MCLC: protest leader becomes Wukan party boss

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: protest leader becomes Wukan party boss
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Source: NYT 
(1/16/12):http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/asia/protest-leader-becom
es-party-boss-in-chinese-village-that-rebelled.html

Protest Leader Becomes Party Boss in Chinese Village That Rebelled
By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING ‹ In an unlikely coda to the citizen takeover last month of the
southern Chinese village of Wukan, the local Communist Party has selected
the leader of the protest to be the village¹s new party secretary.

Addressing the grievances that led the villagers to seize power in the
first place ‹ a land-sale dispute and the suspicious death of one protest
leader ‹ appears to be another matter altogether.

The new party secretary is Lin Zuluan, a 67-year-old retired businessman
whom local party members chose in an election on Sunday. Mr. Lin heads an
ad hoc committee that has run the village since Dec. 11, when town leaders
began to flee rather than confront thousands of enraged residents.

In the succeeding 10 days, as the police ringed Wukan in seeming
preparation to retake it, the committee stage-managed a succession of
colorful protests that drew worldwide attention to their cause.

Leaders of Guangdong Province, where the village is, finally dispatched a
senior official to promise an inquiry into the residents¹ grievances,
ending the standoff without bloodshed ‹ and seemingly certifying the
villagers as victorious over city hall.

In the more than three weeks since then, Guangdong officials have promised
to return roughly one-fourth of the 1,700 hectares, or 6.8 square miles,
of village land that residents claim was illegally sold or leased in
long-term contracts by Wukan¹s previous leaders, one of Mr. Lin¹s
deputies, Yang Semao, said by telephone on Monday.

³I think they sold far more² than the province intends to return, he said.
³But I have no way to determine this.²

The villagers¹ two other demands remain unaddressed. The authorities in
the city of Lufeng, which encompasses Wukan, so far have refused to drop
criminal charges against three men who were abducted and jailed on
protest-related charges days before the villagers¹ uprising.

Most serious, neither they nor others have investigated the death of a
fourth man, 42-year-old Xue Jinbo, who was seized with two of the others
and who died while in police custody. Mr. Xue was a member of Mr. Lin¹s ad
hoc committee, which was pressing Wukan residents¹ land claims before the
protests began on Dec. 11.

Lufeng police officials say Mr. Xue died of a heart attack. Relatives who
briefly saw his body say it bore signs of abuse, including caked blood,
bruises and a broken finger.

The Lufeng authorities have refused to release Mr. Xue¹s body to relatives
until they sign documents assenting that the death was due to natural
causes, his daughter, Xue Jianwan, said in an interview on Monday. She
said the authorities also had offered the family money as compensation for
Mr. Xue¹s death.

³This is totally unacceptable. My father didn¹t die from any illness,² she
said. ³If we take this, that would mean that my dad died naturally and the
officials won¹t be held accountable.²

The family is seeking to view tape from a jailhouse surveillance camera
that may have monitored Mr. Xue¹s cell, she said, but Lufeng officials
have refused to release it.

One of two Wukan men who were seized with Mr. Xue, Zhang Jiancheng, said
on Monday that he had been locked in a jail cell not far from cell number
24, where Mr. Xue was kept. Both men were interrogated for 30 hours, he
said, adding that while officers verbally abused and threatened him, they
did not beat him.

Mr. Zhang said he could hear someone ³crying out in pain² from Mr. Xue¹s
cell, but that he could not see whether it was Mr. Xue or some other
prisoner who shared the cell.

³On the second day at 11 a.m., I saw three prisoners and a cell guard who
carried out Xue Jinbo¹s body,² he said. ³I called his name out, and there
was no response. I have heard from two of the prisoners who said his body
was already cold. Others say it was very bruised.²

Neither Lufeng nor provincial investigators have sought his account, he
said. Like Mr. Xue¹s daughter, he also said that the authorities had
refused to release footage from a jailhouse surveillance camera that the
family believes may have monitored Mr. Xue.

Wukan residents have also reported what they call a second protest-related
death in the village, that of a 69-year-old man who killed himself on Dec.
28 after receiving a series of threatening calls from the local
authorities.

The man, a relative of the new party secretary, Lin Zuluan, ³just became
very scared² after receiving the calls, which urged him to turn himself in
if he had been involved in the protests, his wife told The Singapore
Straits-Times.

Family members told the newspaper that they had received as many as seven
calls a day after the protests ended on Dec. 21. But Mr. Yang, the deputy
to Lin Zuluan, said that while such threatening calls were common during
the protests, they had ceased once they ended.