh remains unclear, as the local government following independence, coupled with continues to press for implementation of a master a rise in ethnic nationalism, has meant plan which would see these areas replaced by that Kyrgyz internal migrants from high-rise buildings. The more inclusive inter- impoverished areas have increasingly ethnic policies of successive national governments begun to lay claim to such farmland. have had little sway in recent years in Osh, where Meanwhile, both a parliamentary and a Mayor Melis Myrzakmatov continues to play to his government commission were established nationalist powerbase, musing on an independent in January 2012 to investigate clashes police force for the city and building massive that broke out on 28 December between monuments to Kyrgyz folk heroes. ethnic Kyrgyz and Tajik in the far south- The trend of transition from Uzbek- to Kyrgyz- west of the country, which resulted in language schooling is continuing for many children the looting of Tajik-owned shops and in southern Kyrgyzstan. This is partly because of the burning of houses. This area has seen concerns about the quality of Uzbek-language complex migratory patterns in recent years, education, particularly given the acute shortage of with ethnic Kyrgyz moving away in large modern textbooks in the language. There are also numbers to find work abroad or in the few prospects for higher education in Uzbek, after capital, while ethnic Tajiks from across the the two universities in Kyrgyzstan that taught in

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 123 and Indigenous Peoples 2011 Case study continued Caucasian ethnicities and Meskhetian Turks, were deported there en masse before border have bought up land and property in and during the Second World War. While their place. In an area where the international some of these immigrants moved to cities, boundaries are not yet clearly defined, this others joined collective farms in the valleys, trend is of concern to some of the ethnic many of which were ethnically based. Kyrgyz population. As the Soviet economy and its subsidies Almost a third of Kyrgyzstani adults, collapsed in the 1980s, many Kyrgyz including Kyrgyz and other ethnic groups, found themselves unable to survive in the work as migrant labourers in Russia and mountains and massive internal migration Kazakhstan, and in recent years many from began to the cities and farmland in the the countryside have moved to Bishkek valleys. Riots occurred in the south in for work. Until poverty and disparities 1990 when ethnic Kyrgyz, who had been between regions are addressed, grievance forced by poverty to leave their mountain over land ownership fuelled by a sense of villages, demanded land in the grounds ethnic entitlements has the potential to lead of a primarily Uzbek collective farm. The to further outbreaks of violence in both the total number of deaths in the violence is north and south of Kyrgyzstan. unknown, but 171 deaths were officially Ethnic tensions over land have a long reported. history in Kyrgyzstan. Until the 1930s, the Soon after, Askar Akaev became ancestors of today’s ethnic Kyrgyz were President. After independence in 1991, he primarily nomadic, taking livestock high sought to maintain Kyrgyzstan as a multi- into mountain pastures in the summer and ethnic state with international support. returning to lowland for the winter. Kyrgyz When nationalists in parliament passed pastoralists were forced out of the fertile legislation that favoured ethnic Kyrgyz in valleys of what is now the Kyrgyz Republic land ownership and use, President Askar when other ethnic groups settled there Akaev vetoed it three times, before a under the Russian Empire in the nineteenth less discriminatory land privatization act century, with Turkic-speaking sedentary was passed in 1997. In the first years of relatives of the Kyrgyz living in the southern independence, much of the demand for Fergana Valley, and European ethnic groups good farmland among ethnic Kyrgyz was moving into the northern Chuy Valley. met in northern Kyrgyzstan from land left After the Russian Revolution, in the by the thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, 1920s, the borders of the Kyrgyz Republic Germans and others who left the country were defined, and all citizens were ascribed for their historical homelands. However, ethnicities – most of the Turkic-speakers in people from many other ethnic groups, the Fergana Valley were recorded as Uzbeks, including Dungans (ethnic Chinese while the vast majority of pastoralists were Muslims), Meskhetian Turks and ethnic now officially Kyrgyz. In the 1930s, these groups originating from the North Caucasus ethnic Kyrgyz were forced to give up private continued to farm the land that their ownership of their livestock and end their families had tilled for decades or centuries. nomadic lifestyles, often to live in demanding Meanwhile, in the south, the Uzbek mountainous areas. These mountain community continued to farm much of the communities received massive subsidies from fertile land in the Fergana Valley. central government as compensation. At In 2005, Akaev was overthrown in the same time, further waves of European the face of widespread allegations of migrants were encouraged to move to the corruption and growing authoritarianism. Republic during much of the Soviet period, The protesters were predominantly rural while other ethnic groups, such as north Kyrgyz, and many reported that they had

124 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2011 been promised land in the Chuy Valley. the language were closed in 2010. Ethnic Uzbek An ethnic Turkish community faced parents around southern Kyrgyzstan have elected severe threats in 2005, and a largely ethnic to send their children to Kyrgyz-language classes. Dungan village experienced wide-scale There has also been active support for the move damage to its buildings in 2006. There to Kyrgyz-language teaching among prominent are reports that this violence was in part members of Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uzbek caused by resentment among ethnic Kyrgyz community, who see this as a way to improve internal migrants that they were renting ethnic relations. fields from non-Kyrgyz. The situation of religious minorities In June 2010, larger-scale inter-ethnic is relatively better in Kyrgyzstan than in violence occurred in southern Kyrgyzstan neighbouring countries. However, problems still between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, with remain. For instance, two Jehovah’s Witnesses, at least 475 fatalities. Although the direct arrested in May 2011 for possession of Hizb-ut impact was primarily in urban areas, rural Tahrir Islamist literature which they maintain families displaced by the violence in the was planted by police, were released on appeal in south were among the most severely affected July. Human rights groups have also expressed as they returned to find houses fully or concerns that many parliamentarians appear to partially destroyed, farming machinery and want to erode the secularism enshrined in the tools looted or burned, and livestock stolen country’s constitution by providing extended or dead. Meanwhile, many of the ethnic breaks for prayers on Fridays and opening a Kyrgyz participants in the conflict had come Muslim prayer room in the parliament building. from impoverished remote mountainous districts with pastoralist traditions such as Tajikistan Alay and Karakulja. Tajiks comprise the largest ethnic group in the In the aftermath of the rioting, Kyrgyz- country, accounting for 79.9 per cent of the language media outlets tacitly repeated the population. Other groups include Uzbeks (15.3 assertions of certain prominent politicians per cent), Russians (1.1 per cent) and Kyrgyz (1.1 that land in Kyrgyzstan belonged to ethnic per cent). Only two of the 63 parliamentarians Kyrgyz and that Uzbeks should be regarded in Tajikistan are ethnic Uzbeks. Uzbeks as mere tenants. On 7 November 2010, a primarily live in the west of the country, near group of about 1,000 Kyrgyz attempted to the border with Uzbekistan. Tajikistan’s plans seize about 70 hectares of land from Uzbeks to build a major hydroelectric dam at Rogun near Osh. The authorities took action to have aggravated relations with neighbouring disperse the squatters, with promises to look Uzbekistan and have reportedly led to the Uzbek at their requests for land in 2011. In April, minority facing increasing pressure inside the it was reported that the government was country. planning to allocate 31,200 plots of unused One barrier to political empowerment for the land around Osh city, but that the number Uzbek community is the government’s language of registered applicants for land was twice policy. Though the Constitution guarantees that and rising. While this has alleviated linguistic plurality, media reports reveal that pressure on livelihoods, the fact remains in practice the use of anything besides Tajik in that good agricultural land in the country’s public discourse is discouraged, and few radio or fertile valleys is at a premium. As the television broadcasts are in Uzbek. In addition, incidents in 2010 and 2011 show, tension civil servants are required to speak Tajik. Language remains high among communities in both policy also inhibits upward mobility for Uzbeks. the north and south of the country. p University applicants must be fluent in Tajik. Although schoolchildren study the Tajik language for two hours a day, for many rural Uzbeks this is not enough to master reading and writing. Non-nationals of Tajikistan wanting to marry

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 125 and Indigenous Peoples 2011 Above: Soldiers at a checkpoint on the road to Tajikistan to lease 2,000 hectares of land to the site of the Rogun dam, Dushanbe, Tajikistan. China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in Carolyn Drake/Panos. January 2011. Ethnic Kyrgyz women in Tajikistan are local citizens have been hit by new legislation increasingly falling victim to bride kidnapping, passed in January, which requires foreigners which is widespread in Kyrgyzstan. Media to have lived in the country for a year before reports suggest that some of their ethnic Tajik they can marry locals and to sign pre-nuptial neighbours in the north-eastern Jyrgatal district agreements committing them to providing have begun to copy the practice. housing for their spouse. Reportedly, the changes In March, Forum 18 reported that all religious target two specific groups – male Afghan citizens activity independent of state control, by Muslims, and ethnic Uighurs from China – some of whom Christians, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other are suspected to enter into marriage with local religious believers, has continued to be targeted women to secure residence rights and accelerate by the state. Violations perpetrated by the acquisition of citizenship. There are fears within government include: demolitions and closures Tajikistan that immigrants from China will fill of mosques, churches and the country’s only the vacuum caused by the mass migration of synagogue; a ban on all religious activity without Tajik citizens seeking employment in the Russian state permission; arbitrary jailing of Muslims and Federation. Fears of an influx from China were criminal charges against Jehovah’s Witnesses; raised in the media following the decision of limitations on the right to share beliefs; and tight

126 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2011 government censorship. The government justifies Turkmen, and all 14 candidates for the 2012 the imposition of these controls by the impact of elections were ethnic Turkmen. extremism and Islamization on national security. Marking a new development in the In 2011, it continued to carry out military raids Turkmenization strategy, in September it against alleged Islamist militants who had been was reported that, for the first time, school hiding in areas that were opposition strongholds children were being required to give personal during the civil war in the 1990s, particularly the information on immediate family members Rasht Valley, home of the Garmi community. going back three generations. Authorities gave In a visit to Tajikistan in October, US no explanation for this new requirement, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested resembles previous policies for those applying for that recent steps to control faith could drive public employment and higher education that ‘legitimate religious expression underground’ and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and fuel extremism. Cultural Rights also expressed concern about A law passed in August to ban children under in November. Meanwhile, in spite of specific 18 who are not receiving state-approved religious legislative provisions, the possibilities for ethnic education from places of worship, appeared in minorities to study in their mother tongues are October to be targeting mainly independent limited. It is reported that the country’s few Muslims. Members of other religious groups remaining Russian-language schools are in great continued to face legal problems, including a demand, with parents paying large bribes to Jehovah’s Witness with Uzbekistan citizenship, administrations or local education authorities for who was deported to Uzbekistan in September admission. despite having a legal right of residence in In January, new travel restrictions were Tajikistan. reported for those planning to enter or exit the country. This is likely to have particular Turkmenistan repercussions for those with dual Turkmen- It remains difficult to access information about Russian citizenship, which has been made minority issues in Turkmenistan because of invalid in recent years by the authorities in the lack of press freedom and restrictions on Turkmenistan. civil society. There is no disaggregated national In more positive news, Turkmenistan has data available on the demographic composition made progress in combatting statelessness. Several of the population and the enjoyment of thousand persons were registered as stateless, and rights. Extrapolating from a mid-1990s 3,000 received citizenship in 2011. In December, census, the country has Uzbek, Russian and the country acceded to the UN Convention Kazakh and other minority communities. It relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. is clear that minority groups continue to be Most of these people were left stateless at the sidelined from many educational, training, break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, having employment and political opportunities as a moved to Turkmenistan originally from former result of the government’s continuing policy of Soviet republics such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenization, which sets out preference for Moldova, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and persons of Turkmen origin, especially in the field Uzbekistan. of education and employment. The authorities The Kazakh minority in Turkmenistan have not undertaken measures to prevent these numbered around 90,000 in 1995, but many practices, or to improve the situation. have taken advantage of Kazakhstan’s Oralman There are no ministers or deputy ministers scheme, which supports ethnic Kazakhs abroad from minority ethnic communities in voluntarily repatriating to the country. In Turkmenistan. Heads of regional and district May, a court in Turkmenistan announced it administrations are likewise all ethnic Turkmen. had conditionally freed Bisengul Begdesinov, Even in predominantly national minority areas, a prominent ethnic Kazakh, following a fraud persons from these minorities only occupy low- and bribery trial. Among his activities within ranking posts. The President is required to speak the community, Begdesinov helped ethnic

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 127 and Indigenous Peoples 2011 Kazakhs to privatize property and relocate to violence of 2010 and ongoing discrimination Kazakhstan under the Oralman scheme. Despite faced by ethnic Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan. A small being freed, Begdesinov was refused an exit visa demonstration held by a local human rights to leave Turkmenistan in December, leading to group in Tashkent to mark the anniversary of the speculation that this was an attempt to intimidate ethnic conflict in southern Kyrgyzstan and protest Kazakhs residing in Turkmenistan to discourage the continuing discrimination faced by Uzbeks them from privatizing their apartments. resulted in 15 activists being briefly detained in Religious minorities in Turkmenistan June. Nevertheless, there have been reports of continue to suffer discrimination. Plans to ethnic Kyrgyz leaving Uzbekistan for Kyrgyzstan revise the Law on Religion, after a December in 2011, particularly the Fergana Valley provinces 2010 report by the Organization for Security of Jalalabad and Osh, in fear of retaliation. and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) criticized Uzbekistan’s already strained relationship with many of its provisions for violating international Tajikistan has deteriorated in recent years, partly human rights standards, have been shelved until due to the belief that a new hydroelectric dam 2012. The OSCE recommendations included being built upstream in Tajikistan would reduce an end to the ban on unregistered religious Uzbekistan’s water supplies. This has reportedly activity and on the private teaching of religion. led to the Uzbek minority facing increasing The law also has no provision for conscientious pressure inside the country. objection to military service. Two Jehovah’s This year has seen ethnic Tajik nationals of Witnesses were imprisoned in the summer Tajikistan working in Uzbekistan coming under for their conscientious objection. While one suspicion. A former metallurgist was sentenced was amnestied in August 2011, the other was by a military court in August to 12 years in sentenced to two years in a labour camp, after prison for espionage. His lawyer denied the which he may be sent to another labour camp, accusations. In September, another ethnic Tajik where seven other Jehovah’s Witnesses and was reportedly deported for inciting ethnic one Protestant pastor are known to be held. hatred; the man denied having been involved in Meanwhile, there have been further reports of Tajik–Uzbek issues. harassment of Protestants by the police and The situation of religious minorities remains religious authorities. difficult in Uzbekistan due to tight state control of religion. According to Forum 18, followers of Uzbekistan all faiths are subject to National Security Service Given the restrictions placed on the media, civil surveillance, which can often be highly intrusive, society and human rights work in Uzbekistan, as well as the use of informers inside religious it is hard to get a clear picture of the situation communities. Muslims who wear atypical of minorities within the country. HRW clothing or longer beards, and Protestants, appear reported in 2011 that in recent years, arrests particularly vulnerable. In 2011, Protestants had and persecution of political and human rights religious literature seized and destroyed, were activists have increased, and credible reports fined, and prevented from leaving the country of arbitrary detention and torture of detainees, after importing religious literature. Meanwhile, including several suspicious deaths in custody, a scheduled visit by the Russian Orthodox have continued. HRW itself was forced to close patriarch in November was postponed, reportedly its office in Uzbekistan in June. However, the because the government disagreed with the country’s continued strategic importance as an appointment of a bishop for the country. As of entry point to Afghanistan appears to have meant spring 2012, there was no indication when the that NATO countries feel obliged to tone down visit might take place. Many religious groups their criticism of the country’s human rights remain unable or unwilling to officially register, situation. while those that do operate legally continue to be Tight state control continues to curb any pressurized to prevent children attending worship potential retaliatory action against Uzbekistan’s and not to proselytize. ethnic Kyrgyz minority following the ethnic

128 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 delta of the Amu Darya River and the Aral Sea Case study area for several hundred years. Their traditional lifestyle revolved around cattle breeding, fishing and irrigated agriculture. A sea that fled However, these sources of livelihood have become increasingly unviable since the 1950s, its shores when the Soviet Union developed a massive system of dams, canals and water pumping stations in Central Asia. Major rivers were With the retreat of the Aral Sea, thousands diverted to irrigate cotton and other water- of Karakalpaks have lost their livelihoods and intensive crops in arid areas and deserts. Irrigated are being forced off their land. land expanded by 150 per cent in the Amu The shrinking of the Aral Sea by 90 per Darya Basin (primarily in Uzbekistan and cent and desertification of most of its terri- Turkmenistan) in this period. At this time, most tory is one of the most visible environmen- ethnic Karakalpaks became farmers, producing tal disasters in the world over the last fifty cotton, rice and other crops, primarily on years. While improved water management collective farms. has led to modest growth in the volume of Since independence, Uzbekistan has made some Kazakhstan’s northern portion of the sea in efforts to move away from cotton monoculture. recent years, there is little prospect of similar But the volume of water reaching the sea has changes in the southern section, which is continued to shrink, as industrial and domestic surrounded by the Autonomous Republic of use of water also increases. UNEP reports that Karakalpakstan, a part of Uzbekistan. more than 50 per cent of Amu Darya irrigation This environmental disaster has had serious water is lost due to lack of canal lining, excessive economic, social and health consequences for filtration, evaporation and other reasons. the ethnic Karakalpak population, which is The Aral Sea disaster has destroyed the region’s native to the region immediately around the fishing industry. In addition, desertification sea. A 2011 report by the United Nations is under way in much of the surrounding Environment Programme (UNEP) on the agricultural land. Local climate change, especially Amu Darya River shed further light on the falling rainfall, is also affecting farmers further serious social, economic and health impacts afield. A local farmer told RFE/RL in July that the of the Aral Sea crisis on the Karakalpak situation in the Amu Darya delta is worsening: population. They have lost their traditional livelihoods and are being forced to move ‘This is the third time during the last 10 years that away from the sea to find work and healthier the flow of water has been this low in the Amu environmental conditions. Darya,’ he said. ‘Things are only getting worse here, The three largest ethnic groups in and because of this people are abandoning Karakalpakstan by population size are the village.’ Uzbeks, Karakalpaks and Kazakhs. There has been no census in Uzbekistan since In addition to the drop in water flow, 1989, but it is believed that the Karakalpak the quality of drinking water in the area is population is about 500,000–700,000, of deteriorating because of the toxic residues of past whom the vast majority grew up in this area. over-use of pesticides and defoliants. Exacerbated Karakalpakstan is one of the two poorest by grossly inadequate levels of health care, this regions of Uzbekistan, and the Karakalpak has led to rises in kidney, thyroid and liver population suffers higher levels of poverty, diseases and anaemia caused by reduced iron unemployment and sickness than their Uzbek absorption, as well as tuberculosis and cancer. neighbours. Ethnic Karakalpaks, who are Resolution of the Aral Sea problem is culturally close to Kazakhs, have lived in the complicated by interstate disputes over water use.

