China: Riot Against Land Acquisition in Guangxi

On 13 of October, a riot broke out in Longxu town in Guangxi province. Around one thousand villagers confronted armed police against forced land acquisition. Citizen reports on the riot were originally posted at local online forums within Guangxi, but quickly deleted by web censor authorities. In order to spread the news, blogger lovol888888 compiles informations from different sources and reposts them at blog.163.com.

今日广西梧州市苍梧县龙圩镇尤如阿富汗,见到几部警车被打翻,上千村民和几百武警打交,几十老混用上了汽油弹,大棍,火砖来打警察,他们是以林水和坡尾为主,但是对征地不服的周围村,古凤,念村,恩义的村前来支持,共有上千人…

Today Longxu town at Cangwu county in Guangxi province was like Afghanistan. A number of police cars were turned up-side-down. Around a thousand villagers were fighting with hundreds of armed police officers. Tens of the locals battled with the police with homemade gasoline bombs, bricks and rods. They mainly came from Limshui and Powei villages. Many others from nearby villages, such as Gufeng, Niancun and Enyi came to support. There were around a thousand people…

农民跟警察和武警打起来,一警察眼球被打出,一警察被打倒头破血流,苍梧全部的警察被赶到新地路口,警犬被敲死2只,后来调动梧州市武警(8个东风车武警),岑溪也调了5个东风车武警过来支缓,引起几千人来围观场面非常激烈,也很热闹,最后警方放了两次推泪弹驱逐才驱散这几千人!

During the fight, one police officer's eyeball was smashed, another one had a head injury. All the police officers from Cangwu county were blocked at the intersection of Xindi Road. Two police dogs were beaten to death. Later, 8 military carriages of armed police from Wuzhou city were mobilized to the spot and later 5 other military carriages of armed police from Cenxi also joined in. The move had attracted thousands of onlookers and eventually the police had to use tear gas to clear the scene.

According to a follow up report at nddaily, the local government officials said the villagers tried to stop a irrigation project:

官方消息将此次事件定性为“梧州市苍梧县村民阻挠自治区级重点工程长洲水利枢纽三、四线船闸施工事件”,但村民在接受南都记者采访时表示,引发冲突的土地项目并不是长洲水利船闸工程,而是当地政府主导的沧海湖人工湖项目。

Official government sources said that “villagers from Cangwu county Wuzhou city were trying to stop a major irrigation system construction project in Changzhou”. But the villagers defended that what they intended to stop was the government-led Canghai artificial lake project, not the Changzhou irrigation system.

According to the information provided by lovol888888, the local government has been using public interest as the excuse to rob villagers’ land. Eventually, all the public constructions would turn into property development projects.

现在我村土地就是下小河9分水田了,其它全部卖完了,,卖完地加起身地钱就连一套房都买某起啊,,。你有某了解过??还有以后生活呢??请问,我在苍梧二十几年了见证了政府的蒙骗,,全是房地产,林水是最好的见证了,龙湖、祥龙、广场的地,连回建地都没有的,还有!还有都坎村征地全都是以政府名义去征,我见证了我的土地全是政府蒙骗,我对政府没有太大的信心,对政府的愤怒,抱怨。…

At present, my village only have 9 pieces of water rice field nearby the lower stream of the river. All have been sold away… what we had got from the compensation was not even enough to buy an apartment… Have you ever tried to understand the situation?? How can we make a living in the future?? For the past 20 yeas in Cangwu county, I have witnessed how the government cheated the people… Now what we have here is all about property market. Limshui is the best example. The government did not even preserve land for relocation in Longwu, Xianglong and Guangchang. In Kan Village, all the lands were acquired in the name of public interest. The government cheated away our land and now I have little confidence but a lot of anger and resentment.

