| I heard that China OKs personal property seizures.
Armed Thugs Assault Villagers Opposed to Seizure of Property: Hundreds of men armed with shotguns, clubs and pipes on June 11 attacked a group of farmers who were resisting official demands to surrender land to a state-owned power plant, witnesses said. Six farmers were killed and as many as 100 others were seriously injured in one of China's deadliest incidents of rural unrest in years. The farmers, who had pitched tents and dug foxholes and trenches on the disputed land to prevent the authorities from seizing it, said they suspected the assailants were hired by corrupt local officials. They said scores of villagers were beaten or stabbed and several were shot in the back while fleeing. Reached by telephone, a spokesman for the provincial government said he could not confirm or discuss the incident. "So far, we've been ordered not to issue any information about it," he said. Large contingents of police have been posted around Shengyou, about 100 miles southwest of Beijing, but bruised and bandaged residents smuggled a reporter into the village Monday and led him to a vast field littered with abandoned weapons, spent shell casings and bloody rags. They also provided footage of the melee made with a digital video camera. Despite the attack, the farmers remained defiant and in control of the disputed land. They also occupied the local headquarters of the ruling Communist Party, where they placed the bodies of six of their slain compatriots. A crowd of emotional mourners filled the courtyard outside; hanging over the front gate was a white flag with a word scrawled in black ink: "Injustice." Residents said party officials abandoned the building and fled town, apparently because they feared they would be blamed for the killings. "We want to know who gave the orders, who sent them to attack us," said Niu Zhanzong, 50, a bald, wiry farmer who made a video of part of the battle before men knocked him down, smashed his camera and broke his arm. "We hope the central government will come and investigate. We believe in party central, but we don't believe in the local police." The seizure of farmland by local officials to build roads, dams, factories and other projects, often for personal profit, has emerged as an increasingly volatile issue in the Chinese countryside, where the government owns all land and gives farmers only long-term leases. Peasants often complain they are unfairly compensated when officials confiscate their plots, and have staged hundreds of protests over the issue in recent years. The incident in Shengyou, a wheat- and peanut-farming village in central Hebei province, was unusual because the men sent to suppress the peasants appeared to be hired thugs rather than police, and because the conflict resulted in so many casualties. Residents said the men arrived in six white buses before dawn, most of them wearing hard hats and combat fatigues, and they struck without warning, repeatedly shouting "Kill!" and "Attack!" Police failed to respond to calls for help until nearly six hours later, residents said, long after the assailants had departed. Access to firearms is strictly regulated in China, but villagers said the men fired on them with hunting shotguns and flare guns. They also wielded metal pipes fitted with sharp hooks on the end. Because of the preparation, residents suggested the men might have ties to organized crime groups working with local officials. The attack was first reported Monday in the Beijing News, a state-run tabloid known for testing party censors. The paper said one of the assailants died in the clash, and reported that authorities have already dismissed the party chief and mayor of the nearby city of Dingzhou, which governs Shengyou. Officials in Dingzhou declined to answer questions, and managers of the Hebei Guohua Dingzhou Power Plant did not return phone calls. ........ http://www.progress.org/2005/emdom07.htm |
When the House Prices Goes Down