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 129 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Case study continued opportunities. Less than 9 per cent of the workforce is involved in industrial Uzbekistan’s government is alarmed about production, and there is limited access to the building of large hydroelectric dams in credit to develop new businesses. Others upstream countries, particularly the Rogun have moved to Uzbekistan proper or Dam in Tajikistan. There are also concerns migrated to work in the stronger economy about the long-term effects of glacial retreat of Kazakhstan, where they often face on river flow, and of increased demand for discrimination. Unofficial estimates suggest water in Afghanistan, another upstream state. that 50,000–200,000 Karakalpaks have In order to mitigate the current and future made the move to Kazakhstan. Karakalpaks water quantity and quality problems of the remain one of the most threatened Aral Sea Basin, collective solutions will need minorities in Uzbekistan because of the to be found to improve water sharing and ecological catastrophe. Their position will cooperation throughout the Basin. not improve without significant external Meanwhile, in the face of the loss of intervention to tackle the problems of the livelihood opportunities and health concerns, southern Aral Sea. p the Karakalpak population is faced with difficult decisions. While the mainstay of Below: A Karakalpak man stands in front the region’s economy remains agriculture, of old discarded fishing boats that once many have moved south to the region’s worked on the Aral Sea, in Karakalpakstan, capital Nukus, where there are few work Uzbekistan. Jason Larkin/Panos.

130 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 substantial number of civilians who were killed during NATO-led night raids. South Afghan Local Police (ALP) will in part step in to replace international troops, particularly in rural areas. But in a September report, Human Asia Rights Watch (HRW) warned that such a civilian defence force could ratchet up ethnic tensions Irwin Loy if authorities fail to prevent ethnic or political interest groups from commandeering the process. The quest to develop natural resources was a A year after US officials announced the burgeoning issue in many South Asian countries discovery of US$ 1 trillion worth of untapped during 2011. Authorities face a dilemma when mineral deposits in the country, Afghanistan pursuing such development: taking advantage made significant moves to profit from its of natural resources can be a vehicle used to resources. In late December, authorities pull populations out of poverty, yet in doing so announced they had inked a deal with China the needs and livelihoods of local populations National Petroleum Corporation to explore for are often ignored. Across the region, minorities oil in the northern Amu Darya Basin. and indigenous peoples continued to experience In November, Afghanistan awarded contracts ongoing conflict throughout the year, in many to Indian and Canadian companies to develop cases related to land rights and unfettered natural the potentially lucrative Hajigak iron ore deposit resource extraction. in Bamyan province, home to ethnic Hazara. But watchdog groups were quick to warn of the Afghanistan dangers associated with resource development. A The start of 2011 ushered in a political crisis local civil society organization, Integrity Watch in Afghanistan, which saw President Hamid Afghanistan said: ‘In the peaks of opportunity, Karzai locked in a stalemate with the country’s Hajigak Mine can be a source of revenue, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) over employment and development, or a curse if not the results of the disputed 2010 parliamentary [dealt with] properly.’ Afghanistan is a candidate elections, raising questions about his legitimacy. country for the Extractive Industries Transparency Ultimately, in August Karzai announced that the Initiative (EITI), and its government has final authority on election results indeed rested committed itself to EITI’s internationally with the IEC. recognized transparency principles. The year marked the start of significant troop Religious and ethnic tensions continued to withdrawals of NATO forces from Afghanistan. simmer throughout 2011. There were reports In June, United States President Barack Obama that children from Hindu and Sikh communities ordered his country’s military to withdraw were forced to drop out of school because of 10,000 troops by the end of the year, with a bullying. more significant pull-out to occur by mid-2012. In December, a suicide bomber killed at Other NATO countries made similar plans. least 19 people at a funeral procession. The But with the reduction of foreign troops, blast went off in Uzbek and Tajik-dominated there are significant question marks over how Takhar province, where Taliban attacks had been Afghan forces will perform on their own. Civilian relatively rare until recent years. casualties in the country continued to soar. Also in December, at least 60 died and another The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan 200 were injured when a suicide bomber struck (UNAMA) documented 3,021 civilian deaths an important Shi’a shrine in Kabul, in an attack in 2011, an increase of 8 per cent compared blamed on Pakistani militants. On the same day, with 2010 and a 25 per cent increase from a bomb detonated near a Shi’a mosque in the 2009. Seventy-seven per cent of the deaths were northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing four. The attributed to anti-government forces, although attacks coincided with the major Shi’a festival of critics noted that the tally appeared to exclude a Ashura.

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 131 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Above: Hazara girls tending crops in Bamiyan 2009, in exchange for political support from province, Afghanistan. Iva Zimova/Panos. fundamentalist elements within the Shi’a community. The highly criticized legislation The year also saw much debate over the US allows husbands to withhold food from their and the Afghan governments’ stated plans to wives for not having sex, hands custody of involve the Taliban in peace talks. Considering children to fathers in divorce proceedings and the Taliban’s history in Afghanistan, the forces women to seek permission from their situation for minorities – particularly women husbands in order to work. from minority communities – remains a crucial The Karzai-appointed High Peace Council, concern. Some members of a coalition of ethnic which is tasked with seeking peace talks with the minorities, made up of prominent opposition Taliban, also includes former warlords, critics say. leaders who were members of the former A deputy chair of the council told the Institute Northern Alliance that fought against the Taliban for War & Peace Reporting that women should in the 1990s, have said they support peace talks, not fear a reconciliation agreement with the but minority communities must be a part of the Taliban. But he also said women should not discussion if they are to be successful. expect ‘unconditional freedom in areas where Advocates say women’s rights in the country Islamic rules and Afghan values were dominant’. are already under threat, despite the previous In any event, the future of the peace talks is far 10 years of relative progress. An Oxfam briefing from certain. In September, a suicide bomber issued in October said: ‘The Afghan government assassinated Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic has already demonstrated its willingness to Tajik who had headed the High Peace Council, sacrifice women’s rights for political ends.’ dealing an early blow to the process itself. The paper referred to the Shi’a Personal The year also ended in controversy after Karzai Status Law that President Karzai approved in replaced three members of the Afghanistan

132 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Independent Human Rights Commission ‘Indigenous peoples have lost and are continuing (AIHRC). Authorities said the commissioners to lose their ancestral lands at an alarming rate had finished their terms on the independent as a consequence of forceful eviction from and body, but rights groups questioned whether the expropriation of their lands through development move was in response to the AIHRC’s planned projects and occupation by the military.’ release of a report covering war crimes in the country, which was scheduled to be released In the meantime, the violence continued in the during 2012. CHT area throughout 2011, often pitting local indigenous populations against Bengali settlers. Bangladesh In April, indigenous villagers allegedly killed In Bangladesh, the issues of ethnic identity and three Bengali settlers; in retaliation, settlers land rights were closely intertwined in 2011. This allegedly attacked nearby villages and set fire to at was underscored by the government’s failure to least 60 homes. Local rights groups say similar resolve tensions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts violent disputes over land were common (CHT) area of south-eastern Bangladesh, home throughout 2011. According to the NGO to at least 600,000 indigenous people. Not Kapaeeng Foundation, which campaigns for the only did the authorities again fail to implement rights of indigenous peoples, violence in the area the long-delayed peace accords meant to bring saw more than 130 homes of indigenous people stability to the region, but also Bangladeshi burned to the ground. Indigenous women also officials in effect denied the existence of bore the brunt of the violence. The group indigenous people in the country, much to the recorded 16 rapes of indigenous women surprise of the communities themselves and of nationwide, including five who were a UN Special Rapporteur tasked with assessing also murdered. the situation. The prolonged tensions mean that indigenous During the year, Bangladesh passed children in the area are among the country’s least amendments to its Constitution that struck educated. Literacy rates among ethnic minority the term ‘Adivasi’, or indigenous, from the children from the CHT are far lower than the documents and replaced it with ‘small ethnic national average. Medical authorities said hospital groups’. Some communities in the CHT said the facilities in the area are also dangerously under- government refusal to recognize non-Bengalis in staffed, a key problem which is contributing to the area as indigenous will only come as a further high infant mortality rates in the district, namely threat to livelihoods, culture and language. 63 deaths for every 1,000 live births, compared Bangladeshi officials contended that allowing with the national average of 49. special treatment for any population would not Elsewhere, worries over the proposed Phulbari be in the country’s best interests and proceeded Coal Mine project in north-west Bangladesh to press the case with foreign diplomats and UN were a dominant issue for environmentalists. The agencies, according to local media. project would involve an open pit coal mine, In May, the UN Special Rapporteur urged which critics say would devastate almost 6,000 Bangladesh to set a timeline to implement the hectares of farmland and uproot nearly 130,000 CHT peace accord, which has largely languished indigenous people who rely on farmland. since it was signed in 1997. For years, the CHT Peaceful protesters, who opposed the Phulbari has been the site of conflict between indigenous project, were also subject to violence. In people and Bangladeshi authorities. In addition May, advocates accused ‘thugs’ linked to the to heavy militarization, the government has government of assaulting protesters during a rally. also exacerbated the conflict by encouraging In December, riot police used batons and tear gas Bengali settlers to move into CHT areas, a policy to break up another demonstration against the which has had consequences that play out in the Phulbari project. form of present-day land disputes. The Special Religious discrimination is prohibited under Rapporteur, Lars-Anders Baer, said land was the the Bangladeshi Constitution, yet NGO Odhikar crucial issue in the CHT: nonetheless recorded multiple rights violations

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 133 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 against religious minorities in the Muslim- majority country. These included more than 100 Case study By Oliver Scanlan reported injuries to religious minorities as well as 25 attacks on places of worship. In one April incident recorded by Odhikar, supporters linked A year of broken to a parliamentarian with the ruling Awami League party allegedly attacked a Hindu temple promises and several homes in central Bangladesh. The supporters then reportedly attacked local reporters who had arrived to cover the violence. In ‘My grandfather used to tell me not to go in February, the Asian Human Rights Commission there,’ the old man points to a wide expanse said officials in Gazipur District disrupted an of grass where Bengali children are playing annual convention of Ahmadiyya, even though football, ‘because of the tigers in the forest’. prior permission had already been granted. He is a member of the Garo community; one The NGO Bangladesh Minority Watch of Bangladesh’s estimated 46 indigenous or (BDMW) also recorded several alarming instances Adivasi peoples. He is an activist fighting for of violence against Hindus, in which girls and his people’s ancestral forests in Modhupur, in women were targeted. In October, a 15-year-old north-central Bangladesh. And he is losing. Hindu girl was gang raped and killed. In August, When the Awami League swept to power BDMW said another Hindu girl was abducted in 2008, their election manifesto included and then forcibly converted to Islam. unparalleled commitments to Adivasi com- Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugees continued to munities of Bangladesh, both in the restive face problems throughout the year. The NGO CHT region in the south-east and in the Refugees International warned that the Rohingya, ‘plain-lands’. The League promised to imple- an ethnic minority from neighbouring Arakan ment the 1997 Chittagong peace accord that (or Rakhine) State in Burma, enjoy few rights brought the 30-year insurgency to an end, in Bangladesh and are subject to abuse. It is and to secure the plain-lands Adivasis access believed that more than 200,000 Rohingyas live to their forests and lands. But in 2011, when in Bangladesh, though most of them are not Bangladesh passed amendments to the Consti- officially recognized as refugees. The situation is tution that denied Adivasis their right to iden- particularly troubling for women. The NGO says tity, these promises were severely undermined. reports of sexual violence against unregistered Communities that live in the CHT and refugees have increased over the last year. those that live in the plain-lands face distinct The government has long viewed the Rohingya problems, according to recent research as illegal migrants. Throughout 2011, Burma by Bangladeshi scholars. The CHT, still made international headlines as it incrementally under military control, has seen enormous allows greater freedoms for its citizens. Yet demographic changes over the past 60 Rohingya in Bangladesh remain wary of the years. Following a massive influx of Bengali reforms and are unlikely to return there soon. settlers as part of a government-sponsored Women from minority communities were also programme, today Adivasis are a minority the subjects of deep concern throughout the year in their own land. Over the past 30 years, in Bangladesh. During a February session, the UN collectively managed land in the CHT shrank Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination from 76 per cent of the total to 26 per cent. Against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern Adivasis have lost their land, through forced about the prevalence of violence against women, eviction and expropriation, to Bengali settlers, including rape and acid attacks. The CEDAW the forests department and the military. Committee said minority women often suffer The plain-lands, while not subject to the many forms of discrimination, yet Bangladesh same degree of military control, constitute has only limited information or statistics about a far larger area, and indigenous groups are disadvantaged women and girls.

134 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 more numerous but more diffuse. There are at recognized and enforced by the government if least 34 plain-lands communities spread over their communities are to survive. 90 per cent of Bangladesh’s territory compared The 15th Amendment of the Constitution with 11 groups inhabiting the 10 per cent that had the potential to address the identity issue comprises the CHT. as an essential precursor to resolving land and In the plains, indigenous groups are nominally forest disputes. By enshrining the term ‘Adi- governed by the same laws and protections as vasi’ in law, as opposed to the pejorative term other Bangladeshis. However, because of far ‘upajati’, the government could have signalled lower literacy rates and discrimination, they are its acceptance of a multicultural state. overwhelmingly more vulnerable to land theft, Instead, on 30 June 2011, the amendment largely through the non-existent implementation passed with provisions that excluded the term of Bangladesh’s principal land act, which ‘Adivasi’, and replaced it with ‘small ethnic prohibits the transfer of land from ‘aboriginal’ groups’ to refer to Bangladesh’s indigenous to ‘non-aboriginal’ tenants without the written peoples. It also upheld the legal recognition permission of local government officers. The of the pejorative term ‘upajati’. The people results have been similarly disastrous. of Bangladesh, according to the new law, A recent survey of ten plain-lands groups found are now to be know universally as ‘Bengalis’, that all of them had suffered land deprivation to completely denying the rights of Bangladesh’s some extent in the last 30 years. The hardest hit minorities to self-identification. communities include the Patro of the north-east, So the Garos of Modhupur continue to where 68 per cent of households reported land hold rallies; the national Adivasi activist expropriation, Santals in Rajshahi district (65 organizations continue to hold roundtables in per cent) and Rakhain of Patuakhali in southern Dhaka. But the climate is gradually worsening Bangladesh (45 per cent). as the high expectations that accompanied the As a result, certain communities are now on Awami League’s election to power in 2008 the brink of extinction in Bangladesh; only a few have dissipated. State-sanctioned violence hundred Lushai remain in Bandarban district in against indigenous groups, often related to the CHT; and fewer than 3,000 Patro in north- land disputes, also continues unabated. east Sylhet. Adivasi activists are adamant that By choosing to continue the mono-cultural both substantive rights regarding their identity, nation-building project inherited from its as well as rights to lands and forests, must be predecessors, and eschewing efforts to address land issues and human rights abuses, 2011 was Below: A Garo woman in the Madhupur the year that the government of Bangladesh forest, Bangladesh. G.M.B.Akash/Panos broke faith with its indigenous citizens. p