…我们村征地大多是在繁华工路两边,有的贪腐就想尽办法要我们的地,举列,十二年前征地建二中学校前二年就建成了交警大楼和酒店房地产变更土地使用权。最近2008年征南广铁路梧州南站,本来车站征地是500亩的,根本不到我们村的地,可能因为在车站旁边,现全部要征完我们村的1000亩山田,都是以政府名义征地说建车站,政府蒙骗我们是什么目的?里面是不是有贪腐在里面我就不而而知了,1000亩的山田补尝款只有2000万,田17000一亩,山9000多一亩,请问是不是很少?里面是不是有不可告人的东西?再是《两年》了还没有动工而是把田到处勾勾也种不了,请问是不是政府在圈地??还有林水的地要搞龙湖现变成了房地产因为地的问题全村还打架过,游行过,就是因为有了龙湖的房地产搞得上游的下小河年年几千亩水田比水淹,秋季都种不了,现还以下小河年年给水淹说要征地搞沧海湖,我想最后还是房地产吧。害的是我们农民啊,请问政府可不可以给我们入股分红的形式去做?这样农民以后的生活就有保障了。

…Our lands are located at both sides of the highway. The corrupted officials used all pretexts to rob our lands. For example, 12 years ago, they acquired land to build secondary school; 2 years before that the land acquired was for the traffic police's building and a hotel. In 2008, they acquired land for the southern station of Wuzhou railway line. At first, they only needed 500 mu (translator note: 1 mu is equal to 666.6 square meter) of land, however, since our lands were next to the station, they acquired all 1000 mu and the total compensation was only RMB20 millions. Which means RMB17 thousands for cultivated land per mu and RMB9 thousands for hilly land per mu. The amount is really small, right? After they acquired the land, there hasn't been any construction project taking place. Isn't that siege of land in the name of government? Moreover, at first the land at Limshui was for the construction of an artificial lake, then it turned into a property development project. The development had resulted in flooding at the lower stream of the river which led to a series of protests and fights. Our suffering is all about property development. Why doesn't the government give us our share in all these development projects and safeguard our lives?

The article only managed to stay online for one day, and was taken offline in the afternoon of October 15. (A backup of the article can be found here). However, it had been viewed more than 30 thousand times with more than 250 comments, most of which condemned the local government.

Poor Chinese people reports the situation back home:

我老家更黑,就是河北乐亭县王滩镇曹庄村,乡下的土地被政府卖掉建工厂,每人每年才给1000元,有人上访,立马给抓起来,被监视。好不容易民主选出个村长,被殴打反遭诬陷,关进监狱,还没出来呢,大家都怕得很。为什么会下面这么黑??政府这样下去能长久吗?历史明鉴!!!!!

The situation in my homeland at Caozhuangcun at Leiting county, Hebei province is even worse. All the lands were sold out by the government to build factories. Every year, each villager only get RMB1000 as compensation. Some decided to organize visit petition but they were arrested and monitored. Finally, they managed to elect their own village head, but the person was set up and jailed. Everyone is very scared now. Why all the local governments become so corrupted? How can they rule like this? The history will do the justice!!!

000wwxx wants an eye for an eye:

像那些狗娘养的贪官警察走狗还有奸商之类的,,搞死几个给他们看看,,他们就知道老百姓不是省油的灯啦,,,强顶,,,大干一场,往死里干,,,老百姓加油

Kill some corrupted bastard officials, police, running dogs and ill hearted businessmen, let them know that ordinary people could not be bullied like that. Support! Make it big and be prepared to die for it. People add oil!.

tmdzf is also very resentful towards the government:

政府的枪是对中国百姓的
不是对日本人的
不是我们不爱国,是国家不爱我们

The government points its gun towards Chinese people
Not the Japanese
Not that we don't love the country, the country does not love us.

Brother Hao (浩哥)echoes:

百姓长期压抑,社会贫富不均,强权搜刮民财,大众痛不欲生!——这样的社会,不看也罢!

Ordinary people have been repressed for so long. Rich and poor divided in our society. The powerful robs ordinary people's wealth. The mass is living in pain! — It is so disgusting to even look at such kind of society!

g points out that every one is a victim in this society, even the police:

现在的兵也是傻,在镇压别人的同时,家乡的父母也在被镇压着呢。

Police officers are stupid. While they are repressing people here, back home, their parents are being repressed by their own kind.

Li Shuangde (李双德) exclaims:

监狱里又要关进一大批失地农民了………

A large number of rural villagers who had lost their land would be put into the prison….

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