[BITList] Chinese police try to starve land-grab protest town into silence | The Times

[Michael Feltham]

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Monday, December 12

Chinese police try to starve land-grab protest town into silence

Article Audio dispatch: Starved to silence
1 of 11
A Wukan resident pictured during the protest on a fellow protester's mobile phone
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A Wukan resident pictured during the protest on a fellow protester's mobile phone
Leo Lewis Beijing
Last updated December 12 2011 10:22AM
A town of 20,000 people in China is under siege by police and rapidly running low on food after months of protests against rapacious officials and the sudden death of a local butcher in police custody.
Residents of Wukan told The Times that a strong cordon of riot police had been thrown around the town, denying entry to people or goods from the outside after teargas was fired into the crowds during weekend demonstrations.
The already explosive mix in Wukan, which is near Shanwei city in Guangdong province in the far south of China, was intensified when officials tersely revealed that Xue Jinbo, a representative of the people involved in communicating their grievances to local authorities, had died from “cardiac failure” in the hands of police.
Mr Xue, who was identified – unreasonably, say residents – as one of five instigators of rioting in late September, was taken into custody in a police sweep at the end of last week.
Several Wukan residents reported that his family had been allowed to view his body at the Haifeng funeral parlour and had noted a range of injuries to his hands and body more consistent with prolonged torture and beating than a sudden heart attack.
One local resident, identifying himself online as Charles Suen, said that Mr Xue had no history of heart disease and was a “simple and honest man”. “He died three days after being taken away,” he wrote on his micro-blog. “He is the first person to be sacrificed in the Wukan incident. We want the truth, not some polite official formula.”
Local authorities fear a further upsurge of protest as Beijing battles to keep a lid on what some estimate are at least 180,000 “mass incidents” every year – many of them the direct consequence of booming but uneven economic growth.
Food and drinking water has not been allowed into Wukan for three days and pictures shot on mobile telephones suggest that many of the 20,000 villagers have crudely armed themselves with sticks and farm implements, declaring on micro-blogs that there is “no way back” after a weekend of bloody clashes with police.
Posting comments on China’s equivalent of Twitter and directly messaging The Times from inside the cordon, townspeople railed against the authorities both for their recent crackdown on Wukan and for the continuing outrage at the heart of the protests – massive seizures of farmland by what people see as a cabal of corrupt officials and property developers.
“Even people coming to send rice and wheat flour into the village have been chased away [by police],” said one, “but we will not give in to corrupt officials. We will protect our homes with our fists.”
The townspeople have already shown their willingness to do that, but also claim that they have been pressed to the limit by police and corrupt officials.
After the violent riots of September 21 they adopted more peaceful means to demand the immediate halt of illegal land seizures and the return of what had already been taken.
They marched in a peaceful demonstration in November under the banner “Opposing Dictatorship” and submitted petitions that were later declared illegal. Last week hundreds went to the local headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party to express their fury.
Fearing violent outbreaks, more than 1,000 riot police tried to enter the town on Sunday morning to continue a campaign of arrests. They were met by 5,000 residents – many of them elderly farmers – who were dispersed with over 50 canisters of teargas.
Although particularly vocal in their fury, the source of the Wukan villagers’ anger is common across China – shared grievances that Beijing is determined to prevent coalescing from the small local level.
Wukan’s position in China’s industrial heartland has made its farmland particularly attractive to developers eager to build factories, apartment blocks and other grand projects. Their money regularly finds eager takers among corrupt officials and indebted local governments keen to raise money by turfing farmers off their land and illegally selling the fields.
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FMLuder
December 12, 2011 11:38 AM
This is what happens when governments get the power they all ultimately crave...