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 135 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 India As elsewhere in South Asia, the pursuit of natural resource development without full consultation with predominantly indigenous local communities continued to exacerbate tensions in India. In one prominent project in India’s Odisha state (formerly known as Orissa), which is home to more than 100 indigenous groups, South Korean steel giant POSCO has been granted rights to a US$12 billion steel project in the area. Opponents were bolstered after Tribal Affairs Minister Vyricherla Kishore Chandra Deo publicly denounced the project, saying it would come at the expense of tribal peoples’ rights. Still, tensions simmered throughout the year as authorities moved in to acquire land for the controversial steel plant. In December 2011, rights groups said non-violent protesters demonstrating against the POSCO project were injured after a private force confronted them. By the end of the year, Abhay Sahoo, a local political leader who had rallied farmers against forcible land acquisition in Odisha, had been arrested. Amnesty International claimed that the authorities falsely charged him in a bid to silence his campaign. Increasingly large demonstrations calling for his release continued into the new year. The POSCO project was one of many controversial development plans throughout the country. Many of these proposed projects UK’s Vedanta Resources to build a bauxite mine are putting local indigenous groups up against in Odisha province. But that decision is under corporations. In Arunachal Pradesh province appeal and was scheduled to be revisited in mid- alone, authorities are planning for a network of 2012. 168 individual hydroelectric projects, according In August 2011, Shehla Masood, an to media reports. The rush to develop the environmentalist who campaigned for the rights province’s hydro potential has drawn criticism of indigenous people, was shot dead at her home from advocates for indigenous people as well as in Madhya Pradesh state. Her murder remains authorities in downstream districts. unsolved. Local media have questioned whether Yet, as the year progressed, Indian authorities her death was linked to her advocacy against pushed forward with new plans for further diamond mining in her state, involving the development. In March 2011, the Asian Human world’s second largest mining company, Rights Commission (AHRC) deplored plans for Rio Tinto. a power plant project in Madhya Pradesh. The In 2011, the government’s response to the proposed project, the AHRC warned, would ongoing conflict with the Maoist movement, deprive local indigenous communities of vital known as the Naxalites, continued to be a access to food and water supplies. Indigenous major human rights issue. By the end of the people had earned a hard-fought victory in 2010 year, the government claimed an ‘historic low’ when the Dongria Kondh tribe managed to in Maoist-related violence. Officials said the convince Indian authorities to block plans by the number of civilians who died as a result of the

136 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Left: An Adivasi woman carrying a pot of water on her head in front of a Vedanta aluminium Case study By Satbir Singh refinery in Lanjigarh, Odisha state, India. conflict was at its lowest level in two decades. ‘This land is our Yet violence continued to blight 2011. In May, rebels killed and dismembered the bodies of land’ – mining, 10 policemen. In July, Maoists in central India blew up a bridge, resulting in the deaths of four conflict and India’s people. At the same time, government forces also bear responsibility for deadly violence. In Adivasis March, security forces in Chhattisgarh state were accused of killing three indigenous people in a week of violence that saw almost 300 homes Numbering 85 million, India’s 600 burned, according to Amnesty International. Scheduled Tribes or Adivasis (‘original Three women were sexually assaulted and 300 people’) are kaleidoscopically diverse and homes were destroyed and looted. Amnesty make up nearly a quarter of the world’s also deplored the killings of 25 Maoist suspects, indigenous peoples. Concentrated in an including 10 indigenous people, in Odisha area of central and eastern India that during the early part of the year. Police have stretches from Maharashtra to West Bengal, claimed the suspects were armed combatants, many tribal groups share their homelands though rights activists dispute this. with some of the most significant mineral The government’s handling of the Maoist deposits in the world – resources which have insurgency is critical to minority rights. While attracted increasing interest in recent years, the rebels claim to represent some of India’s most precipitating mass displacement, worsening marginalized, including Dalits and indigenous poverty and fuelling one of the world’s people, it is often these communities that get longest-running conflicts. caught up in the violence. A positive move came Adivasis are by far the most vulnerable in 2011, when the Supreme Court declared that and marginalized socio-economic group in the Chhattisgarh state authorities should disarm India; gaps in poverty, literacy and mortality and disband the notorious Special Police Officers between tribal and non-tribal groups are (SPOs), also known as ‘Salwa Judum’ or ‘Koya widening, despite the economic changes Commandos’. The poorly trained militias are sweeping India. These challenges have been alleged to have committed serious human rights compounded in recent years by the arrival of violations. global mining giants, for whom governments Across the north-east, including Assam have used the colonial Land Acquisition and Meghalaya States, a worrying scarcity of Act of 1894 to forcibly displace millions communal land in the area is one of the drivers from their ancestral lands. This deepening of what has become a rarely reported ethnic poverty and alienation have fuelled the conflict. According to a report by the Internal decades-old Maoist-Naxalite insurgency, with Displacement Monitoring Centre and the the 100,000-strong militia consolidating Norwegian Refugee Council, almost 50,000 its grip in areas of weak government, high people were displaced during violent clashes malnutrition and mass displacement. The between the Rabha and Garo peoples as the year government’s security response has in turn began. Monitors say at least 76,000 remained brought an influx of personnel and weapons homeless as of November 2011. into the region. With poor accountability Dalits and indigenous people continue to suffer and an often blurred boundary between the from the poorest health statistics in the country, counter-insurgency mandate and broader caused by poor sanitation and inadequate access economic imperatives, civilian populations to safe drinking water and health care facilities,

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 137 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Case study continued has been initiated and the Dantewada police chief Ankit Garg, an officer named by Sori as are often caught in the crossfire and fall victim to being involved in her torture, was awarded a atrocities on both sides of the conflict. medal for gallantry by the President of India in Child soldiers are routinely recruited on January 2012. both sides of the conflict. In addition to the Such disregard for serious allegations is 50,000-strong security force deployed under commonplace and, along with the intimidation, ‘Operation Green Hunt’, up to 7,000 youths – disappearance and persecution of opposing many Adivasis themselves – have been armed by voices, it has contributed to a culture of the Chhattisgarh state government as ‘Special impunity within the security forces in the region. Police Officers’ with the Salwa Judum or Political and mining interests have become fused ‘purification hunt’. In July 2011, the Supreme through a complex web of campaign financing Court ordered the Chhattisgarh state government and corruption, which has led to security forces to dismantle the Salwa Judum and investigate all frequently straying from their mandates. Some allegations of human rights violations, including individual units of both state and rebel forces the recruitment of child soldiers. Chhattisgarh have independently formed relations with Chief Minister Raman Singh responded that his private bodies. In 2011, a general manager of government is not inclined to disarm its Special Indian multinational Essar Group was arrested Police Officers and has not yet taken any steps for paying Maoist rebels to secure 267 km of toward investigating atrocities. pipeline through Odisha and Chhattisgarh. In January 2011, in the state of Odisha, the For their part, mining giants responded central Ministry of Environment and Forests gave to growing hostility in 2011 with aggressive final clearance to Korean steel giant POSCO for public relations campaigns. Vedanta Resources a US$ 12 billion refinery and captive port. A launched a short film, ‘Creating Happiness’, number of panchayats (village councils) who have broadcast daily across television networks. expressed their opposition to the acquisition of It trumpets the philanthropic efforts of the their lands have seen their constitutional right company, whose bauxite projects in Odisha to consultation undermined by the deployment have attracted international condemnation of state security forces. In the village of Dhinkia, for destroying the sacred Niyamgiri hills and state officials described the panchayat leaders as driving the Dongria Kondh tribe to near- ‘encroachers’, calling in state troopers and threat- extinction. Tata Steel similarly launched ening to ‘use force if necessary’. Abhay Sahu, lead- an advertising campaign highlighting the er of the anti-POSCO movement in Odisha, was employment generated by mining. Their new arrested in November and journalists, activists and tag-line, ‘Values stronger than steel’ does little academics are now unable to enter the proposed for the 12 Adivasis shot dead in 2006 by police displacement zone. in Kalinganagar for protesting against the Elsewhere in India, opposition to mining- construction of the Tata steel plant. related displacement continued to be a dangerous Though they do not provide redress, these undertaking throughout 2011. In August, campaigns are proving remarkably successful 38-year-old activist Shehla Masood was shot in shifting public opinion outside the region dead after calling for an investigation into in favour of big mining and driving a wedge allegations of illegal mining by Rio Tinto. In between tribal and non-tribal communities. Chhattisgarh, Soni Sori was arrested for alleged In this state of exception, corporate criminals involvement in a Maoist protection racket. become ‘national champions’, displacement The Adivasi schoolteacher and human rights becomes ‘creating a good investment activist was stripped, beaten, repeatedly raped environment’ and any opposition to the and electrocuted, and remains in custody despite violation of domestic and international law demands from domestic and international human becomes an act of terrorism, never to be rights groups for her release. No investigation spoken of out loud. p

138 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 according to a report published by an NGO through land occupied by the endangered coalition in December 2011. The survey report Jarawa tribe. Tourism in the area, critics warn, found that nutritional indicators for Dalits and amounts to little more than a ‘human safari’. A some indigenous groups dropped below the video showing a local police officer commanding general population as children grew up. Girls, Jarawa girls to dance for tourists later sparked too, were more likely to have stunted growth or outrage. be underweight, the report stated. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called child malnutrition ‘a Nepal national shame’. Nepal courted a constitutional crisis throughout In a positive move, however, the state of much of 2011, as it continued its uneasy Madhya Pradesh in July became the first in the transition from a Hindu monarchy to fledgling country to set up a specialized court tasked with democracy. The country failed to hammer out prosecuting crimes against scheduled castes and a constitution by what had been a May 2011 tribes. But, in an example that illustrates the deadline. By the end of the year, officials were problem of unaccountability for perpetrators saying that they would cement a new constitution of such crimes nationwide, it was reported that by mid-2012, but at the time of publication yet Andhra Pradesh state has a backlog of as many as another deadline was missed. 1,600 cases. In one sense, these delays present an In July, more than 20 people were killed in opportunity for some of the country’s most a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai. Another marginalized – including indigenous people, bombing at the Delhi High Court in September Dalits and women from minority communities killed 17 people and injured more than 90 – to have a greater say in the drafting of such others. But right groups are also warning an important document. Prominent advocates that authorities’ pursuit of terrorism suspects are demanding that women be guaranteed is snaring innocent civilians from religious proper representation in state institutions. Other minorities, particularly Muslims. An HRW advocates have expressed fear that women have report documented the alleged use of torture and been left out of the process altogether. coerced confessions of terrorism suspects. Indigenous people, too, have not been fully In a related example, authorities released represented in the discussions. A July submission seven Muslim youths in November, who had by local advocacy organizations to the CEDAW been convicted of bombing a mosque in 2006. Committee noted that indigenous people The case had become an embarrassment for have been unable to freely choose their own investigators, who now blame Hindu extremists representatives in the process to draft the new for the attack. In November, an Indian court constitution. Rather, the process demands that sentenced 31 people to life in prison for their participants come from political parties. In a joint roles in the deaths of 33 Muslims who were submission, the National Indigenous Women’s burned alive during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Federation (NIWF) and the Lawyers’ Association In August, the State Human Rights for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Commission of Jammu and Kashmir State People (LAHURNIP) said: ‘Because the political revealed the discovery of more than 2,000 manifestos do not promote indigenous peoples unidentified bodies found in mass graves or indigenous women’s rights, it is difficult to in northern Kashmir. HRW urged India to achieve effective collective representation.’ investigate the long-standing claims of enforced Just as concerns over the wording of the disappearances in Indian-administered Kashmir. constitution persisted in 2011, so too did the During 2011, questions were raised over aftermath of Nepal’s civil war. Five years after exploitative tourism practices in indigenous the end of combat, roughly 100,000 people communities in parts of India. Survival displaced by the fighting have still been unable International called for the closure of a main to return home. Often, it is women who face highway in the Andaman Islands, which passed the most trouble reintegrating. Former female-

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 139 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 combatants, widows of fighters and rape victims NIWF and LAHURNIP specifically highlighted have difficulty finding acceptance in their old a growing problem facing indigenous women communities. due to the rapid expansion of Kathmandu, the Many Dalits were also drawn to the Maoist capital city. Since title deeds are usually held by insurgency. Some joined voluntarily, attracted to men, indigenous women are being left out of the an ethos that once preached equality, while others decision-making process. were swept up in the violence between both sides. The year 2011 also saw incidents of religious But, post-conflict, they are returning to a society discrimination in Nepal. In June, a Buddhist in which caste discrimination still persists, despite nun was attacked and gang-raped in eastern the government’s stated efforts to eradicate it. Nepal. But the problem was compounded when Rights groups say that Nepal’s government the woman was later expelled by the Nepal has gained little ground in reducing economic Buddhist Federation because she was judged to inequality in many parts of the country. In the have lost her celibacy. The decision was later Terai region, economic disparity continues to be reversed following a public outcry. Rights groups a driving force of ethnic tension. The UN Office say that poverty among the Tamang indigenous of the High Commissioner for Human Rights community to which the woman belongs causes said that the activities of ‘armed criminal groups’ families to send younger siblings off to become in southern Terai districts continue to hamper monks or nuns. development, and again raised concerns over Nepal’s Tibetan community continued to bear previous ‘credible allegations’ of extra-judicial the consequences of the country’s increasingly killings in Terai at the hands of security forces. close relationship with China. In March, Multiple cases of caste discrimination were police attacked Tibetan protesters who were reported during 2011. In August, a Dalit man demonstrating against Chinese rule in Tibet. was stabbed to death after his son married a Tibetans in Nepal were also barred for voting woman from another caste. Witnesses claimed for their government-in-exile, according to the woman’s family was incensed by the inter- media reports, even though India made no such caste union, according to the Nepal National moves towards its Tibetan exile community. Dalit Social Welfare Organization. Later that month, a Chinese delegation signed Kyung-wha Kang, the UN’s Deputy High a US$ 20 million military aid deal with the Commissioner for Human Rights, voiced Nepalese government. concern over caste discrimination following an April visit. She acknowledged the government’s Pakistan adoption of anti-discrimination legislation, but Pakistan remained a volatile place for religious stressed that more must be done to ensure the and ethnic minorities during 2011. This was laws are implemented and enforced. highlighted by the murders of two prominent Rights groups also warned during 2011 politicians who spoke out against the country’s that indigenous women are likely to be controversial anti-blasphemy laws. Critics say the disproportionately affected by the government’s legislation, which levies penalties including life in activities on indigenous land, including prison and death, have unfairly targeted religious hydropower construction and the expansion of minorities such as Christians and Ahmadis, but conservation areas. Current potential ventures, also mainstream Muslims themselves. including the Melamchi Water Supply Project in The January assassination of Punjab governor central Nepal and the Arun Valley hydropower Salman Taseer marked a troubling start to the project in eastern Nepal, risk being implemented year. The governor had earlier publicly supported without the support or consultation of local a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who was sentenced indigenous populations. to death for blasphemy. Then in March, Shabhaz In their CEDAW submission, local advocates Bhatti, Pakistan’s Minister for Minority Affairs NIWF and LAHURNIP said indigenous men are and the only Christian member of the cabinet, often assumed to be the heads of the household, was gunned down while on his way to work. The with formal land titles issued in the man’s name. UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues,

140 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Gay McDougall, called Bhatti’s death ‘an attack than 80 people. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, often on the rights of all religious minorities and on referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, claimed human rights in Pakistan’. responsibility. Though it was initially described The consequences of Taseer’s death continued as a ‘revenge attack’ for the death of al-Qaeda to reverberate through the year. In the aftermath leader Osama bin Laden, killed in Pakistan by of the January killing, the ruling Pakistan US forces two weeks earlier, local police told People’s Party backed away from proposed media the attack was more likely the latest in a reforms to the legislation. This drew criticism long-standing battle between the Pakistani army from one prominent member of the party, who and Taliban forces. In August, a suicide bomber warned that the ‘appeasement of extremists will killed 48 people at a mosque in Jamrud. have a blow-back effect’. Also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, The In October, Taseer’s former bodyguard was Guardian newspaper reported on the increasing sentenced to death for his murder; sympathizers militarization of the Kalash valley – a develop- demonstrated in support of the accused before ment that could pose a threat to the Kalash peo- court appearances. ple. The Pakistani military has been deployed to In April, human rights monitors say more than the Kalash valley for the first time, it was report- two dozen residents of a Christian community ed, though locals feared they would be caught in in Gurjanwala, in north-east Punjab province, the crossfire between the army and the Taliban. were hurt after they were attacked by a mob, Either way, the continued strength of the comprising more than 2,000 Muslims. A local Pakistani Taliban remains a serious concern for NGO, Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP) religious minorities – particularly women. In says the mob attacked homes, schools and December, religious extremists destroyed two churches in the community. The assailants had important Sufi shrines in the Khyber Agency, a accused a member of the Christian community of region where Pakistani Taliban forces have been burning a Qur’an. active in the past. They have been blamed for The next month, HRFP reported that two at least 25 similar attacks on religious sites in Christian women were forcibly converted to recent years. Islam. Local police subsequently refused to In a 2011 report, the NGO Human Rights investigate the matter – a common occurrence Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), predicted that that is rendering women from minority religious the situation can only worsen for the country’s communities, including Hindus and Christians, minorities, citing a ‘direct link between the rise of particularly vulnerable. the Taliban and the suppression and oppression Minorities within the Muslim faith also faced of the minorities and all of those whose beliefs persecution throughout the year. In one example, differed with those of the extremists’. Women in assailants shot and killed a 55-year-old Ahmadi tribal areas of north-west Pakistan are particularly man in Punjab province in what was a suspected threatened by the Taliban. The Taliban continue hate crime. In May, Ahmadis in Lahore marked to oppose education for girls, setting back the one-year anniversary of one of the deadliest education targets for minority women in areas attacks on the community in Pakistan. In 2010, where the Taliban hold sway. Maryum Bibi, an 88 Ahmadis were killed when assailants attacked official with Peshawar-based NGO Khwendo Ahmadi places of worship. Relatives of the dead Kor, told media that women remain fearful: bemoaned the sluggish pace of the resulting police ‘Despite the official stance that the Taliban investigation. HRW also recorded 18 separate have been defeated, they remain present in attacks on Shi’a Muslims during the year. remote areas.’ The wider regional conflict continued to affect Throughout the year, Pakistan’s development the Pushtun community in Pakistan. Large-scale of natural resources fuelled conflict in resource- bomb attacks occurred near Peshawar, the pro- rich areas where minority communities live, vincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. such as Sindh and Balochistan provinces. In For example, a pair of suicide bombers attacked a April, several campaigners with a Sindh group paramilitary training centre in May, killing more that advocates for greater local autonomy over

