Protesters’ Deaths Leads to Demonstrations by Mongolians
Ethnic Mongolians seething over the killings of two Mongolians by Han Chinese drivers took their anger to the streets of this capital of Inner Mongolia on Monday in a rare expression of antigovernment sentiment here. The protests, which drew more than 100 people to the center of Hohhot and led to a series of detentions, followed a week of similar demonstrations across this vast borderland that have rattled the authorities.
The rally took place on the day that Chinese officials announced they would file murder charges against a forklift driver accused of striking and killing Yan Wenlong, who was among 20 people protesting a coal mine near Xilinhot on May 15. The deaths of Mr. Yan and of another activist killed by a truck driver five days earlier have galvanized anger over the destruction of the Mongolian grasslands and stoked long-simmering resentment over Beijing’s governance of this resource-rich region. On Sunday, the state-run news media reported that Inner Mongolia’s Communist Party secretary, Hu Chunhua, had met with students and teachers and promised justice in the killing of the other activist, named Mergen, a herder whose body was reported to have been dragged nearly 500 feet. Two Han Chinese have been arrested in connection with the death.
Until now, the authorities have met the protests with a heavy-handed police response and highly publicized efforts to appease ethnic Mongolians, who make up less than 20 percent of the region’s population of 24 million and have long complained that migration of Han Chinese is diluting their language and culture. The acknowledgment of the anger, coupled with the large deployment of soldiers and police officers, suggested that the authorities were intent on avoiding the ethnic mayhem that struck other areas of China where indigenous groups, notably Tibetans in Tibet and Uighurs in Xinjiang, have bridled under the influx of Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group. Until now, protests among Mongolians have been unusual.