China Exclusive: China to install county gov't in former Tibetan wasteland
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E-mail Xinhua, January 25, 2013
Tibetans living in Shuanghu, a bleak area in northern part of Tibet Autonomous Region, will find their hometown upgraded to become the world's highest county.
The news was announced by the regional government chairman Padma Choling while he delivered a government work report at the yearly session of the region's legislature which opened Thursday.
The long-awaited news has cheered residents who wish to turn the previously untraversed land into a liveable home.
Padma, 71, head of the village of Gasor in Shuanghu and one of the first generation of Tibetans to ventured into the region in 1976, said he feels that his lifelong dream will come true.
"It took us a year to migrate on foot from nearby Shantsa county to the wasteland and settle down. Over the past decades, we've built our home here from nothing," he said.
With an average altitude of 5,000 meters and an average temperature of minus 13 degrees Celsius, the 116,000-sq km region, which is currently under the jurisdiction of Nagqu prefecture, has extremely thin air and adverse weather, making it all but habitable for most.
Before the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, only destitute herdsmen chanced entering the area to escape the harsh duties imposed by feudal authorities, according to Lozang Tenzin, who pioneered a regional development drive in 1974 as the chief of Shantsa county.
"Old-generation Tibetans believe no one can survive in this land. Still, we took a chance on the place for the sake of subsistence," he said.
Following a two-year survey by an 18-person work team headed by Lozang Tenzin, the Shantsa county government decided in 1976 to send 5,000 herdsmen, together with half a million livestock, into the untraversed region to ease the problem of overgrazing in Shantsa's grasslands.
"We were desperate to explore new pastures to avoid starvation, as stockbreeding was the only thing we lived for at that time," said Lozang Tenzin.
In the earlier days, when herdsmen struggled to settle down in tents, the Shuanghu office was established at a local campground as a branch of the Shantsa county government.
It wasn't until August 1993 that the office was upgraded to a special administrative district, the only of its kind in Tibet.
Unlike the region's 71 other counties, the district, which comprises seven villages with a total population of more than 12,000, now has an incomplete administrative system.
Although it has its own county Communist Party of China (CPC) committee and county government, the district has no legislature, political advisory body, environmental protection bureau, judicial organ or fire department.
All related affairs have been managed by departments in nearby Nyima county, according to Namphe, head of Shuanghu's CPC committee.
Given that the State Council, or China's cabinet, has approved a county-level upgrade for the district, Namphe said local residents can install their own legislature and political advisory body to exercise more close supervision of the government and to better reflect the will of the people.
Local residents will no longer have to trek 300 km to Nyima to solve civil lawsuits after courts and procuratorates in Shuanghu obtain judicial power, Namphe said.
Currently, local courts and procuratorates function merely as agencies of judicial organs in Nyima County.
"If Shuanghu became a full-functioning county, we would no longer be at a disadvantage in securing fiscal input from the central government for the construction of infrastructure," Namphe said.
"Local residents would have access to tap water and asphalt roads and no longer face power shortages," he said.
It will probably take half a year to build up the necessary administrative arms, he said. Endi
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