The UNPO General Assembly,

Reaffirming the Southern Mongolians’ right to self-determination, and right to control, own and manage their ancestral lands and territories and other natural resources;

Recalling China’s vote in support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and other relevant international human rights conventions;

Expressing concern on China’s hostile and discriminatory policies toward the Mongolian pastoralist way of life, culture, language, tradition and national identity;

Condemning China’s state-sponsored violence against Southern Mongolian herders, activists and their family members, as well as the total destruction of Southern Mongolia grassland ecosystem through state-sponsored extractive industries and intensive farming;

Noting that:

-       Thousands of Chinese mining companies including state-run Chang Qing, Shen Hua, Da Tang and private miners occupied local herders’ grazing lands, dump the hazardous industrial and chemical wastes on the grassland without any treatments

-       Once beautiful Mongolian grasslands are turned to deserts, causing sandstorm not only to engulf the entire region but also choking northern China, Korea, Japan and even the west coast of the United States;

-       Chinese state policy of resettling remaining nomads of 1.157 million people across China concluded in 2015;

-       Displaced herders became homeless, landless and jobless on their own ancestral lands;

-       As protests spread across Southern Mongolia, thousands of Mongolian peaceful protesters were met with violence crackdown by the paramilitary forces and the Chinese thugs hired by Chinese settlers, including unlawful arrest, detention, torture, imprisonment, and random killing of herders and their livestock.

-       At least 400 major protests, demonstrations, sit-ins, peaceful interventions, and violent clashes have been reported in the past three years. An estimated 5,000 Mongolian herders became the victims of violent crackdown and the government biased and discriminatory policies against the Mongolians.

Therefore, we, the UNPO General Assembly:

1. Urges the Chinese Government to immediately halt all forms of violence, brutality, and systematic persecution of Mongolian herders as well as destruction of ecosystem, eradication of traditional way of life in Southern Mongolia;

2. Calls upon the Chinese Government to respect the indigenous Southern Mongolians’ basic human rights and fundamental freedom;

3. Request the United Nations human rights bodies and other international human rights organizations to send a fact-finding mission to pressurize the Chinese government to put an end to these atrocities.

To take a look at the Southern Mongolia resolution, please click here.