Of course, if this happened in a weak, tin-pot Arab country with lots of oil you can just guess at what the reaction of our governments would be... as it stands though, China has rather too much of our money for even a ticking off. Remind me, just how "universal" are these universal human rights we keep being lectured on?
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PSF London
December 12, 2011 12:43 PM
...your solution is...?
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PSF London
December 12, 2011 12:47 PM
Human Rights are universal and we are not able to force people to accept them. We can only do what is within our power and sometimes that may coincide with our interests. Please develop your argument to address these concerns.
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Mr Vinay Mehra
December 12, 2011 11:31 AM
Which country will dare to impose trading sanctions on China? How about the newly formed alliance of 26 European nations? Surely, human rights have to be fought for.
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Special Dibble
December 12, 2011 2:12 PM
It'll be swept under the democracy carpet. Shhhhh keep quiet, if the Chinese stop selling us all our goods or stop buying out debt, only then will the west notice human rights abuses. Until then Liberty will concentrate on suing coppers for nicking criminals. YCMTU
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Matt Pryor
December 12, 2011 6:21 PM
Norway stopped selling fish to China because of human rights abuses. They now buy fish from Scotland who are less picky.
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Edward O'Brien
December 12, 2011 10:46 AM
Sorry for a rather puerile comment but I would have thought a town rather than a village would better describe this place. 

It is considerably more damning to be accused of starving a town, which implies many hundreds of inhabitants, as exists here, rather than a village which implies numbering but a few.
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Joseph Kellie
December 12, 2011 12:37 PM
In China it is a village as it is relatively small, just because we think a village should number few hundred inhabitants it does not follow the rest of the world does.

The point here is that corruption which is endemic is causing misery to local chinese and they have had enough.
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Edward O'Brien
December 12, 2011 2:39 PM
Thank you, Joseph. You did not note my opening comment, or perhaps you were in such a hurry you did not read it properly. That said, I note later editions have corrected the report and now call it a town.
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Paul Collins
December 12, 2011 10:27 AM
Who says Armageddon starts in the middle east !

Imagine a Chinese winter revolution
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Tintagel
December 12, 2011 1:11 PM
They've already had theirs.

Mao's Great Leap Forward resulted in the deaths of over 45 million.
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simon Ward-Hastelow
December 12, 2011 10:26 AM
This is the country financing the debts of the rest of the world so we are unable to speak up incase the loan markers are called in. Great system we have isn't it.
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Frank Meaden
December 12, 2011 11:42 AM
China cannot 'call in' these loans. Most have a fix date on them and will not be paid until that date is reached. They could however sell them on on the secondary market.
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Defender
December 12, 2011 2:45 PM
Frank, I think you're missing the point.

The point being, that it is simply appalling that we now find our once great country kowtowing to a repressive regime simply because the previous Labour Government wanted to buy votes.
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John Doy
December 12, 2011 7:58 PM
I've heard everything now.
The previous Labour government is responsible for the Chinese government starving a town?
Words fail me.
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colin farrelly
December 12, 2011 10:19 AM
To dangerous for the loud mouthed human rights commandos ensconced in their heated London offices, if LIBERTY want to shout about liberty and freedom go and help the truly oppressed.
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simon Ward-Hastelow
December 12, 2011 10:24 AM
Far easier to kick up a fuss about prisoners not having access to TV in the UK than real human rights abuses.
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JMS
December 12, 2011 10:29 AM
?????

This is an article about the oppression of unarmed Chinese villagers, the alleged killing in custody of a Chinese citizen and the attempt to starve 20,000 people; and you have a go at an organisation that attempts to stand up for human rights? What for?

When you read an article on child abuse do you have a go at the NSPCC?
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Liquidator
December 12, 2011 12:03 PM
The Chinese don't have the right skin colour or religion for the HR commandos to dirty their bayonets
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James Hinton
December 12, 2011 2:43 PM
And what are YOU doing about it?
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Ross Kernohan
December 12, 2011 4:50 PM
@JMS

Spot on. Absolutely spot on. These people would be the first to kick up a fuss if they thought their fundamental human rights were at stake (which happens much more often than any of us would like to know)
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