August 2000
On July 7th, 2000, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors, in a highly unusual move, rejected Bank Management’s support of the China Western Poverty Reduction Project, which centered on the resettlement of 58,000 Chinese farmers into an area that is traditionally part of Tibet. The Board decision to reject Management’s recommendation, which had been promoted by President Wolfensohn and the East Asia and Pacific Region of the Bank, forced the Chinese government to withdraw the project from consideration. China proclaims that it will continue with the ill-fated project utilizing its own funds. However, the decision means that the project will not enjoy the international seal of approval that China had been seeking from the development institution.
The decision comes on the heels of a scathing report from the independent World Bank Inspection Panel, which found that the World Bank had violated all of its most important social and environmental policies in the design of the project. The Inspection Panel process had been triggered by a claim filed by the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), acting in response to letters smuggled out of the project region by affected Tibetans who feared that the project would amount to nothing less than a “death sentence” for them.
The Center for International Environmental Law and the Bank Information Center [link to BIC] provided support to ICT and the Tibetan community. CIEL has been actively involved in organizing the campaign to fight this project since news of the project first broke in April,1999.