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 141 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 natural resource exploitation were abducted. in Sindh province through September, rights The AHRC pointed a finger at law enforcement groups reported to MRG that Dalits were being and state intelligence agencies, charging that the discriminated against because of their caste. abductions are part of a long line of ‘enforced Advocates said Dalit families had been turned disappearances’ at the hands of state actors. away from government relief camps and been Balochistan remained a severe and under- given unequal access to relief supplies. reported example of how the development of natural resources without the full consultation of Sri Lanka local communities can drive conflict. The south- As Sri Lanka marked another year since the end western province, one of the country’s most of its bloody civil war in 2009, the problem of ethnically diverse, boasts a wealth of resources, how to ensure justice for wartime atrocities and including potentially lucrative mineral deposits reconciliation between the majority Sinhalese and rich natural gas reserves. Yet control over and the Tamil minority remained unresolved. such resources has stoked tensions and given In 2011, the government and the military issued rise to a nationalist Baloch movement that has a pair of reports that sought to address some of clashed with government forces. Added to a the violations, yet ultimately they proved to be mix that includes foreign interest in resource a disappointment to rights groups hoping for extraction and the province’s prime location significant signs of progress. on the borders with Iran and Afghanistan, the The government established the Lessons Learnt resulting conflict has had violent and deadly and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) in 2010 consequences for civilians. under a storm of protest from rights groups, who State actors play a central role in the violence, questioned its independence and mandate. The targeting ethnic Baloch suspected of engaging in resulting report, released in December 2011, nationalist activities. HRW recorded the killing contained some positive measures. MRG, for of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists and example, praised the report’s acknowledgement of dozens of disappearances in 2011. In its 2012 the impact felt by Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim World Report, the organization concluded that community. But MRG was also concerned that conditions had ‘markedly deteriorated’ during the the LLRC report did not sufficiently investigate course of 2011. Prominent cases included that serious allegations of war crimes and crimes of Abdul Ghaffar Lando, a Baloch nationalist against humanity during the final days of the activist who had been abducted in 2009 and war. The report, MRG noted: ‘exonerates the whose body was found in 2011. When the family government for the manner in which the military had gone to the police to register the abduction, campaign was conducted during the period’. the police stated that Lando was being held in Earlier in the year, a Sri Lanka defence ministry detention. In a July report, HRW recorded the report made a rare concession by acknowledging cases of 45 recent alleged disappearances; three of that civilians were killed in the government’s final the victims were children, the youngest of whom assault on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was 12 years old when he was abducted. Human (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers. rights activists and academics were also targeted. However, this report also contended that soldiers The local coordinator for the HRCP, Siddique used only ‘necessary force’ and was seen by critics Eido, was killed in 2011. The situation led The as presenting a one-sided account. Guardian newspaper to label the secretive conflict A UN report released in April was far more as Pakistan’s ‘dirty little war’. critical. The panel stated that it had found Nationalist militants have targeted non- ‘credible allegations’ of war crimes and crimes Baloch minority groups perceived to be against against humanity by both the Sri Lankan the movement. Sunni and Shi’a militants have government and the LTTE. Many of these also been active. In May, an extremist Wahhabi allegations focused on the final stages of the war organization claimed responsibility for the in 2009, when Sri Lanka’s army pushed into murders of 13 Hazara Shi’a Muslims. Tamil areas of the north, trapping hundreds As Pakistan battled with severe flooding of thousands of civilians in the crossfire. It is

142 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 believed that tens of thousands of people lost time, estimates suggest that unemployment in their lives in the war’s final five months. ‘The the north could be quadruple that of the national panel’s determination of credible allegations average. reveals a very different version of the final stages In the aftermath of the civil war, its effect of the war than that maintained to this day on Muslims has been largely ignored. The by the Government of Sri Lanka,’ the report Tamil Tigers forced out much of the Muslim stated. The report called on Sri Lanka to begin population from the north. Failure to implement credible investigations into alleged violations proper reintegration and reconciliation measures of human rights law; it also urged the UN in the region will only serve to exacerbate Secretary-General to establish an independent tensions between Muslims and Tamils. international mechanism capable of conducting The report from the UN Secretary-General’s its own investigations. Neither the government of panel on accountability warns that recent President Mahinda Rajapaksa nor the UN made government policies – requiring the national such moves during 2011. anthem to be sung only in Sinhala, for example In the meantime, human rights groups – will alienate Tamil-speakers. Tamil groups also continue to raise concern over recent complained of destructive sand-dredging activities disappearances. In December, two local human in Batticaloa district. In December, Tamil groups rights advocates disappeared while they were claimed that two activists, who were former preparing for a press conference in Jaffna. The Tamil Tiger members, were arrested after they AHRC also reported on two other cases involving protested against sand-dredging in the area. missing men who were later found murdered. During 2011, advocates raised concern over Critics say the government has taken little action a tourism development in the Kalpitiya region on these and other forced disappearances. of western Sri Lanka. They said up to 10,000 In November, a UK-based charity, Freedom people, mostly Sinhalese Muslims, could be from Torture, said it had compiled evidence that displaced or otherwise affected by a complex torture persists in Sri Lanka, despite the end of of hotels planned for the area. This project has the war in 2009. The group’s physicians assess raised concern that similar projects in other parts Sri Lankan asylum-seekers and refugees, mostly of the country, particularly in the north and ethnic Tamils, often for use in asylum claims. north-east, where post-war tensions still run high, They had found at least one case showing that could undermine human rights for minority torture had continued during 2011. communities. In its annual report released in Problems of reintegration for those displaced December, the AHRC raised concerns that the by the conflict continued throughout the year. Sri Lankan government’s concept of development Women in particular faced unique hardships ‘does not include the guaranteeing of human upon return. Increasingly, women are bearing rights’. the burden of restarting their families’ lives. A government report released last year found that nearly one-third of families returning to the Tamil north are headed by women. One Jaffna- South based organization, the Center for Women and Development, estimated there were now 40,000 widowed female-headed households in the area – East Asia a figure that excludes women whose husbands are missing or detained by the government. Nicole Girard This has resulted in a precarious situation for Tamil women. In a December briefing, the Across South East Asia, minorities and International Crisis Group said there has been an indigenous peoples are struggling to protect alarming increase in gender-based violence within their lands, livelihoods and way of life. In the community. Women have been forced into Mindanao in the Philippines, Indonesia’s Papua, prostitution or trafficked abroad. At the same and ethnic minority regions of Burma, control

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 143 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 over natural resources is central to a number of country, or violate the 2008 Constitution. long-running armed conflicts. In Cambodia, Tensions between the junta and armed ethnic indigenous Kuy are fighting to protect their groups in the run-up to the November 2010 traditional way of life in Prey Lang forest. In election broke out into renewed fighting in 2011. Vietnam and Laos, minority populations have The military broke a 22-year ceasefire with the been subject to resettlement as a result of dams Shan State Army-North in March, mobilizing and other development projects, largely without an additional 3,500 troops. By June, the 17-year consultation. In Burma, dams in Kachin State ceasefire with Kachin Independence Army (KIA) threaten the livelihood of thousands of minority was breached. By December, an estimated 34,000 and indigenous peoples, and in 2011 led to people were in displacement camps along the fighting that broke ceasefires with two major border with China from this recent outbreak; armed ethnic groups. the government was not allowing access to The construction of two major dams, the international relief organizations. Increasing Myitsone in Burma and the Xayaburi in Laos, militarization in Kachin State led to an increase was delayed in 2011. This was welcomed by in human rights violations. In their 2011 report, environmental and indigenous peoples’ groups, the Kachin Women’s Organization documented but worry remains over whether construction on the rape by soldiers of 34 women and girls, 15 Myitsone has actually been halted and how long of whom were subsequently killed. The Burma plans for Xayaburi will be suspended. military’s use of rape as a weapon of war has been Debate on how best to address ethnic conflicts well documented and continues under the new continued in the region in 2011. Thailand made government. some efforts to increase accountability for human The fighting in Kachin State broke out at the rights violations in the southern Malay-Muslim location of a Chinese-operated hydroelectric majority provinces. In the Philippines, peace talks dam project at Daepin. Earlier, the Kachin with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were Independence Organization (KIO) sent an open initiated. The government of Burma secured letter to the Chinese government, warning that ceasefires with major armed ethnic groups by the if it continued with construction of the 6,000 end of the year, making offers of reconciliation megawatt Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy River, not seen in decades of conflict. Some ceasefires, armed conflict would likely ensue. To the surprise however, had yet to be enacted on the ground. of many, in September the Burmese government temporarily halted the Myitsone, citing public Burma opposition. However, local Kachin groups report Burma convened its first parliament in over that construction at the dam site has continued, 22 years in January 2011, after elections in and the approximately 1,000 displaced Kachin November 2010. In March, Thein Sein was have not been permitted to return to their homes. sworn in as President, officially dissolving The US$ 3.6 billion Myitsone dam is one of military rule. The government has eased eight dams planned on the Irrawaddy River, and restrictions on media, permitted the creation of is being developed by China Power Investment trade unions, and passed a law to allow peaceful Corporation (CPI) and Asia World Company of assembly and protest. It has also reached out to Burma. Ninety per cent of the power is expected opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, released to be sold to China. There are serious concerns significant numbers of political prisoners and about the quality and independence of the pledged to prioritize minority issues. But environmental impact assessment, funded by CPI; whether reforms translate into genuine progress a social impact assessment was not carried out (see remains to be seen. While 17 out of the 22 case study below). ethnic political parties won at least one seat in Resource extraction in minority and indigenous the election (15.7 per cent of available seats), peoples’ areas has fuelled army land confiscation, the conduct of parliamentarians is governed by property destruction, designation of ‘out-of- laws criminalizing comments that are considered bounds’ high-security areas, militarization and a threat to national security or the unity of the destruction of livelihoods. Both the Burmese army

144 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 was exacerbated by tensions over Chinese Case study companies surveying future dam sites. Ninety per cent of the power from these dam projects will be exported to Burma’s Dams feed ethnic neighbours. Chinese companies are involved in many of the projects, but Burma has also conflict in Burma signed agreements with Thailand, Bangladesh and India. The dams are expected to bring revenues of US$ 4 billion for the Burmese ‘The soldiers came to my house and said, government. But according to Sai Sai of the “Starting now you cannot grow on the Burma Rivers Network, the dams will not farms near the river,” and I asked him improve the lives of Burma’s ethnic nationals: back: “Why?” He gave the reason that ‘These mega-dams are fuelling further conflict, they will build the dam in that area. not benefiting the people of Burma,’ he said. They confiscated the land from my farm, it was about 18 acres.’ Loss of land, loss of life The dams are proceeding without any proper On 30 September 2011, President Thein consultation with ethnic minorities and Sein announced an indefinite halt to indigenous peoples, and, for the indigenous construction of the 6000-megawatt communities, without their free, prior and Myitsone dam, on the Irrawaddy River informed consent. Compensation for their loss in Kachin State, saying that public of land and livelihoods has been inadequate. opposition to the Chinese-funded dam In Karenni State, power plant-related was overwhelming. development and militarization of the area saw Perhaps the game has changed since the 114 villages flooded; 12,000 people displaced; military rulers stepped into their civilian an estimated 18,000 landmines planted; local roles. But many remain sceptical. ‘We do communities subjected to forced labour, not trust what the President has said about sexual violence and extra-judicial killings; suspending the Myitsone dam,’ said a and prioritized water scheduling leading to local affected by the dam, ‘we can see the crop destruction. Eighty per cent of the local workers and dam construction machines population still has no access to electricity. still at the site.’ For local communities, For years, the Burmese government has the stakes are high. The dam will displace used anti-insurgency military operations to around 15,000 people, mainly ethnic clear areas for dam projects. In 1996, for Kachin who revere Myitsone as the example, fighting in central Shan State led birthplace of their culture. to the displacement of nearly 60,000 people, Currently, the Myitsone dam has only clearing the area for the Tasang dam on the been halted until 2016, when Thein Salween River. Since 2005, some 25,000 Sein’s term in office ends. But even if it people in Karenni State have been forced by is permanently shelved, it is only one of military offensives away from the Weigyi and 48 dams currently in various stages of Hatgyi dam sites. More recently, in the case development in Burma. Twenty-five of of the Shweli dams in Karenni State, villagers these are ‘mega-dams’, with a capacity were ordered off their land by the military comparable to the Myitsone. and given a three-year ‘grace’ period, with Most of the large dams are located in some small compensation. ‘The Government ethnic minority areas and many are in said it will give half the worth of land and conflict zones. The fighting that broke property as compensation, but I absolutely do a 17-year ceasefire with the Kachin not believe that they will,’ one man from the Independence Army (KIA) in June Molo village said.

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 145 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Case study continued contributing to rising migration. Local people are able to secure only low-wage, temporary and The very existence of some communities unsafe jobs on the project, and are reportedly is under threat. The Weigyi dam on the unable to complain about working conditions or Salween River will submerge the ancestral wages without retribution. lands, cultural sites and means of livelihood A draft land law was proposed in parliament in of Yin Ta Lai people, of whom only 1,000 2011, but according to the Asian Human Rights remain. Commission (AHRC), under the law farmers If the new Burma government is serious could be evicted to make way for whatever about heeding the voice of the people, it government officials claim to be in ‘the national should halt all dam projects in conflict zones. interest’. The law was reportedly drafted without Consultations prioritizing the protection consultation with key stakeholders or land law of minority and indigenous peoples’ experts. rights, coupled with the development and The Myanmar National Human Rights implementation of environmental policy Commission was established in 2011, mandated and law (including land policy) based on to investigate complaints on human rights international standards, is the only way any violations. But critics questioned whether it is of these dams should proceed. Otherwise in line with the Principles relating to the Status the dams could spell disaster for the affected of National Institutions for the Promotion and communities. Protection of Human Rights (Paris Principles), if its members – many of whom were generals ‘I have grown up in this village since I was under the previous military regime – are hand- born by drinking the water from the Shweli picked by the state. River. My livelihood is fishing which is related The elections did not improve the situation of directly to this river. After we leave we do not Rohingya Muslims from Arakan State, denied know what we will do for our livelihoods or citizenship on the assumption that most are how to earn money to survive.’ Molo villager not from Burma but come from Bangladesh. facing eviction p Thousands flee every year the harsh restrictions and persecution from Burma’s government, ending up as asylum-seekers throughout Asia. In and armed ethnic groups have relied on natural December, the government agreed to repatriate resources for funds, drawing heavily on logging 2,500 refugees from Bangladesh on condition and mining, including gemstone mining. Burma that they already have citizenship in Burma, is the biggest producer of jade in the world and effectively excluding many ethnic Rohingya. the most significant jade mine is in Kachin State, While serious clashes continue in Kachin State with little of its wealth reaching the people. and parts of Shan State, late in the year some The Shwe oil and gas pipeline project is being positive progress was made in peace talks between advanced by the China National Petroleum the government and armed ethnic groups. A Corporation along with companies from Korea new Internal Peace Building Committee was and Burma and is slated for completion in 2013. created by the government, which has offered Started in 2010, the 2,800 km pipeline will bring joint political talks with all such groups, an offer gas to China from Burma’s western coast. Over not seen during the 60 years of conflict. By mid- 800 km runs across Burma through territory December, two major armed ethnic groups had occupied by armed ethnic groups, in Shan reached ceasefire agreements. For Burma’s ethnic State in particular. The pipeline is set to ignite minorities, this offered some hope for their future. conflict in minority regions, as Chinese workers are brought in to construct it and the Burma Cambodia military is used to protect it. Widespread land In 2011, four top former leaders of the Khmer confiscation for the pipeline corridor is leaving Rouge faced proceedings in the Extraordinary farmers jobless and fishing grounds off-limits, Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC),

146 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 set up to try those charged with crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge regime Case study By Mao Chanthoeun (1975–9). The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) under Prime Minister Hun Sen has been accused of interfering with the proceedings and Cambodia’s Kuy the trials have been plagued by controversy. Bringing the leaders of the Khmer Rouge people rally to save to justice will be an important step for the Cambodian judiciary to prove its effectiveness ‘our forest’ in addressing a grave historical wrong. It could also be significant for minorities, including the ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims, whose I am Mao Chanthoeun, a Kuy, from Chaom persecution as part of the larger aims of the Svay Village near Prey Lang forest in Khmer Rouge could in itself constitute genocide. Kampong Thom, Cambodia. Civil society faced direct attacks, including new I was born here about 30 years ago. My laws which were introduced or drafted during parents and grandparents were also born here. 2011, according to a report published by the We’ve always been dependent on Prey Lang, Cambodia League for the Promotion and Defense which in Kuy means ‘our forest’. of Human Rights (LICADO). These included When I was young, the forest was large and an anti-corruption law, a draft trade union law, thick. Prey Lang gave us food, medicines, and and a draft law on associations and NGOs. housing materials. We collected resin for sale. Individuals working to defend the rights of Since resin trees can be tapped for generations, indigenous peoples continued to be threatened by this was sustainable. We lived happily. the Cambodian government in 2011, in particular In 2002, we learned that Cambodia’s those combating land-grabbing by corrupt forests were being destroyed. Our forest was officials. By the end of the year, Human Rights threatened. We fought back. With hundreds Watch (HRW) estimated that at least 60 people of other Cambodians, we protested against were imprisoned or awaiting trial for protesting logging concessions and they were suspended. against forced evictions and land-grabbing. We had a time of peace. Our communities The government continues to grant large agreed rules to preserve the forest. This economic land concessions (ELCs) for hydro- became harder over the years. Poaching and electric projects, mining and agricultural illegal logging took their toll. plantations. Land concessions are granted, often In 2009, rubber companies came, first to in an illegal way, over community land, and build roads and then make plantations. We with no regard to national laws that require don’t know why they would grow rubber public consultations and environmental impact here; the soil is not good. We think they assessments, or laws that stipulate that state want to profit from logging. concessions cannot be granted in forested areas. We began organizing our Network in 2007. Prey Lang forest, home to Kuy indigenous The Prey Lang Community Network has people, who depend upon it for their sustenance members in all four provinces straddled by the and livelihoods, is a case in point. Peaceful forest. I’ve been a community representative community and civil society efforts to protect for six years. We’ve petitioned the government it have been curtailed by the authorities in a to protect Prey Lang, cancel agro-business and conflict that escalated throughout the year. mining concessions, and rehabilitate cleared Government officials have recognized this areas. We also want the government to recog- large primeval forest as an important area for nize us as Prey Lang’s co-managers. conservation, but according to the Prey Lang We conduct local patrols to try to stop Network, a local activist group, more than illegal activities. We also went to the capital 40,000 hectares of the forest have been granted city to call on the country to help us. To get for rubber plantations, while 27 exploration

