ULAANBAATAR — Thousands gathered in freezing
temperatures in Mongolia’s capital on Monday to protest alleged corruption in
the country’s coal industry and soaring inflation, an AFP journalist said.
اضافة اعلان
Protesters, many of them young people, rallied in
Ulaanbaatar’s central Sukhbaatar Square in -21°C, demanding “justice” against
corrupt officials and calling for the country’s parliament to be dismissed.
Two herders told AFP they had travelled to the capital
to join Monday’s protests.
Police urged the protesters to disperse by 9pm local
time.
Protesters are frustrated with the country’s ailing
economy, with inflation soaring to 15.2 percent in the wake of Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
But public outrage has also been stoked by claims by
whistleblowers that billions of dollars’ worth of coal have been stolen by a
so-called “coal faction” of lawmakers with ties to the industry.
In mid-November, Mongolia’s anti-corruption
authority announced that over 30 officials — including the CEO of the
state-owned coal mining company Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi — were under investigation
for embezzlement.
The firm controls
the Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi deposits, which contain 7.5 billion tonnes of coking
coal and represent a key component of Mongolia’s state budget revenue. It is
yet to comment on the allegations.
The implicated lawmakers are alleged to have
leveraged their ownership of coal mines and transportation companies that move
the fossil fuel across the border into China to make illegal profits.
“6.4 million tonnes coal is not registered by
Mongolian customs officials but recorded by Chinese customs, since 2013,”
Dorjhand Togmid, an MP, told a press conference at the parliament in November.
Whistleblowers have also alleged that corrupt
customs officials did not register coal-loaded trucks as importing goods, but
instead as regular passenger vehicles, when they crossed the border to China.
Mongolia sends 86 percent of its exports to
China,
with coal accounting for more than half the total, and is upgrading its
infrastructure in the hopes of selling even more to its southern neighbor.
Monday’s rally comes a day after several hundred
protesters gathered in the capital, the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar said.
Protesters then attempted to march on Ikh Tenger —
the official residence of the President and Prime Minister — “where they were
stopped by a police barricade,” it added.
The landlocked country, wedged between China and
Russia, has struggled with political instability since it became a democracy.
Its first constitution was passed in 1992 after decades of communist rule.
Incumbent President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa was forced to
resign as Prime Minister last year after protests and public outrage over the
treatment of a Covid-19 patient and her newborn baby.
He was then elected head of state with nearly 70
percent of the vote just months later.
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