Police clash with protesters in China in land dispute

26th Jan­u­ary 2010
Author­i­ties in the south­west­ern Chi­nese region of Guangxi have sealed off a vil­lage and ordered a news black­out fol­low­ing vio­lent clash­es between local res­i­dents and police in a land dis­pute.

“The vil­lagers put up some reports about what hap­pened on the Inter­net, but they were tak­en down by the author­i­ties very quick­ly,” said a res­i­dent of Ton­gle town­ship near the scenic tourist city of Guilin.

“Right now the author­i­ties have total­ly sealed off the area. The vil­lagers are using text mes­sag­ing to exchange news,” said Zhang, adding that he had been warned by oth­er vil­lagers that the police were still detain­ing peo­ple.

Zhang said riot police fired tear gas and used elec­tric shock batons on elder­ly pro­test­ers try­ing to pre­vent the takeover of their farm­land for devel­op­ment.

“Things got very seri­ous at the scene,” he said. “The peo­ple try­ing to pro­tect the land were all elder­ly, women, and chil­dren. How could they resist?”

“They were attacked by the riot police first, and a lot of those injured were then tak­en away by police.”

Pho­tos post­ed online of the clash­es showed crowds of peo­ple, many of them elder­ly, some of whom had sus­tained injuries to their arms and legs. Some showed peo­ple ban­daged, and still bleed­ing from head injuries.

‘Han­dled accord­ing to law’

An employ­ee who answered the phone at the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment, which over­sees Ton­gle vil­lage, said the author­i­ties had already issued the legal­ly required amount of com­pen­sa­tion to the vil­lagers.

“Our lead­ers here have already dealt with this sit­u­a­tion,” the employ­ee said. “Every­thing we did went through the munic­i­pal lev­el author­i­ties for approval, and the entire affair was han­dled accord­ing to law.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pol­i­tics and law com­mit­tee con­firmed the clash­es had tak­en place as part of a land dis­pute.

“There was a land dis­pute there. But I haven’t got time to explain the details to you.”

An offi­cial who answered the phone at the Guilin munic­i­pal pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment declined to com­ment on the inci­dent.

How­ev­er, an offi­cer at the Ton­gle vil­lage police sta­tion said: “We are cur­rent­ly deal­ing with this issue. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to the [coun­ty lev­el] pub­lic secu­ri­ty depart­ment.”

Cut off

Local res­i­dents said around 700 riot police were dis­patched to the vil­lage, and that the com­mu­ni­ty was still cut off from the out­side world.

An engi­neer sur­named Li at the Ton­gle Vil­lage Trans­former Sta­tion said police had sealed off sev­er­al entrances to the vil­lage, and blocked roads in the area.

“Right now, vehi­cles from out­side can’t get into Ton­gle vil­lage. The roads have all been sealed off by the author­i­ties,” Li said.

“They have blocked the exit for the vil­lage on the Cha­jiang Bridge high­way.”

The dis­pute flared after vil­lagers saw offi­cials begin to move in to begin work last Tues­day on a plot of around 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of land in the vil­lage, which was req­ui­si­tioned more than two years ago by the Pin­gle coun­ty gov­ern­ment for rede­vel­op­ment.

Local res­i­dents were angry because the author­i­ties had sold the land for 10 times the amount of the com­pen­sa­tion doled out to vil­lagers, and because they have been promised 20,000–30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,394) per mu but have yet to receive it.

An open let­ter post­ed online by vil­lagers cit­ed guide­lines issued by the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, which “states clear­ly that it is not per­mit­ted to take pos­ses­sion of the land before the com­pen­sa­tion has been paid.”

Rur­al com­mu­ni­ties ‘dis­em­pow­ered’

Yao Lifa, a civ­il rights activist from the cen­tral province of Hubei, said such land dis­putes involv­ing vio­lence between police and local res­i­dents are increas­ing­ly com­mon.

“Chi­na rur­al com­mu­ni­ties have been a dis­em­pow­ered seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion all through the past 60 years of Com­mu­nist Par­ty rule in Chi­na,” Yao said.

He cit­ed com­ments made pub­licly by cab­i­net-lev­el offi­cial Cheng Xiwen, who said that around 80 per­cent of land dis­putes across Chi­na were the result of ille­gal actions by gov­ern­ment offi­cials.

“The peo­ple have no pow­er to over­see the gov­ern­ment,” Yao said.

“Offi­cial and com­mer­cial inter­ests nowa­days are the same thing, com­bin­ing forces in an alliance which has a huge amount of pow­er.”

“There is no evil that they will not stoop to.”

He called on cen­tral gov­ern­ment offi­cials to take note of events in Guilin and help pro­tect the vil­lagers’ rights and inter­ests.

Land dis­putes have spread across Chi­na in recent years, with local peo­ple often com­plain­ing that they receive only min­i­mal com­pen­sa­tion when the gov­ern­ment sells tracts to devel­op­ers in lucra­tive prop­er­ty deals.

Attempts to occu­py dis­put­ed land fre­quent­ly result in vio­lent clash­es, as police and armed gangs are brought in to enforce the will of local offi­cials.