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 147 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Case study continued I feared my baby had died inside me. But I had to go on for the sake of all children. Life attention, we dressed like the ‘avatars’ we saw in is not worth living if we lose our forests. a movie. When we put on blue faces, people paid My husband left me while I was pregnant. attention to us. Now four months later, I am alone with In my community, we confronted someone my baby boy. It’s not easy for me to live. who illegally cleared forest. When a group of us, Whenever I go out, others must accompany including the village chief, uprooted his cassava, me; illegal loggers are angry with me for he brought legal complaints against us. Those are challenging them. still pending. Today, in the village, a local businessman Now we are suffering. Thousands of resin trees announced on a loudspeaker that everyone have been cut; many families have no income. must shun me or face consequences. He Even our rice paddy is not good since we have claims I’m ‘inciting’ people because I tell lost water. them their rights and encourage them to In November, when I was six months pregnant, protect the forest. I joined hundreds of other Network members in My community and our Network are laying claim to the forest. For almost two weeks strong. We have good cooperation. We work we walked from all directions across the forest to together to solve our problems peaceably. stop illegal activities and to confront plantation Now my neighbours are circulating a petition companies. The walk was difficult. We had little to support me. food and water. We were often cold in the rain. I try not to lose hope. But it is difficult when one confiscated chainsaw is replaced by Below: A woman at a protest in Phnom Penh, two others. Cambodia, in May 2011. Around 100 local We ask the world to join us in saving activists attended a demonstration appealing to Prey Lang. ‘Our forest’ belongs to everyone. the government to save the Prey Lang forest. Case study provided by the East-West REUTERS/Samrang Pring. Management Institute / Prey Lang Network. p

148 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 licences and related concessions have been Ahmadis were killed in February in West Java, handed to mining companies. Logging continues after a group of 1,500 people attacked 21 of although the government stopped granting them, in order to expel them from the village. logging concessions in 2002, and the creation of Police did little to intervene. Twelve men were logging roads has taken an environmental toll as tried, and received sentences of between only well as opening up the forest to new migrants. three and six months, on a variety of charges but According to the Cambodian Center for not for manslaughter. Human Rights (CCHR), authorities detained By September, 26 regencies and municipalities over 100 peaceful protesters in August, many across the country had issued decrees banning from the Kuy community, for distributing or restricting Ahmadiyya religious practice, pamphlets about the issue; in December, local stemming from a 2008 ministerial decree authorities filed complaints against members of preventing public propagation of the Ahmadiyya CCHR on charges of ‘incitement’ for holding faith. The decree contradicts President Susilo training seminars for locals. Soldiers hired by a Bambang Yudhoyono’s continual assertion of mining company that has been illegally granted Indonesian ‘tolerance’, and is justified on the an ELC in Prey Lang have prevented Kuy women logic that restricting the religious expression of from gathering tree resin, according to a 2011 minorities serves to protect them from violence. Amnesty International report. The government continues to push the Cambodia does have laws that recognize and Religious Tolerance Bill, but rights groups have protect indigenous peoples’ access to land. But denounced the draft bill, completed in October, they are often not implemented, or are flagrantly for limiting certain activities in the name of violated. Those who defend their legal rights tolerance. For example, the bill attempts to risk intimidation, violence and imprisonment. regulate proselytizing, celebration of religious Despite some actions, Prime Minister Hun Sen holidays, construction of houses of worship, appears unwilling to seriously address these issues. holding of funerals and organization of religious Indigenous peoples and Cham Muslims are education. The bill continues to define and recognized under Cambodia’s Constitution, punish blasphemy; existing laws on blasphemy but other ethnic minorities, such as ethnic have already served to discriminate against and Vietnamese and Khmer Krom, are denied harass religious minorities. citizenship, are therefore unable to access Indigenous peoples have long struggled health care and education, and endure social to realize their rights in the Indonesia state, discrimination. Lack of citizenship combined especially the right to land and free, prior with endemic poverty makes ethnic Vietnamese and informed consent. In May, as part of the women vulnerable to trafficking, mostly within government’s agreement with Norway over the Cambodia, and forced prostitution. ‘One third of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and girls and young women of Vietnamese origin are Forest Degradation (REDD+) project – a US$ reported to be sold into prostitution,’ according 1 billion project to protect forests and reduce to a 2011 report by the UN Committee on the carbon emissions while fostering economic Rights of the Child. development – President Yudhoyono, declared a two-year moratorium on new concessions Indonesia in primary forest and peat lands. But this Discrimination, harassment and violence against was flouted: ongoing illegal clearing of these religious minorities in Indonesia increased in protected lands in Central Kalimantan by a 2011. The Setara Institute, an Indonesia religious Malaysian company was reported by Indonesian rights monitoring organization, recorded 244 NGOs. such incidents, up from around 200 the previous In December, the Indonesian parliament year; government officials, military and police passed a new bill which will allow the were responsible for many of the incidents. government to acquire land from citizens in the Ahmadiyya Muslims continued to be one of name of a vaguely defined ‘public interest’. The the main targets for violence and abuse. Three legislation is intended to settle disagreements over

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 149 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 evictions and speed up infrastructure projects. Those affected do not have the right to appeal Case study and compensation is only provided upon proof of certification of land-ownership, often lacking in the case of indigenous communities. A coalition The campaign of Indonesian NGOs says the bill is a direct threat to the rights of indigenous peoples and is against likely to increase conflict over land. Indigenous communities struggling to destructive palm secure their right to land won a small victory in September, as two articles of the 2004 oil plantations Plantation Act were dropped after being declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court for discriminating against indigenous farmers. The The rapid expansion of palm oil articles, which prohibited damaging plantation plantations in South East Asia is being land or equipment, or preventing plantation driven by rising global demand for business have been used to imprison and fine edible oils and bio-fuels. Thailand and hundreds of people who have protested against the Philippines have a burgeoning palm corporate grabs of ancestral lands, especially by oil industry, plantations have been palm oil companies. established in Cambodia, and Vietnam is However, in October, the Indonesian exploring the possibility of cashing in on government curtailed the legitimate activities this crop. of rights defenders by passing the long-debated Malaysia and Indonesia are the top Intelligence Bill – giving law enforcement power producers of palm oil in the world, and to spy on civilians to protect ‘national security’. in these countries the industry fuels land Military documents exposed by HRW in 2011 dispossession and loss of livelihoods for suggest that unlawful military spying on peaceful indigenous peoples. Global consumption activists in Papua is commonplace. of processed palm oil more than doubled In Papua, the government failed to make any over the last ten years, with demand progress towards implementing the rights granted increasing mostly in China, India and to the province under the Special Autonomy Eastern Europe. Large-scale production Law of 2001. At least three people were killed in in Malaysia and Indonesia started in the October by security forces during the Third Pap- late 1980s and rapid expansion between uan People’s Congress, a peaceful gathering of 2007 and 2010 has devastated bio-diverse indigenous Papuans demanding a referendum on rainforests, replacing them with mono- independence from the Indonesian state. Security crop ‘green wastelands’. forces have yet to be held accountable. Six indig- Millions of hectares of land have enous Papuan men were charged with treason, been swallowed by these plantations: adding to the approximately 40 existing Papuan an estimated 4.6. million hectares in political prisoners, according to the AHRC. Malaysia, and 9.4 million in Indonesia. Cases of torture, arbitrary detention and military Both countries intend to continue operations continued to be reported during 2011 increasing the amount of land dedicated in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. to palm oil. In Malaysia’s Sarawak state, Indonesian military and special police forces the government plans to double the area conducted massive counter-insurgency ‘sweeping’ devoted to palm oil while Indonesia plans operations aimed at suspected Free Papua to double its palm oil production to 20 Organization (OPM) separatists in the central million hectares by 2020. This expansion highland area of Panai, West Papua. The Jakarta will continue to be driven by large estates, Post reported that at least 500 people had fled rather than independent smallholders. from Dagouto village since raids in November.

150 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 To achieve this expansion, the governments and helped shape the RSPO’s criteria of Malaysia and Indonesia have handed over for certification. The standard affirms indigenous peoples’ lands for palm oil, despite the rights of indigenous peoples to their their customary land claims. In Sarawak, customary lands, requires adequate Malaysia, and in Sumatra, Indonesia, oil compensation, and insists that no lands plantations have polluted rivers, destroyed can be taken from indigenous peoples and wildlife that once supported indigenous local communities without their free, prior peoples’ livelihoods, and led to communities and informed consent. The standard also being evicted from their lands. Many of the requires the fair treatment of smallholders land conflicts in these countries are directly and prohibits discriminatory practices related to the expansion of palm oil. against women. Indigenous peoples’ opposition to palm oil One of the biggest players in palm oil expansion has become increasingly violent. In – Singapore-based Wilmar International, November 2011, indigenous Dayak Benuaq a leading agribusiness group in Asia – is peoples in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan a member of the RSPO and has made province protested against the conversion of various commitments to sustainable palm their lands into palm oil plantations. But the oil production. In November, however, the Malaysia-based PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa Forest People’s Programme in partnership company has continued to clear the land and with Sawit Watch released a report evict the community, supported by the police documenting continued land confiscation, and other security personnel, according to evictions and intimidation by the reports from local NGO Telapak. Indonesian police on behalf of Wilmar’s Communities like Dayak Benuaq, who suppliers against an indigenous community struggle against palm oil plantations, meet in Jambi. Director of Sawit Watch violent reprisals. According to the Borneo Abetnego Tarigan commented: ‘Frankly we Resource Institute, in February an indigenous are very disappointed. We expect leading community in Rumah Ranggon, Sarawak, members of the RSPO to scrupulously Malaysia, were intimidated by a hundred adhere to the agreed standard.’ armed men, allegedly hired by the palm While the RSPO has developed strong oil company to force residents to halt their standards through consultative processes, blockade protecting their forests. Police later further efforts are needed to ensure that arrested the leader of the armed group. these standards are implemented. But A flood of these incidents has led to in September, the Indonesian Palm Oil increased pressure on palm oil companies Association withdrew from the RSPO, to prevent abusive and destructive practices. and the Indonesian government says The industry formed a Roundtable on it will now implement it own ‘green’ Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004, to standards for sustainable palm oil. The promote sustainable palm oil practices and Malaysian government is also starting its raise the environmental profile of the industry. own certification process for ‘sustainable’ Comprising oil palm producers, manufacturers, palm oil. This has drawn accusations investors and social and environmental NGOs, that these versions of sustainable palm the RSPO has created a process to have oil are ‘greenwash’ and a watering down plantations certified as sustainable. of the RSPO’s criteria. The international Some NGOs have refused to join the community must continue to demand RSPO, arguing that its standards have not palm oil that follows the sustainability done enough to address land disputes and model provided by the RSPO, along with environmental issues. But others, such as Sawit implementation that protects the rights of Watch, Indonesia’s leading watchdog NGO affected communities. p on the palm oil industry, have participated

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 151 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Local media estimate the military operation has Laos forced about 10,000 people to flee their villages, The ninth Party Congress of Laos People’s and that 20 villagers had been shot. The raids Revolutionary Party (LPRP) was held in 2011. had been escalating since April. Indonesia’s But there were few new faces to be seen. National Commission on Human Rights Elections for the National Assembly were held (Komnas HAM) called on the National Police shortly after, with the LPRP winning all but four chief to withdraw all troops from the area. of the 132 seats in this one-party state. Ethnic In 2011, police admitted to receiving pay- minority parliamentarians won 38.6 per cent of offs from the US-owned Freeport-McMoRan the seats in the National Assembly. However, to protect their Grasberg gold and copper mine party members secured their positions through in Papua, the largest gold mine and third larg- patronage, rather than by campaigning for the est copper mine in the world. This mine project rights of minority communities. has long been criticized for violating the rights of There are at least 240 ethnic groups in indigenous Papuans through land confiscation, the country, but the Lao government only environmental destruction and militarization. officially recognizes 49. Most minorities live Indonesian military forces who ‘protect’ the mine in the mountainous highland areas, whereas have reportedly raped Papuan indigenous women. the Lao majority has traditionally been in the Papua has consistently had the highest rate lowlands, dominating political and economic of HIV infection in Indonesia, at 15 times the life. Ethnic minority villages have been subjected national average. In May, the head of the Papuan to government relocation programmes since AIDS Prevention Commission reported that the 1970s, increasing in scope in the 1990s, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in ostensibly aimed at ending swidden agriculture Papua jumped by 30 per cent in four months, and opium production. to over 17,000. Mimika, the district of Freeport The Lao government aims to transform the McMoRan’s mine, had the highest increase and country into the ‘battery of South East Asia’ by overall number of HIV/AIDS-infected people, exporting the power generated by numerous with associated high numbers of prostitutes hydroelectric projects. In June, the National and brothels. While these numbers do not Assembly announced plans to complete ten large- differentiate, past studies have suggested that scale dam projects between 2011 and 2015; five prevalence of HIV/AIDS among Papuans is twice are already under construction. The proposed as high as among non-Papuans. 1,200-megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong The rights of indigenous Papuans to their River has attracted the most controversy. It will ancestral lands also continued to be threatened displace an estimated 2,100 people, the majority by the Merauke Integration Food and Energy of whom are ethnic minorities (including Project (MIFEE), a mega-agro initiative Khmu, Leu and Hmong), and threaten the launched in 2010, which involves the conversion livelihoods and food security of another 200,000 of a vast area of land, including forests, into people. The Xayaburi project is backed by Thai plantations. In a report submitted to various UN companies, and Thailand is expected to be one of mechanisms in 2011, an NGO coalition claims the main beneficiaries of the power generated. that MIFEE has proceeded without regard The Mekong Rivers Commission, a regional for the principles of free, prior and informed river basin organization, twice delayed a decision consent, and has forcibly acquired around on whether to approve the Xayaburi dam 2 million hectares of traditional lands. The in 2011, under strong pressure from Laos’s military has also reportedly been harassing those neighbours, pending further environmental resisting the project. In October 2011, President studies. However, with the tacit approval from Yudhoyono set up the Unit for the Acceleration Lao authorities, the Thai dam building-company of Development in Papua and West Papau is proceeding with construction work, without (UP4B) to stimulate economic development. consulting affected minorities. Little attention has been given to Papuans’ right In 2011, a national survey carried out by to autonomy and self-governance, however. the Lao government estimated that 5 million

152 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 hectares – about 21 per cent of the country’s animism/ancestor worship or have converted to total territory – has been granted as concessions Christianity. In 2011, rights groups continued to either domestic or foreign parties, mainly for to report incidents of local authorities harassing mining exploration (85 per cent). Many land and illegally detaining members of Christian concessions in Laos have also been granted to communities. foreign companies from Vietnam, Thailand and In 2011, the group of over 4,000 Hmong that China, for large-scale agribusiness plantations, were forcibly repatriated to Laos from Thailand such as bio-fuels, rubber and eucalyptus, as well in 2009 are reportedly still facing ‘severe as mining and hydro-electric projects. restrictions’ on their freedom of movement and Though all land is state-owned in Laos, are unable to make a living. communal land use rights are recognized under the Constitution and various national Malaysia laws. But land and forest concessions have Civil society in Malaysia, including those organi- been granted without proper documentation zations struggling to secure the rights of minori- or implementation of legal processes, leaving ties, continued to experience restrictions on the local livelihoods unprotected, according to a right to assembly. In September 2011, Prime 2011 report by the NGO Forest Trends. Such Minister Najib Razak pledged to repeal the Inter- concessions are often facilitated through bribe- nal Security Act (ISA), which allows the authori- taking by local and central officials. Affected ties to detain people indefinitely without charge groups are left without access to their traditional or trial. The move was welcomed by a broad livelihoods or adequate compensation, despite a range of civil society organizations, but Razak’s government decree guaranteeing it. commitment was questioned as authorities con- Displacement and government attempts tinued to arrest people under the ISA. to eliminate swidden agriculture have had Razak proposed two other pieces of legislation. a disproportionate impact on minority and The Race Relations Bill was set to be debated in indigenous women from communities such as parliament in 2012 but Malaysian human rights the Khmou and Phone, where their status derives organization Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) from their role in such agricultural activities. argued that the draft law would not adequately In November 2011, the Laos government protect minorities from hate crimes. At the time issued its first set of communal forest land titles, of writing, it appeared that the government was acknowledging the community rights of four going to drop the initiative. villages to bamboo forests in Sangthong district In December, the senate passed the near Vientiane. It is hoped that communal titles controversial Peaceful Assembly Bill, despite will now be issued in other areas of the country widespread opposition from local civil society where minority and indigenous groups are at a and international NGOs. The law bans street high risk of being displaced from their land. protests, prohibits those under 21 years old from In one positive development, the Lao Ministry assembling peacefully, and provides a wide range of Energy and Mines proposed amendments to of powers to the police. the Minerals Law in 2011 in order to address The new legislation comes after crackdowns loopholes that were thought to be giving free rein on protests throughout 2011, including protests to mining companies, for example to use sites by religious minority organizations. In February, for purposes for which they were not granted, authorities denied a request by the Hindu Rights such as logging and plantations. Other proposed Action Force (HRAF) to conduct a peaceful anti- changes include stricter environmental standards discrimination march. HRAF was banned after and increased compensation for affected a peaceful demonstration in 2007 for the rights communities. of religious minorities in Malaysia. Authorities Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the arrested at least 59 members of HRAF and the Lao Constitution, but in practice some laws Hindu Rights Party (HRP) hours before the rally are used to suppress unsanctioned religious began. All were released on bail, charged with activities. Many ethnic minorities in Laos practice being part of an ‘illegal association’.

