Farmers' uprising led
to land-seizure concessions in China

Government backs preservation of fields, paddies

By Edward Cody
Washington Post
USA
Infosearch:
José Cadenas
Bureau Chief
USA
Research Dept.
La Nueva Cuba
July 3, 2006

SANZHOU, China -- For 24 hours, thousands of rampaging farmers unleashed their rage over confiscated farmland this month -- holding local officials hostage and, clubs and bottles of acid in hand, forcing a band of private security guards to spend the night cowering behind locked doors.

The riot in many ways resembled other uprisings in rural China in recent years. But this one ended with a twist: The villagers won significant concessions.

By dusk on June 14, the villagers had agreed to let everyone go home -- or to the hospital for treatment -- and officials had pledged a high-level review of 750 acres of rice paddies and fish ponds, property that had been confiscated by the village committee and resold for development in what the villagers said was a corrupt transaction.

Moreover, the villagers said, they were promised an explanation for how the 200 private guards, many with buzz cuts and tattoos typical of Chinese gangsters, came to be in Sanzhou protecting a multistory apartment complex built on a prime piece of the confiscated farmland.

The compromise did not settle the land conflict that has embittered this village-turned-suburb 25 miles south of Guangzhou, in the boundless expanse of factories that has blanketed the Pearl River Delta. But it stopped the violence after only a few serious injuries. More broadly, it dramatized the Chinese government's realization that farmers have a point when they complain that their land and their livelihoods are being unfairly swallowed up by relentless economic growth.

President Hu Jintao's government, in an indication of concern for the unrest among suddenly landless farmers, has launched a campaign to preserve the fields and paddies that feed China's 1.3 billion people. In addition, it has allocated $42.5 billion to improving the lives of the 700 million Chinese still attached to the land and filled official propaganda with stories of Communist Party cadres out in the countryside solving problems for grateful farmers.

Despite the two-day riot , the first signs have emerged that the campaign may be having an effect. Although party censorship makes information in China hard to assess, reports of violent protests in farming villages have declined sharply over the past six months, marking a significant shift from 2004-05, when clashes between farmers and police escalated dramatically. The Public Security Ministry reported 84,000 violent protests in 2005, more than 200 a day.

The government has also become increasingly frank about the corruption that often accompanies land seizures, outraging farmers and corroding their willingness to abide by official decisions.

Premier Wen Jiabao's Cabinet last week handed down an order -- the latest in a long line -- barring local officials from confiscating farmland without ministry approval and from using proceeds from sales of confiscated land to finance government institutions. Wen did not address the complaint voiced most often by farmers: that local officials pocket the difference between low compensation paid to peasants and the high market price charged to developers. But Sun said his ministry was putting together a new system to monitor seizures to prevent this and other abuses.