MCLC: Wukan demonstrators halt protetst

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Wukan demonstrators halt protest
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (12/21/11):
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/wukan-china-protesters-agree-t
o-halt-demonstrations.html

Demonstrators Who Took Over Chinese Village Halt Protest
By EDWARD WONG 

 WUKAN, China ‹ Villagers who had carried out a prominent protest against
what they called land seizures by officials and business people agreed on
Wednesday to halt their demonstrations after more than 10 days of keeping
Communist Party authorities out of their village. The protests ended after
a leader of the villagers met on Wednesday morning with senior officials
from coastal Guangdong Province in southern China.

The provincial officials agreed to the meeting after residents here
threatened to march on Wednesday to government offices in the nearby city
of Lufeng. In the meeting, which lasted for more than an hour outside
Wukan, two senior provincial officials spoke to Lin Zuluan, 65, one of the
villagers¹ main representatives. Mr. Lin said after the meeting that the
officials had agreed to three conditions set by the protesters, including
freeing several villagers who had been detained, though the issue of the
land sales remained unresolved.

³I was satisfied with how the meeting went,² Mr. Lin said. ³Now they¹ve
opened up a new channel of communication, and it will help to build a
closer relationship between the two sides.²

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Lin and other village leaders met to discuss
their options and decided to call off the public protests and to reopen
access to the village. It was unclear whether party officials who fled
earlier would return and resume their jobs.

After that conclave, the village leaders held a rally with more than 1,000
residents in a public square and told the audience about the new
agreement. When the villagers then dispersed, they took down protest
banners hanging up near the square.

The meeting was the first with province-level officials, and it contrasted
sharply with the denunciations and threats of arrest that have defined the
official response to the protests since the standoff began.

The negotiations were led by the deputy chief of the provincial Communist
Party committee, Zhu Mingguo, and the party secretary of the
administrative region of Shanwei, Zheng Yanxiong. Mr. Zhu is a top
lieutenant to the provincial party secretary, Wang Yang, one of China¹s
most prominent political leaders and an unspoken candidate for a spot on
China¹s ruling body, the standing committee of the Politburo, when
membership in the body, which now has nine seats, turns over next year.

The abrupt shift of negotiations to provincial leaders, after days of
fruitless talks with officials of local governments, suggested that Mr.
Wang was taking charge and hoping to broker a peaceful settlement of a
crisis whose outcome could weigh heavily on his political future.

In midmorning, as officials began arriving outside the village, hundreds
of residents lined the roadside. Dozens held up a red banner that welcomed
the officials ³to come to Lufeng to resolve the Wukan incident.²

Inside Wukan, in a council meeting hall, bags of rice were piled high in a
corner to dole out to poorer families. Since party officials abandoned the
area days ago, security forces have turned back many food trucks outside
the village. Some residents say the authorities intended to starve the
villagers until they submitted, yet they profess their devotion to the
Communist Party and speak of how the central government will soon come to
their aid.

On the main road connecting Lufeng to Wukan, there was no sign of a police
presence on Tuesday night. A police checkpoint that had been erected at
one bridge outside Lufeng several days ago was no longer there. But on the
outskirts of Wukan, villagers still manned barricades that are meant to
keep back security forces. When foreign journalists traveling from Lufeng
approached them near midnight, several villagers took the journalists into
the heart of Wukan on the backs of motorcycles.

Mr. Lin said the greatest concern of the villagers was their land: they
charge that the village government and Lufeng authorities illegally sold
the village¹s collectively owned farm and forest land to developers
without their consent, and that money from the sales is unaccounted for.
Mr. Lin said the issue would need to be discussed in further talks with
officials.

The anger of the last week involved a second but equally explosive issue:
the death of a 42-year-old villager, Xue Jinbo, who was among 12 people
chosen by villagers to negotiate a settlement to the land dispute.

Mr. Xue died after being abducted on Dec. 9 with four other men,
apparently at the behest of Lufeng police officials. The Lufeng police
said that Mr. Xue and the four others were arrested and charged with
protest-related crimes, but that Mr. Xue later died of a heart attack. A
report by the state-run Xinhua news service said Mr. Xue had become ill
after two days of interrogation in which he admitted to his crimes.

Mr. Xue¹s relatives, who were allowed to see but not photograph his body,
say it bore signs of torture, including caked blood, bruises and a broken
left thumb.

Mr. Lin said the officials agreed on Wednesday morning to release the
detainees that day or the next day and to turn over Mr. Xue¹s body soon.
The officials also promised an investigation into the death, he said.

The standoff between the village and outside authorities began when
protesters furious over word of Mr. Xue¹s death mobbed the headquarters of
Wukan¹s village committee. The last of the committee¹s nine members fled
after thousands of protesters beat back an effort by the local police to
retake the village.

The villagers ‹ once numbering 13,000, but now down to about 6,000, one
protester said ‹ have set up their own governing body and issued demands
that their land be returned and that a new village committee be
democratically elected.

Outside authorities responded by detaining two Wukan officials ‹ the
village Communist Party secretary, Xue Chang, and the head of the village
administrative committee, Chun Shunyi ‹ for interrogation by the party¹s
disciplinary officials. The action is tantamount to arrest.

Official statements also say that roughly 67 acres of village land, a tiny
fraction of the amount sold, has been recovered. The reports do not
indicate what was done with the property.

News of the Wukan protest has been all but banned from the Chinese media
and Internet sites. But there were indications that word of the dispute
was nevertheless spreading. Posts on Chinese microblog services reported
protests in three other villages in Shanwei Prefecture, which includes
Wukan, apparently over other land disputes. Three people were arrested
Sunday in Guangzhou, a Guangdong Province metropolis, after a protest in
sympathy with the Wukan villagers.

Another microblog post on Tuesday, with photographs, described a violent
clash between police officers and thousands of people in Haimen, a
township in Shantou, a major Pacific coast city about 90 miles from Wukan.
People in Wukan said Wednesday morning that Haimen¹s streets appeared
quiet, but the riot police were still out in force.

The Internet posts stated that the Shantou demonstrators, some of whom
were hospitalized, were protesting plans to build a power plant, fearing
that it would add to pollution and damage the local fishing industry.
Other microblog reports told of related protests in two nearby villages.

Shi Da contributed research.