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 153 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Above: A Penan family at a temporary shelter in attempting to convert Muslims at a charity event, Malaysian Borneo. Sofia Yu. an accusation the group denied. Soon after, rallies against alleged Christian proselytizing were held The HRAF protest was in part sparked by across the country, organized by Himpun, an controversy over the novel Interlok, compulsory ad hoc coalition of Muslim groups pushing for a reading for students in secondary school, that conservative, pro-Muslim Malay agenda. includes racial stereotyping of Indian and In April, Abdul Taib Mahmud was reelected Chinese communities. On 15 January, the novel as Chief Minister of Sarawak – a forested was removed from the syllabus, but the decision state on the island of Borneo – continuing was reversed on 28 January. It remains on the his 30-year reign over a state where 50 per syllabus, but sensitive words will be removed. cent of the population are indigenous people, Many in the Indian community and others think collectively referred to as Dayak or Orang Ulu. the book generates inter-racial conflict. Elections were marred by reports of vote-buying Shi’a Muslims, listed as a ‘deviant’ sect by and intimidation of indigenous communities. Malaysia’s Islamic law in this majority Sunni International observers as well as local election Muslim state, also continued to face difficulties. monitors were reportedly not allowed into the In May, in the central state of Selangor, state, and some indigenous people were not authorities broke up a gathering of Shi’a who registered to vote because they had been denied were celebrating the birthday of a daughter of the national identity cards. At least 480,000 people Prophet, on accusations of proselytizing. Four (one-third of eligible voters), largely from rural people were reportedly detained. areas affected by land-grabbing, are not registered In August, police raided a Methodist-Christian to vote. Members of the Penan community say Church in Selangor, accusing members of they have repeatedly sought identity cards but

154 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 their applications are never processed. Forestry Department had issued illegal logging In 2011, accusations of corruption against licences for land covered by native customary the Chief Minister gained momentum: the UK rights of the Krian people. It is hoped that this government announced it would investigate ruling will have positive implications for land accusations of money-laundering against him. rights cases pending in lower courts against Taib has notoriously provided business contracts state confiscation of indigenous ancestral lands; to his family and associates for logging, hydro- estimates of the number of cases vary from electric projects and palm oil plantations in around 200 to over 300. Sarawak. Three Chinese state-owned companies are helping to build a network of as many as Philippines 51 controversial dams to spur rapid industrial Conflict and displacement affecting Philippines’ development. Many of these concessions minority groups continued during the first year have been granted in territories contested by and a half of Benigno Aquino III’s presidency, indigenous peoples, whose rights are recognized both as a result of militarization and natural under Malaysian law. Less than 10 per cent of disaster. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front Sarawak’s forest is reportedly left intact, a figure (MILF), a major armed Islamic group, is hotly contested by the Chief Minister. currently engaged in peace negotiations with In June, the Malaysian national human rights the government. The Mindanao region, home institution, Suhakam, announced its National to a significant number of Muslim Moro or Inquiry into the land rights of indigenous Bangasmoro, has seen a long-running struggle peoples, and has so far received almost 900 land with armed insurgency groups seeking autonomy rights complaints. Suhakam plans to conduct a in the majority Christian Philippine state. series of consultations in affected areas and release Negotiations resumed in February 2011. While its report by June 2012. an agreement was reached in December to create Indigenous community attempts to enforce a functioning autonomous government for the their traditional land rights in Malaysian courts Moros, negotiations are ongoing and will have have had mixed results. In September, members to address the rights of minorities within Moro of indigenous groups lost their decade-long fight territory, a major cause of the breakdown in talks against state confiscation of land to construct in 2008. the controversial 2,400-megawatt Bakun dam in Mindanao is also the ancestral territory of Sarawak. The Federal Court ruled that the state indigenous groups, collectively known as Lumad. had not violated their native customary rights. In northern Cordillera, in the Luzon region, However, the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak a variety of heterogeneous indigenous groups expressed concern that provisions in the land are collectively referred to as Igorot. Indigenous code seem to give wide powers to ministers to groups in the Mindoro region of the Vasayas are override customary land rights. In October, with collectively called Manygyan. Many indigenous the help of Sinohydro and China Export Import communities across the country have been drawn Bank, the dam became operational after nearly into the conflict between the central government five decades of delays. and the New People’s Army (NPA) – the armed Indigenous groups won a victory in September, wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines when the state government postponed the (CPP) that has been fighting for over four construction of the Baram dam, set to displace decades for a communist take-over. Communities 20,000 people. Strong resistance from affected have been accused of supporting the NPA and Kayan, Kenyah and Penan groups is thought targeted by anti-insurgency operations of the to have been the impetus behind the decision. Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). In However, the dam will only be delayed for February, the government resumed negotiations further social impact assessments and until the with the CCP-NPA in Oslo for the first time in Baleh dam is complete, a project that will resettle six years. But talks stalled later in the year. fewer communities. Also in September, the Both human rights defenders from indigenous High Court in Sabah and Sarawak ruled that the communities and those supporting their rights

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 155 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 have been targeted for extra-judicial killings, of the Koronadal Indigenous Peoples Women threatened and harassed throughout the Gathering, an indigenous women’s coalition, Philippines. During Aquino’s first 18 months said: ‘This sounds like a blanket call to intensify in office, the National Alliance of Indigenous attacks against us.’ According to KAMP, 60 Peoples in the Philippines (KAMP) recorded per cent of the total land area of the Cordilleras 13 indigenous rights activists killed, at least has been approved for mining applications 4 of whom were resisting mining in their and operations. Indigenous communities in communities. Pampanga and Cagayan Valley also contend with The AFP has long been implicated in these the massive influx of large-scale mines. and other politically motivated killings over the In November, the Internal Displacement last decade. Rudy Dejos, a B’laan indigenous Monitoring Centre (IDMC) reported that community leader in Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur, 34,000 people remained displaced following was killed in February 2011 along with his adult separate instances of heavy fighting between the son. According to HRW, Dejos’ body showed AFP and MILF, as well as suspected renegade signs of being tortured. He had previously been MILF groups, in October in Basilan and threatened by the AFP; the police blame the Zambonga Sibugay provinces. Drawing on UN NPA, but his family is not convinced. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Conflicts relating to mining concessions in Affairs (OCHA) findings, the IDMC reported a Moro and indigenous peoples’ lands continued total of 46,000 displaced at that time. throughout 2011. The Xstrata-controlled On 17 December, tropical storm Washi hit Sagittarius Mines-proposed open-pit gold and northern and south-western parts of Mindanao. copper mine in Tampakan, South Cotabato drew By January 2012, over 1,200 had died in the particular controversy. The company intends to flash floods. The devastation was exacerbated by push forward its application despite evidence of deforestation, leading the Autonomous Region lack of free, prior and informed consent on the of Muslim Mindanao’s (ARMM) recently part of affected B’laan communities, as well as a appointed governor Mujiv Hataman to declare province-wide ban on open-pit mining that was a logging ban in ARMM, at the behest of the declared in 2010. The company claims it has central government. the backing of local communities, while activists question whether those who support the project Thailand understand its environmental consequences. The In July, Thailand elected its first female Prime mine will straddle the territory of four ancestral Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra of the Pheu Thai domains of the B’laan indigenous people. The party, younger sister of ousted Prime Minister project has led to a string of violent incidents Thaksin Shinawatra. Her supporters, mainly in 2011, including the murder in February of a rural poor from the north, had previously filled S’bangken indigenous leader who supported it. the streets of Bangkok with their protests. Her The NPA has attacked the mine in the past and leadership has since been tested by flooding in warned of further violence if the project proceeds. the central provinces and increasing violence in In January, Aquino instituted a counter- the south. insurgency programme, the Oplan Bayanihan Conflict continued to plague Thailand’s four (OB), ostensibly to foster peaceful relations southern-most provinces, where Malay-Muslims between conflict-affected communities and the are a majority in this majority Buddhist state. military. KAMP has argued that it only increases Since 2004, these provinces have endured a militarization in indigenous areas. In October, violent separatist insurgency. Insurgents target the NPA attacked three mining operations in civilians for extra-judicial killings and regularly Surigao del Norte, killing three private security detonate explosives in public areas. From 2004 to guards and damaging equipment. In response, the end of 2011, nearly 5,000 people have been the government agreed to allow mining killed in the conflict. Thai military and security companies to hire militias to protect their sites. forces have been accused of arbitrary arrests, A statement released by the Special Committee detention without charge and torture of Malay-

156 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Muslim suspects, under the Emergency Decree to health and education services, face restrictions and martial law. on their movement and endure harassment by Yingluck Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party state authorities. won no seats in the south, but her campaign For decades, indigenous peoples have been promises included increasing the number of forcibly evicted and relocated from their lands Muslims permitted to attend the hajj and more on grounds of national security, development public input into decision-making processes. and resource conservation. In the north, smaller According to Deep South Watch, a local conflict- mountain-dwelling ethnic groups, including monitoring organization, violence spiked in the Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lahu, Lisu and Mein, month after Yingluck Shinawatra’s appointment. struggle to survive economically and culturally in In December 2010, then Prime Minister the face of development projects, land-ownership Abhisit Vejjajiva attempted to quell the unrest issues and the influx of ethnic Thais. through changes to the recently revived South- In July, officials at Kaeng Krachan National ern Border Provinces Administrative Centre Park, Phetchaburi province, stormed and burned (SBPAC), a civilian body that oversees develop- a total of 90 homes and rice barns in a Karen ment and policy-creation. It can now receive village. Officials justified this as a means to complaints on mistreatment by security forces prevent forest destruction, even though it is and has the power to discipline or remove offi- the constitutional right of these Karen to reside cials or police officers. But by October Yingluck in the forests, as they have been on the land Shinawatra’s Cabinet had replaced the admin- for generations. Many of the families remain istrative head of the SBPAC, to the disappoint- displaced, some reportedly hiding in the forest ment of southern Muslims who saw this as a without sufficient food or shelter. political appointment that did not reflect their On 3 September, Tatkamol Ob-om, a Karen interests. In December, the Cabinet extended the community activist brought the case to the Emergency Decree for another three months. National Human Rights Commission. He was Human rights defenders working to achieve shot and killed on 10 September. A warrant was justice for victims in the southern provinces issued for the arrest of the park director Chaiwat continue to face threats. In April, the AHRC Limlikitauksorn, who later turned himself into reported that Yaena Salaemae was being harassed police, denying the charges. He has since been by security forces for her work to achieve justice released on bail and has retained his role as park for the seven Muslims shot by security forces head, still justifying his violent evictions of the while peacefully protesting in 2004. A further Karen village. 78 protesters had died after the group had been Forest officials have blamed Karen traditional herded into trucks to be taken into detention. swidden agriculture – pejoratively known as In the case of the 2004 disappearance of lawyer ‘slash and burn’ – for contributing to forest Somchai Neelapaijit, who had also fought for the degradation and global warming. From 2005 to rights of Muslims, the defendants were acquitted 2011, 38 cases of ‘global warming’ were brought in March on technical grounds. against Thailand’s indigenous forest-dwelling Thailand’s diverse indigenous peoples peoples, nine of which have been settled resulting have also been engaged in a long struggle to in fines of over 18 million baht. Marine park defend their rights. Hundreds of thousands conservation has also pushed indigenous Moken of indigenous people have been denied Thai and other sea nomads off their territory, making citizenship, stemming from state neglect, it illegal to fish in protected waters. These and corruption or rejections on the basis that many other such cases criminalize indigenous groups have migrated from Burma. In cooperation with for practising their traditional livelihoods and NGOs and UN agencies, the government has residing in areas to which they have ancestral enabled some to receive Thai citizenship, but land rights claims. in 2011 approximately 30 per cent or 296,000 of Thailand’s indigenous peoples still lack Vietnam citizenship. They are consequently denied access January 2011 saw the reappointment of Prime

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 157 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Minister Nguyen Tan Dung for a second five-year term in the Politburo of Vietnam’s Case study Communist Party (CPV), the ruling party in this tightly controlled one-party state. Vietnam officially recognizes 54 ethnic Asia’s Commission groups, among whom the majority ethnic Kinh make up 86 per cent of the population. Ethnic on Human Rights minority and indigenous groups have significant populations in the northern highlands, central highlands and the Mekong delta region – The establishment of the ASEAN Inter- including Hmong, Khmer, Muong, Tay and governmental Commission on Human Thai. In the central highlands, in Gia Lai and Rights (AICHR) on 23 October 2009 Dak Lak provinces in particular, about two dozen marked a momentous achievement for indigenous groups collectively self-identify as human rights in the region. But there is no Montagnards, many of whom are also Protestant explicit mention of the rights of indigenous Christians. peoples and minorities in its mandate and Vietnam’s central highlands are rich in natural civil society organizations continued to resources, including bauxite. In September, a push to include these rights in the draft Chinese-backed bauxite mine in Lam Dong ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights. province began operations, despite unusually high The AICHR has been criticized for levels of public criticism about environmental getting tied up in procedural issues, failing consequences and Chinese involvement. Bauxite to consult with civil society and for being is a mineral used to produce aluminum, and, unable to receive information officially with the third largest reserve of bauxite in the from civil society groups about severe world, the government has shown little regard human rights violations. There is also for the concerns of central highland peoples, concern about the independence of the including over potential contamination of water commissioners, inadequate resources and an resources as well as adverse impact on crops. unclear protection mandate. Land in Vietnam is state-owned – with There is no specific mechanism for the individual land use rights – and can be protection and promotion of minority re-appropriated for state interests. With or indigenous peoples’ rights within the forests and mineral-rich lands in minority and AICHR. Civil society groups created an indigenous areas, state land confiscation can Indigenous Peoples Task Force in order have a devastating effect on these communities. to lobby and inform ASEAN and its In her January 2011 report on her official visit relevant bodies, particularly to establish a to Vietnam in 2010, the Independent Expert focal person for indigenous issues and to on Minority Issues, Gay McDougall, noted establish an ASEAN Working Group on the massive resettlement caused by the Son indigenous issues. La hydropower plant, where 91,000 people The team drafting the Declaration on belonging to ethnic minorities were relocated Human Rights was formed by the AICHR by 2010 – the largest resettlement programme and was expected to present its first draft in Vietnam’s history. Ten different groups have in January 2012. The drafting process has been affected, the majority being ethnic Thai. been held largely behind closed doors and The Vietnam Union of Science and Technology the terms of reference have not been made Associations reported: ‘[R]elocation is breaking public. p down existing social structures and community relationships and creating trauma for minority groups … Most are left without any agricultural land.’ In May, seven land rights defenders, some of

