China targets Mongolia in pre-Games crackdown

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By Ben Blanchard

HOHHOT, China (Reuters) - In China's pre-Olympics crackdownon dissent two communities have received considerable globalattention -- the Tibetans and the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang.

But dissidents and rights groups say the government istargeting another ethnic group as well, Mongolians, largely outof the eye of media and without attracting as muchinternational publicity.

Though China's northern region of Inner Mongolia has notexperienced the scale of protests and unrest that have hitXinjiang, and especially Tibet, the government has been quietlydetaining people accused of separatism and harassing activists.

"Recently the authorities have been getting increasinglyparanoid," Enhebatu Togochog of the New York-based SouthernMongolian Human Rights Information Centre told Reuters.

"They are confiscating whatever they think are weaponsincluding Mongolian knives which are sold in Mongolian storessolely as artwork," he added.

"Many Mongols travelling to Beijing have been treated ascriminal suspects and are not allowed to stay in hotels inBeijing."

In March, police arrested Naranbilig, who had campaignedagainst Han Chinese migration to Inner Mongolia, and placed himunder house arrest, Togochog said. Two weeks prior to thatanother dissident, Tsebegjab, was also put under house arrest.

'WHITE TERROR'

Xinna, the wife of Inner Mongolia's best-known jaileddissident, Hada, told Reuters police had intensifiedsurveillance on her and other activists in the run-up to theBeijing Olympics, which open on August 8.

"It's white terror," she said, sitting in a Mongolian teahouse in regional capital Hohhot. "There's a lot of fear.

Hada was tried behind closed doors in 1996 and jailed for15 years for separatism, spying and supporting the SouthernMongolian Democratic Alliance, which sought greater rights forethnic Mongolians. He says the charges were trumped up.

Amnesty International considers Hada a prisoner ofconscience and has expressed fears about his well-being.

Unlike the Tibetans, whose spiritual leader the Dalai Lamawon a Nobel Peace prize for his work to promote his people'scause, and Rebiya Kadeer, the so-called "mother of the Uighurpeople", China's Mongolians have no such champion.

"People know of the Dalai Lama, but who do we have? Nobodyknows about our problems," said Urasgaal, manager of aMongolian craft shop in Hohhot which he says has been targetedby police raids looking for supposedly subversive materials.

Inner Mongolia is supposed to have a high degree ofautonomy, but like Tibet and Xinjiang in the far west, Beijingkeeps a tight rein on the region, fearing ethnic unrest in thecountry's strategic border areas.

Decades of migration by the dominant Han have made ChineseMongolians a minority in their own land, officially comprisingless than 20 percent of the almost 24 million population ofInner Mongolia.

China's treatment of its ethnic minorities has leapt intothe limelight following anti-Chinese violence in Tibet in Marchand the pro-Tibet protests that have dogged the internationalleg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay.

Yet some Mongolians lament the lack of attention paid tothem. "It's as though we have been forgotten by the world,"said one soft-spoken Hohhot academic who asked not to beidentified.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road toBeijing" at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics ;and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china )