158 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 whom also struggle for religious freedom, were of faith and declarations of allegiance to the tried for ‘subversion’ in the Ben Tre People’s state, against indigenous Montagnards. HRW Court; all received prison sentences ranging further reported that since 2001, more than 350 from two to eight years. Pastor Duong Kim Montagnards have been imprisoned for public Khai was one of those found guilty. A leader of protests, attending unregistered house churches the Mennonite ‘Cattle Shed’ religious group – or trying to flee to seek asylum in Cambodia. so-called because their church was confiscated Vietnam has, however, demonstrated a by authorities and they began using a shed for sustained effort to collect disaggregated data worship – has assisted people in the Mekong on its ethnic minority populations in order to delta with land rights claims. implement more effective development projects. The government maintains strict controls In 2011 a recent study by the government in on freedom of religion, permitting only state- conjunction with UN agencies reaffirmed that sanctioned religions, and using complex ethnic minorities in Vietnam have worse health registration requirements, surveillance and indicators, particularly for minority women, who intimidation to control the practice of faith. had less access to reproductive health care than Religious activists and those practising their majority counterparts. ‘unauthorized’ religions are targeted by the government. In July, police arrested three Catholic activists as they returned from a conference abroad. Twelve more religious East Asia activists were arrested by the end of September, the majority of whom were later charged with Marusca Perazzi ‘subversion’. In December, Nguyen Van Lia, a 71-year-old who has raised international China awareness about the situation faced by fellow- The year 2011 revealed unmistakable signs of members of the Hoa Hao Buddhists, was ferment and frustration in Chinese society. sentenced to five years in prison for distributing Unsettled by the pro-democracy Arab Spring ‘anti-government’ propaganda. uprisings and the country’s scheduled leadership Vietnamese authorities continued to use transition in October 2012, the government violence and intimidation in the central launched the largest crackdown on human highlands and north-west provinces, especially rights lawyers, activists and critics in a decade. against Protestant ethnic minorities and others This resulted in tightened internet censorship, conducting ‘unsanctioned’ religious practices. persecution of high-profile critics, and an Since the state restricts foreign media in these increasing number of forced disappearances and areas, it is difficult to get a clear picture. HRW, arbitrary detentions. however, reported that thousands of Hmong During 2011, the Chinese government Christians began protesting in the north-west continued to limit religious practice to officially province of Dien Bien at the end of April. approved religious institutions. There was a This was met by a violent response from the continued crackdown on unregistered religious military, with unconfirmed reports of numerous organizations, including underground Christian deaths and injuries. According to the BBC, the groups. In April, the government pressured a protesters demanded more religious freedom, Beijing landlord to evict the Shouwang ‘house secure land rights and greater autonomy. church’ with 1,000 congregants from its location Unrest over land rights and the struggle for in his restaurant. Consequently, services were religious freedom in the central highlands during held outdoors attracting police attention and the last decade has made the area a security resulting in the temporary detention of more concern for the government. In a 2011 report, than 100 of its members. Thousands of Falun HRW detailed how security forces have used Gong spiritual practitioners, members of a violence, arbitrary arrest, imprisonment and group targeted by the authorities, continued to torture, as well as forced public renunciations face intimidation, harassment and arrest. The

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 159 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 government continued to heavily restrict religious the country’s east coast. activities in the name of security in minority During 2011, the Chinese government areas, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang. called for accelerated development in minority While ethnic minorities in China constitute areas under its 12th Five-Year Plan (2011–15). only 8 per cent of the overall population, they Also in 2011, the US Congressional Executive inhabit large areas rich in natural resources, Commission on China (CECC) reported that in especially energy and minerals, in some of the ethnic minority autonomous regions the Chinese most impoverished regions of the country. For government continued to implement top-down example, Inner Mongolia has rich coal deposits; development policies that have undercut the Xinjiang is known to have China’s largest oil and promotion of regional autonomy and limited gas reserves; Tibet has massive deposits of gold, the rights of minorities to maintain their unique copper and rare earths, as well as much of the cultures, languages and livelihoods, while country’s water resources. bringing a degree of economic improvement. The Over the past decade, these areas have been the government push on development also meant an target of the government’s ‘Go West’ campaign. intensification of the long-standing majority Han Ostensibly, the government’s goal has been to migration into minority areas. These new arrivals reduce regional disparities and bring economic have disproportionately benefited from economic development to the western provinces and opportunities, which has caused resentment autonomous regions (Ningxia, Tibet, Inner among ethnic minorities. Also, the environmental Mongolia, Guangxi and Xinjiang); critics have degradation that accompanies natural resource defined the campaign as ‘internal colonization’, exploitation continues to exacerbate tensions. aimed at bringing large areas in minority regions under control so as to exploit their natural Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region resources to support further development along The Chinese authorities have continued to

160 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Left: A Tibetan monk sits in his room with a end of 2011, and many Uighurs have been photo of the Dalai Lama and Karamapa on the forcibly evicted and relocated to make way wall at a monastery in Sichuan province, China. for a new city centre, dominated by the Han Photos of the Dalai Lama are prohibited in population. Forced evictions have become a China but many monks carry one secretly. routine part of life in China amid rampant Shiho Fukada/Panos. development. But rural land grab disputes hit new highs in 2011 and are spreading further into implement a repressive security regime in undeveloped regions of western China, according Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, since to an October report by Xinhua’s magazine, violent riots broke out in July 2009 – the Outlook Weekly. worst ethnic conflict in recent Chinese history. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region government has still not accounted for hundreds Violence also broke out in the Ningxia Hui of people detained after the riots and continues Autonomous Region in north-west China. On to target human rights activists. 30 December 2011, police clashed with ethnic Tensions in the region have been exacerbated Hui Muslims in Taoshan village. According to by increasingly tight controls over religious the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for practice and use of minority languages. Human Rights and Democracy, 50 people were Government-led development projects have injured and two people killed after authorities undermined the rights of Uighurs and other non- declared a newly refurbished mosque illegal and Han communities. Employment practices in both the police tried to demolish it. the private and public sectors have also continued to discriminate against Uighurs and other non- Grassland policies Han groups, who together comprise roughly 60 At a State Council meeting in April 2011, per cent of Xinjiang’s population. authorities called for ‘more forceful policy During the summer of 2011, the region was measures’ for ‘speeding up development of the scene of several violent incidents. In July, at pastoral areas, ensuring the state’s ecological least 18 people were killed when rioters, some security, and promoting ethnic unity and border armed with homemade explosives, attacked a stability’. This strengthened ongoing grassland police station in the city of Hotan. And on 30 policies that impose grazing bans, and resettle and 31 July, at least 13 people were killed and herders, forcing them to give up their pastoralist 44 injured in two episodes in Kashgar, the state lifestyle, which affects Mongols, Tibetans, news agency Xinhua reported. Following these Kazakhs and other minorities. Critics have incidents, the authorities launched an anti- questioned the effectiveness of such policies in terrorism campaign in August, targeting illegal meeting the declared goal of restoring degraded religious activity and implementing patriotic grassland, while affected communities report education campaigns. forced resettlement, inadequate compensation In October, Xinhua reported that the and loss of traditional livelihoods and culture. government was considering new stricter anti- terrorism legislation, claiming that the country Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region faced serious threats from Islamist groups. In During the year, rising ethnic tensions in December, police killed seven Uighurs accused the usually relatively calm Inner Mongolian of being terrorists in Pishan County, a Uighur- Autonomous Region rattled the Chinese majority area near the Pakistan border. However, authorities. In May, a Mongolian herder overseas Uighur groups said they doubted the protesting against the destruction of traditional official account of events. grazing land was killed by a Han driver Land seizures in the ancient Uighur city of transporting coal in Uxin County. The incident Kashgar also stirred up resentment. Eighty per sparked the worst demonstrations in two cent of traditional Uighur neighbourhoods in decades in Inner Mongolia. Protesters called Kashgar were scheduled for demolition by the for the government to respect herders’ rights

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 161 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 and condemned the exploitation of grasslands. While the government executed the truck driver Case study By Gabriel Lafitte responsible, the mining project that caused the protest continued. Further protests broke out when another Mining Tibet herder was killed by an oil truck in a similar incident in October. This prompted the government to tighten security and cut off Gold internet and mobile-phone access to large parts of Tibetans call the Plateau of Tibet ‘the land the region, according to the Southern Mongolian surrounded by mountains’. Among the massive Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC). mountain chains, a few peaks are especially Mongolian herders continue to complain that sacred, attracting pilgrims from afar. In rugged their traditional grazing lands have been ruined eastern Tibet, nowhere is as sacred as the hidden by mining, that widespread desertification is land of Kawa Kharpo. turning the grassland to dust, and that the The sacred Kawagebo mountain sits on government has forcibly relocated them into the border between the Tibetan Autonomous settled houses. Region and China’s Yunnan Province; its eastern side is part of the Three Parallel Rivers Tibetan autonomous areas area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In The situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region, February 2011, a small gold-mining operation and other Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, started near the village of Abin, which is on Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan provinces grew the western side of Kawagebo, along the path increasingly tense throughout 2011. Since the of an 800-year-old pilgrimage route that circles brutal crackdown on protests that swept the the mountain, attracting tens of thousands of plateau in 2008, Chinese security forces have Tibetans annually. maintained a heavy presence. Large numbers In 2012, Tibetan villagers, acting out of of Tibetans, including intellectuals, monks and reverence for the holy peak, attempted to stop farmers, have been imprisoned, and monasteries, the operations of a Chinese mining company. seen by the Chinese government as the focus of The response was threats and violence from dissent, have been subject to intensified controls company representatives, then harassment and and political pressure. Tibetans are increasingly arrests by local police. On two occasions, men economically marginalized, as development has armed with wooden sticks with nails reportedly brought an influx of majority Han Chinese into attacked villagers, injuring more than a dozen. Tibetan regions; the newcomers dominate the job After efforts to negotiate with the local market, and local businesses as well as culture. government failed, villagers pushed US$ During the second half of the year, there was 300,000 worth of mining equipment into the a wave of self-immolations mainly involving Nu River. A leader of the group was arrested, Buddhist monks and nuns across eastern Tibet. but later released when 100 villagers surrounded In March, a monk from the Kirti monastery in the local police station where he was being held. the Tibetan Ngaba region of Sichuan province A few months later, however, mining resumed set fire to himself in protest against Chinese rule and tensions grew. Harassment, death threats and the ongoing repression of Tibetan religious and attacks on villagers increased, and some and cultural identity. In August, local authorities women and children fled to other villages to imposed heavy prison sentences on three Tibetan escape the violence. monks who had assisted him. Ten more Tibetan On 20 January 2012, a village leader who monks and one nun had self-immolated by mid- had tried to confront the mining company was November, all expressing their desperation in arrested by local police. Some 200 community the face of ongoing repression. By March 2012, members surrounded the police station, a reported 30 Tibetans had set themselves on resulting in violence and injuries on both sides, fire in Tibetan areas of China to protest against

162 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 with at least one villager hospitalized with Along the Nu River (known as the Salween serious injuries. Hundreds more villagers from once it reaches Burma), the longest free-flowing the surrounding area joined in. On 23 January, river in mainland south-east Asia, a 13-dam with tensions mounting, a local government cascade has been proposed. The scheme leader ordered the mine closed and the includes several dams in or very close to the equipment trucked out of the village. World Heritage Site mentioned above; these This story represents a rare victory in would wipe out portions of the pilgrimage the struggle against the despoiling of the route around Kawagebo and displace numerous landscape of Tibet. All too often, local Tibetan communities along the river valley. Although communities are powerless, knowing that any the project was put on hold in 2004 in the protest will be quickly labelled as ‘splittist’ and wake of widespread protest, it is certainly not a challenge to China’s rule, invoking a massive dead. security presence to quell dissent. The Kawa Last year, the World Heritage Committee Kharpo episode is remarkable, both because issued a statement expressing concern over the villagers won and because the world got to reports of unapproved construction under way hear about it, due to a brave conservationist at one dam site on the Nu River, and surveying from the Chinese environmental NGO Green work – including road-building and drilling Earth Volunteers, who witnessed the protest – at three others. But in February, Chinese and reported it. Usually, such protests are not officials revealed plans to resume the Nu River only swiftly curbed but all mention of them is dams as part of China’s ambitious hydropower repressed. plans to meet its renewable energy targets. The Mining is widespread in hundreds of project will displace 50,000 people belonging locations across Tibet, despite official bans on to ethnic minorities, including Lisu, Nu and small-scale gold mining in 2005 and 2007. Tibetan people. The soaring price of gold, and the even faster Nearly all the dams scheduled for rise in Chinese domestic demand for gold, has construction in China by 2020 are in Kham, made Tibet a magnet for gold-seekers. The one of the three provinces of Tibet, which environmental cost of gold mining is extremely is now administratively fragmented into high, with cyanide and mercury being used in the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, the processing, despite their toxic effects on Qinghai and Tibet Autonomous Region. Kham those living downstream. The most systematic is not only a historically coherent province of way of extracting gold in a river is to assemble a Tibet, all of its counties and prefectures are dredge, a house-sized machine on tracks, which officially designated as areas of governance by crawls along, chewing up everything whilst and for the Tibetans as a people. But west-to- gathering the specks of gold. These methods east transmission networks will increasingly are highly destructive, yet Tibetans have supply coastal China with electricity from been unable to form their own community Tibet, triggering serious questions as to associations, speak up, articulate their concerns whether Tibetans will benefit in any way. and let the world know. The Kham hydroelectric dam cascade is not for rural electrification, to provide light for nomad Hydroelectric power children to study by night and improve their Unfortunately, Abin is but one of many school grades. It is not for Tibetan farmers Tibetan villages threatened by economic forces. to buy electric threshing machines for their There is a greater overarching threat to the barley crops, or for village millers to roast and region, namely hydroelectric dam development. grind the dried barley seeds to make tsampa, The government is increasingly turning to the staple of the Tibetan diet. The ultra high Tibet to solve China’s impending water and voltage lines will pass them by, en route to energy crisis. factories in Shanghai and Guangzhou. p

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 163 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 government policies the Yellow River. The self-immolations have raised the level of The government is ramping up its hydropower tension and distress in Tibet to new heights. ambitions in a bid to meet renewable energy Security forces have used violence when targets, resurrecting projects previously raiding monasteries, searching for signs of shelved for environmental reasons. The NGO allegiance to Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the International Rivers has reported that China Dalai Lama, and arbitrarily detaining monks. has begun to build a series of dams in ethnic Demonstrations, vigils and expressions of moral minority regions of south-west China, including support for protesters seen as martyrs by the the Jinsha (upper Yangtze), Lancang (Mekong) wider population have been met with ever and the Nu (Salween) Rivers. tighter security clampdown. The wave of self- immolations has caused the central authorities Japan considerable embarrassment but has resulted in The year 2011 was a very challenging one for no change in their repressive policies. Japan as it struggled to cope with the economic, The recent acceleration in natural resource social and political aftershocks of the most development has led to increasing conflict and devastating earthquake and tsunami in 140 years, protests in the region. The completion of the which struck the country in March. The disaster Qinghai–Tibetan railway in 2005 and new left 20,000 dead and many more homeless, and highways is spurring an economic boom in Tibet, triggered the meltdown of three reactors at the including hydropower and mining (see case study Fukushima nuclear plant. on page 162). For example, Tibetans protested Although Japan promotes itself as a against the Gyama mine project, controlled homogeneous society, the country has significant by Vancouver-based China Gold and located numbers of minority and indigenous groups, just upstream of Lhasa in 2010. The mining including Burakumin, and indigenous Ainu operation has reportedly dried up spring waters, and Okinawans. Korean and Chinese minorities poisoned drinking water, killed animals and have had a long-standing presence, along with destroyed flora and fauna in the region. Despite newer arrivals from South America and Asia, who this, in August 2011, China Gold announced continue to appear vulnerable to exploitation, that it will proceed with a major expansion of the prejudice and discrimination. project. The estimated 200,000 Burakumin belong Across Tibet, nomads are being systematically to a social minority of the same ethnicity as and often forcibly relocated into settled other Japanese but are nevertheless victims communities as part of a policy known as of deep-seated caste-based discrimination. ‘ecological migration’. For example, since 2005, Modern reforms, including regarding access to 50,000 Tibetan nomads have been relocated from housing and employment, have improved social the Sanjiangyuan National Reserve in Qinghai conditions to some extent, but the root causes of province on the Tibetan Plateau into unfamiliar their marginalization – social discrimination and urban areas where there are few economic prejudice – have not been adequately addressed opportunities. Some experts have pointed out by the government. that the locations of the recent self-immolations Ainu were officially recognized by the correspond, ‘with a few exceptions’, to areas of government as indigenous settlers of northern intensive resettlement. Social problems – such as Japan in 2008 but, to the disappointment high levels of unemployment and crime – have of many activists, this recognition has failed quickly emerged in these areas. The government’s to address problems of social and economic ostensible goal is to preserve fragile ecosystems marginalization. Amid growing frustrations over and to counteract the negative impact of over- the lack of tangible progress securing their rights, grazing. But during 2011, the boundaries of at the end of October, Ainu representatives the reserve have quietly been redrawn to allow formed their own political party. There are for large-scale gold mining by Inter-Citic, a an estimated 30,000–50,000 Ainu in Japan. Canadian mining company, near the source of Research carried out in 2006 indicated that

164 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 the number of Ainu living on welfare was over again failed to respond to requests by the three times the national average, and that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial proportion of Ainu receiving higher education Discrimination (CERD) and the UN Committee was one-third the national average. on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Over the centuries, Ainu have been stripped of Women (CEDAW) to provide economic and their land, resources and traditional livelihoods. social data reflecting the situation of minorities, More recently, Ainu people have been caught up and data to expose the extent of violence against in a struggle to control their ancestral waterways. minority women. CEDAW has also requested A government plan to build a second dam on the data on the education, employment, social Saru River in the Hidaka Region of Hokkaido welfare and health status of minority women. has raised concerns about the rights of the Ainu people. The first Nibutani dam on the Saru Taiwan River, the most important river for local Ainu, The 14 officially recognized indigenous groups was completed in the 1990s. In a landmark in Taiwan make up about 2 per cent of the decision in 1997, a district court judge ruled that island’s population (collectively referred to as the government had illegally expropriated land ‘yuanzhumin’) and mostly inhabit the central owned by Ainu farmers to construct the dam mountains and the eastern coastal region. Ami and recognized Ainu’s cultural rights. The ruling constitute the largest group, and they along did not reverse the all-but-completed dam, but with the Paiwan and the Saisiat communities the case set a precedent and, as a result, work are able to maintain a visible traditional cultural on the second Biratori dam further upstream life. Other smaller groups (known as ‘pingpu’ or was delayed until 2010. And now, as it is going lowland tribes) are still fighting for recognition. ahead, the Ainu community has become engaged Other communities on the island include the in the construction process of the dam, aiming to majority Hokkien/ Minanese (69 per cent), ensure preservation of local Ainu culture. Hakka (13 per cent) and more recent immigrants But in other cases, the government has from mainland China and elsewhere. failed to uphold Ainu rights. In a collective While historically Taiwan’s indigenous statement made at the UN Permanent Forum peoples have been discriminated against and on Indigenous Issues in May, the NGO Asia deprived of fundamental freedoms including Indigenous People’s Pact along with other their land rights, in recent years the government civil society organizations accused the Japanese has invested more funds to support indigenous government of failing to fully implement peoples’ culture. The Taiwanese government has indigenous rights. According to the statement, also adopted a number of laws and regulations the Mombetsu city government in Hokkaido to protect indigenous peoples’ rights, including prefecture authorized plans to build an industrial with regard to political participation, culture and waste dumping site near the Mobetsu River language. However, serious inconsistencies and in February 2010, a sacred salmon spawning contradictions in legislation alongside partial site for Ainu, without obtaining their free, implementation of laws guaranteeing the rights of prior and informed consent. The statement indigenous peoples have partly thwarted progress also condemned the heavy presence of US towards self-governance. military bases in Okinawa territory as a form of The government has pursued a policy of discrimination against the Okinawan people. economic development which, according to A new base is under construction at Henoko/ local indigenous activists, has negatively affected Oura Bay, plus six helipads elsewhere, despite indigenous peoples’ traditional lands. Forested long-standing opposition from local indigenous areas and land with mining potential have been communities. In response to their protests, claimed as national property; areas of natural the authorities have filed a lawsuit forbidding beauty have been designated national parks for local indigenous members to stage sit-ins at the tourism; and the government has reportedly heliport construction site. also taken large tracts of land from indigenous In 2011, the Japanese government yet communities living in mountainous areas under

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 165 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 the pretext of national security. At the end the Act does not define or grant them rights to of January, members of the Ami indigenous indigenous lands, and that if it is passed, they group protested against the government’s would lose much of their input into decision- occupation of their traditional land. Subsequent making. This prompted activists to criticize discussions with officials failed to make any the government in December for failing to progress. In June, about 300 Paiwan leaders and implement the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law, representatives from other indigenous groups as already passed by Taiwan’s highest legislative demonstrated in Nantien village in Taitung assembly in 2005. County against government plans to build Ongoing protests are evidence that a number of nuclear waste facilities. Also in 2011, academics indigenous communities have not benefited from and civil society and indigenous groups Taiwan’s economic boom, partly due to economic successfully managed to stop the construction of disparities and lack of proper access to education a section of coastal highway that would overlap in their areas. Education is still a key issue, with with the ancient Alangyi Trail in south-west endangered indigenous languages put at great risk Taiwan and pass through previously untouched of extinction, despite constitutional guarantees coastal forest used by indigenous people for and the National Language Development Act. hunting. On a positive note, in 2011 Taiwan’s In June, indigenous groups rejected the draft legislature adopted a law to implement the UN Indigenous Autonomy Act, which sets out the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of legal framework and process for establishing Discrimination Against Women, and followed autonomous regions for indigenous peoples, up by establishing a national Department of saying it was disrespectful, unconstitutional Gender Equality in 2012, both key steps to and violated the Indigenous Peoples Basic combat gender discrimination. Much remains to Law. Indigenous groups are concerned that be done, since trafficking and child prostitution

166 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Left: Taiwanese indigenous activists shout companies to extract resources, principally slogans during a protest outside the Executive timber, fisheries and in some cases minerals, Yuan in Taipei in January 2009. Hundreds with little benefit for their own peoples. This gathered to protest against what they said was exploitation is causing loss of wildlife habitat a lack of protection for historic land rights. and pollution of environments, which have REUTERS/Nicky Loh (TAIWAN). an enormous impact on local peoples and communities. Moreover, as many indigenous remain significant issues. To combat such illegal communities throughout the region attach practices, the Taiwanese authorities announced spiritual values to their surrounding ecosystems, that they will adopt a zero tolerance gender the development of these projects impacts violence policy, as well as judicial measures to significantly on their cultural practices. strengthen protection mechanisms and improve Other social ills plague the indigenous peoples law and order. of the region, most notably the extreme rates of violence against women and the exploitation of girls, with rates of abuse and rape in the Pacific Oceania among the highest in the world. Fiji Jacqui Zalcberg Fiji has suffered four coups and a military mutiny since 1987, mainly as a result of Oceania is made up of some of the most tension between the majority indigenous Fijian ethnically diverse populations in the world. population and an economically powerful While Oceania is not often associated with large- Indian minority. Over five years have passed scale resource extraction, the region is gaining since the most recent 2006 coup d’état by increasing attention for its natural resources. For Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who the small island states of Oceania, the sea remains has since assumed the post of prime minister. a key resource, and many of the subsistence During this time, Fiji’s military government has needs of the peoples of the region, including been heavily criticized for its infringement of food security and livelihoods, are underpinned rights to free speech, press, peaceful assembly, by marine resources. The explosive growth of and association. However, Bainimarama lifted Asian fish markets has put increasing pressure on martial law in January 2012 and indicated that Pacific marine resources and is affecting people’s consultations on a new constitution would livelihoods. This has been compounded by the begin shortly thereafter, with a promised return impact of climate change, where higher sea to democratic elections within the next two temperatures have led to loss of marine habitats years. He has stated that it was a priority to which also impact on the fish and shellfish that end ethnic tensions, and to put an end to a support many coastal communities in the region. system that classifies Fijians based on ethnicity. Moreover, the rise of China as an economic Regulations introduced when martial law was power coupled with the high global demand lifted raised fears that government critics could for mineral resources has contributed to the still be silenced. accelerated pace of exploitation of previously untouched natural resources in the region. For Papua New Guinea example, a Chinese corporation is building its With more than 800 indigenous tribes and first large nickel mine in Papua New Guinea. languages, Papua New Guinea has the most However, in many instances the economic diverse indigenous population in the world. benefits of these large-scale extraction projects Papua New Guinea is also one of the poorest have not properly benefited the indigenous countries not only in Oceania, but in the world. peoples in whose lands, waters and territories The country faces some serious obstacles to these resources are found. Typically, weak development, with some of the worst health and Pacific island governments have allowed foreign education outcomes in the region, driven by high

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 167 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 levels of poverty and a largely rural population, indigenous community leaders challenged the often living in remote locations. validity of the mine’s environmental permit, Geologically, Papua New Guinea contains which was issued by the government against the many natural resources, including copper, gold, advice of its own experts. In December 2011, oil and natural gas. The government hopes however, the Supreme Court dismissed the that greater exploitation of the mineral wealth appeal, ruling that the company can proceed with of the country will provide an opportunity to its activities. increase wealth and result in significant social The Barrick Porgera mine continues to be the and economic change. For example, the PNG subject of ongoing tension, particularly regarding LNG (Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural the severe environmental impact and human Gas) Project operated by ExxonMobil subsidiary rights abuses associated with mining. Human Esso Highlands, is the country’s largest gas Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in 2011 development project and is predicted to double detailing serious violations, including gang rape, Papua New Guinea’s gross domestic product. committed by security guards against members Yet the case of the PNG LNG Project of the local community. The company, Barrick highlights the tensions generated by many such Gold, conducted an internal investigation, but development projects in Papua New Guinea. For HRW pointed out that it should have acted before example, the land upon which the project will being prompted to do so. In 2011 a ‘Request take place is registered as state land and has been for Review’ of the project was filed by two leased by the government of Papua New Guinea community groups and Mining Watch Canada to Esso Highlands. However, local communities against Barrick Gold under the Organization have filed a legal claim, citing their customary for Economic Co-operation and Development land rights. Moreover, in 2011, after a local boy (OECD) Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, died due to toxic poisoning from a project site, alleging breaches of the guidelines regarding landowners forced the temporary closure of the sustainable development, human rights and the Hides gas conditioning plant. A landslide in environment. The Canadian OECD National early 2012 destroyed communities living below Contact Point has jurisdiction over the matter a quarry used by the PNG LNG Project and was as Barrick Gold is a Toronto-based gold mining believed to have killed at least 25 people; the company and owns 95 per cent of the Porgera Red Cross feared that the final figure could be mine through subsidiaries. closer to 60 fatalities. Locals are demanding a full investigation into the connection between the Australia quarry and the landslide, as a preliminary report Indigenous Australia failed to even make mention of the mine. There The year 2011 has been a significant one for are fears that the increasing tensions between indigenous peoples in Australia. A referendum indigenous local communities and the company to recognize indigenous Australians and could lead to civil unrest in the region. remove racially discriminatory provisions in Other large-scale mining projects in Papua the Constitution now seems likely, following a New Guinea are also being contested by local recently released expert report which received communities. Communities at Krumbukari in bipartisan support. The report recommended, Madang Province are opposed to the development among other things, the constitutional of the Ramu nickel mine. Arguably one of recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait the richest nickel deposits in the southern Islander peoples, and the insertion of a hemisphere, the project, which is being run by prohibition on racial discrimination. a company jointly owned by the Chinese state Another important national initiative to company China Metallurgical Group Corporation recognize the fundamental place of indigenous (MCC) and the Australian-based Highlands peoples in Australia is the National Congress of Pacific, will result in the dumping of over 100 Australia’s First Peoples, whose first board took million tonnes of slurry waste at sea – a practice office in July 2011. Established with the support banned in both China and Australia. In 2010, of the Australian government, the Congress is

168 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 a national representative body for Aboriginal Above: The late Aboriginal elder Ned Cheedy, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, which who worked to preserve the law and culture has been notably lacking since the abolition of the Yindjibarndi people in the Pilbara of of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Western Australia. Juluwarlu Group Aboriginal Commission (ATSIC) in 2005. The Congress is Corporation/Alan Thomson. independent and will provide a formal national mechanism with which the government, the Territory Bill 2011. Yet a Senate Committee private sector and community groups can partner inquiry has already received criticism of the with indigenous and Torres Strait Islander proposed legislation, namely that it extends many peoples on reform initiatives. aspects of the measures introduced in 2007 as Much attention in previous years was paid part of the NTER and continues to raise serious to the Northern Territory Emergency Response human rights concerns. (NTER) laws, which put in place a number of Statistically, indigenous Australians still con- extraordinary measures, including an income tinue to occupy the bottom rung across the full management regime, imposition of compulsory range of development indicators. Education, leases, and community-wide bans on alcohol health and life expectancy indicators fall signifi- consumption and pornography, purportedly to cantly below non-indigenous averages. Moreover, protect indigenous children and communities. indigenous peoples are highly over-represented in These measures were internationally criticized the criminal justice system: according to figures as discriminatory and in breach of Australia’s released in 2011, the imprisonment rate increased international human rights obligations. The by 59 per cent for indigenous women and by 35 federal government recently announced a new per cent for indigenous men between 2000 and legislative framework intended to replace the 2010. Indigenous people are 14 times more likely NTER, the Stronger Futures in the Northern to be sent to jail than non-indigenous people.

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 169 and Indigenous Peoples 2012 Indigenous minors are particularly at risk; indig- Kimberley coast at James Price Point, Western enous girls and boys are 23 times more likely to Australia. A deal was struck between some of be imprisoned than their non-indigenous coun- the indigenous traditional landowners of the terparts. The situation of extreme indigenous region, Woodside Petroleum and the State of disadvantage has been addressed by a number of Western Australia. The agreement included targeted nation-wide policies, most notably the a generous benefits package; foresaw high- ‘Closing the Gap’ strategy, launched in 2006 level cultural and economic engagement from that has set clear targets to improve the lives of traditional landowners in the proposed project; indigenous Australians. However, recent analysis and gave traditional landowners rights to oppose indicates that the government is on track to meet the development on environmental grounds, in only two of its six targets under this initiative. return for foregoing native title claims over that While Australia has been found to contain a land. The deal caused a lot of tension within plethora of high-demand natural resources, the the community. Opponents of the project mining sector does not appear to have benefited claimed that not all traditional landowners indigenous peoples, upon whose lands these were consulted, that the project would destroy resources are often found. To the contrary, ancient Aboriginal sacred sites, and that it was it appears that many traditional owners have pushed through under the threat of compulsory not been properly consulted regarding the acquisition. In December 2011, the Western development of such projects on their lands, and Australian Supreme Court ruled the notices many are outright opposed to their development. of compulsory acquisition invalid, but state For example, the Yindijbarndi people have authorities and the company insisted that the been challenging a proposed project by Fortescue decision would not stop the project. Metals Group to develop the Soloman Hub Indigenous peoples also fought the proposal iron deposit in the Pilbara region. The land on to build the Limmen Bight iron ore mine inside which the iron ore is found is subject to a long- Limmen National Park in 2011. The project standing native title claim by the Yindijbarndi would involve the construction of a pipeline people, who have requested that emergency out to Maria Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, powers be invoked to stop the development. Yet which would impact on the land and waters of in December 2011, the Minister for Indigenous the Marra people, for whom the island is a deeply Affairs of Western Australia removed or amended sacred site. The community are not opposed to previously imposed conditions requiring the the mining project per se, but they have objected company to identify and protect Yindjibarndi to the transport of the ore via pipelines through heritage, allowing the project to proceed without traditional sacred areas. key safeguards for the more than 200 sites of To mitigate some of the concerns around the cultural significance contained on the proposed dominance of the resource industry, including project site. environmental issues, and to ensure that the The Anindilyakwa traditional owners of the Australian society as a whole benefits from the region near Groote Eylandt, off the Northern resource boom, an important national discussion Territory coast of Arnhem Land, are also deeply evolved around a government proposal to opposed to the development of a project to introduce a controversial 30 per cent minerals undertake open-cut mining of manganese on the resource rent tax (MRRT or mining tax) on big sea bed. The area has very important cultural mining companies. After much discussion, the significance for both the Waunindilyakwan, and tax cleared the first major hurdle, passing through the Nunnggubuyu peoples who inhabit the area; parliament’s lower house and will go to the senate communities carry out burial rites and believe the in early 2012, with predictions that it will enter sea is where reincarnation takes place. It is also a into force later in the year. key source of subsistence and economic resources for the communities. Minorities and migration Another highly controversial project is the Topics of migration and asylum-seekers processing plant for an offshore gas hub off the continued to capture Australian national

170 Asia and Oceania State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012 attention. In 2011, a number of boats study on infectious diseases has illustrated transporting migrants ran aground or sank in that Maori and Pacific Islanders suffer from Australian waters, leaving many people dead, higher rates of disease and are twice as likely including women and children. Nevertheless, to be hospitalized as those New Zealanders of the Australian government maintained bipartisan European heritage. Asians are the minority group support for its mandatory detention policy most often perceived to be discriminated against. for all refugees and asylum-seekers. While the Maori have long been seeking more secure government has indicated a shift in policy to protection of their treaty rights through release all children from detention, there still constitutional provisions. The government appear to be numerous minors mandatorily recently announced that it is planning to detained for extended periods. A government undertake a constitutional review process, which proposal to send 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia will include a review of Maori representation, in return for 4,000 processed refugees, the the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and other so-called Malaysia Solution, was declared constitutional issues. unlawful by the High Court of Australia. The Regarding mining, New Zealand has a wealth government has declared that it will pursue the of as yet untapped natural resources. The current initiative through legislative amendments. government has put economic growth at the top Strong political desire to criminalize and of its agenda and is keen to emulate Australia’s prosecute all aspects of illegal migration led to mining success. One proposal tabled was to open the passing of anti-people-smuggling laws with mines in national parks and other protected mandatory minimum sentences in 2011. The lands. The strength of the public backlash led to laws have resulted in the arrests of over 493 the proposal being abandoned in 2010; however, people, however criticism of the scheme has been the government is now working with community strong. In particular, of those charged under these leaders on the possibilities of mining on Maori- offences, only six people were actual organizers owned land. or facilitators of the smuggling operations. The The controversial Marine and Coastal Area rest are reportedly deceived into working on these Bill, which replaces the much-debated Foreshore ships as crew members, and thus may themselves and Seabed Act 2004, was passed in 2011 in have been victims. Moreover, some of the parliament. The original act vested the ownership detained crew members claim to be children, of the public foreshore and seabed in the yet the processes used to determine their age are government, thereby extinguishing any Maori such that, to date, all are nonetheless held in customary title over that area, while private adult prisons. title over the foreshore and seabed remained unaffected. The act was strongly criticized as New Zealand being highly discriminatory against the Maori New Zealand’s general election, held in community, by both Maori themselves and November 2011, saw the incumbent Prime international actors, including the UN Special Minister, John Key of the National Party, retain Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, his position. The Maori Party won three seats, and the UN Committee on the Elimination of down two from the previous election, and has Racial Discrimination. The new bill purportedly formed a coalition government with the National restores the customary interests extinguished by Party. the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Yet in order to The Maori enjoy a relatively strong position obtain customary marine title under the new law, in society compared to other indigenous peoples a Maori group must prove that it has used and around the world, thanks to the Treaty of occupied the area claimed according to custom Waitangi. New Zealand also has a very sizeable (tikanga) without substantial interruption from minority population of Pacific Islanders, and 1840 to the present day, and to the exclusion of an Asian minority community. Both Maori and others, which is an extremely high threshold. p minority groups are often, however, in situations of economic and social disadvantage. A recent

State of the World’s Minorities Asia and Oceania 171 and Indigenous Peoples 2012