http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/international/asia/10china.html
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: December 10, 2005
SHANGHAI, Dec. 9 - Residents of a fishing village near Hong Kong said
Friday that as many as 20 people were killed by the paramilitary police
this week, in an unusually violent clash that marked an escalation in
the widespread social protests roiling the Chinese countryside. Villagers
said as many as 50 other residents remained unaccounted for since the
shootings on Tuesday.
It was the largest known use of force by security personnel against
citizens since the killings around Tian安men Square in 1989. That death
toll is still unknown, but is estimated to have been in the hundreds.
The violence near Hong Kong began after dark on Tuesday evening in the
town of Dongzhou, when the police opened fire on crowds to put down a
demonstration over plans for a power plant. Terrified residents said
their hamlet has been occupied since then by thousands of security
officers, who have blocked off all access roads and were arresting
residents who have tried to leave the area in the wake of the heavily
armed assault.
"From about 7 p.m. the police started firing tear gas into the crowd,
but this failed to scare people," said a resident who gave his name
only as Li and claimed to have been at the scene, where, he said, a
relative had been killed.
"Later, we heard more than 10 explosions, and thought they were just
detonators, so nobody was scared," Li said. "At about 8 p.m. they
started using guns, shooting bullets into the ground, but not really
targeting anybody. Finally, at about 10 p.m. they started killing people."
The use of live ammunition to put down a protest is almost unheard of
in China, where the authorities have come to rely on the rapid deployment
of huge security forces, tear gas, water cannons and other nonlethal
measures. But the Chinese authorities have become increasingly nervous
in recent months over the proliferation of demonstrations across the
countryside, particularly in heavily industrialized eastern provinces
like Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong, where Dongzhou is situated.
By the government's own tally, there were 74,000 riots or other
significant public disturbances in 2004 alone, a big jump from previous
years.
The Chinese government has not issued a statement about the events in
Dongzhou, nor has it been reported in the state news media. Reached by
telephone, an official in the city of Shanwei, which has jurisdiction
over the village, said, "Yes, there was an incident, but we don't know
the details." The official, who declined to give his name, said a
government announcement would be made Saturday.
In telephone interviews with more than a dozen villagers in Dongzhou,
all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, a
detailed account of the conflict emerged. Residents said their dispute
with the authorities had begun with a power company's plans to build a
coal-fired generator nearby, which they feared would cause heavy
pollution. Farmers said they had not been compensated for the use of
their land for the plant.
Others said plans to fill in a local bay as part of the power plant
project were unacceptable because people have made their livelihoods there
as fishermen for generations. Already, villagers complained, work crews
have been blasting a nearby mountainside for rubble to use in the landfill.
A small group of villagers was chosen to complain to the authorities about
the plant in August, but the members were arrested, infuriating residents
and leading others to join the protests. The police made more arrests on
Tuesday while villagers were staging a sit-in. In response, many people
came out into the streets, where they obstructed several officers.
Hundreds of law enforcement officers were rushed in. "Everybody, young and
old, went out to watch," said one man who said his cousin had been fatally
shot in the forehead by the police during the protest. "We didn't expect
they were so evil. The farmers had no means to resist them."
The earliest accounts coming from the village said the police had opened
fire only after villagers began throwing homemade bombs and other missiles.
But villagers reached by telephone on Friday denied those accounts, saying
that a few farmers had launched ordinary fireworks at the police as part of
their protest.
"Those were not bombs, they were fireworks, the kind that fly up into the
sky," one witness said. "The organizers didn't have any money, so someone
bought fireworks and placed them there. At the moment the trouble started,
many of the demonstrators were holding them, and of those who held fireworks,
almost everyone was killed."
Other witnesses estimated that 10 people were killed in the first volley of
automatic gunfire. "I live not far from the scene, and I was running as fast
as I could," a witness said. "I dragged one of the people they killed, a man
in his 30's who was shot in his chest. Initially I thought he might survive,
because he was still breathing, but he was panting heavily, and as soon as I
pulled him aside, he died."
That witness said that he, too, had come under fire when police officers saw
him going to the aid of the dying man. Villagers said that in addition to the
regular security forces, the authorities had enlisted thugs from local
organized crime groups to help put down the demonstration. "They had knives
and sticks in their hands, and they were two or three layers thick, lining
the road," one man said. "They stood in front of the armed police, and when
the tear gas was launched, the thugs were all ducking."
Like the Dongzhou episode itself, most of the thousands of riots and public
disturbances recorded in China this year have involved environmental,
property rights and land-use issues. Among other problems the Chinese
government has in trying to come to grips with the growing rural unrest, it
is wrestling with a yawning gap in incomes between farmers and urban dwellers,
as well as rampant corruption in local government, where officials make
deals with developers involving communal property rights, often for their
own profit.
Finally, cellphones have made it easier for people in rural China to
organize, communicating news to one another by text messages, and
increasingly allowing them to stay in touch with members of nongovernmental
organizations in big cities who have been eager to advise them or to provide
legal help.
Over the last three days, residents of the village said, few people dared to
go outside, other than to look for missing relatives. The police and other
security forces, meanwhile, combed the village house by house, residents
said, looking for leaders of the demonstration and making arrests.
Residents said that after the demonstration was suppressed, a senior
Communist Party official went to the hamlet from nearby Shanwei and
addressed residents with a megaphone. "Shanwei and Dongzhou are still good
friends," a villager recalled that the party official said. "We're not here
against you. We are here to make the construction of the Red Sea Bay
better." Later, the official told visitors, "all of the families who have
people who died must send a representative to the police for a solution."
On Friday, about 100 bereaved villagers gathered at a bridge leading into
the town, briefly blocking access to security forces. The villagers hoisted
a white banner whose black-ink characters read: "The dead suffered a wrong.
Uphold justice."
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（十）問：中共對「自由民主的新中國」的概念及界說為何？
答：「自由民主的中國」將是這樣一個國家，它的各級政府直至中央政府都由普通平
等無記名的選舉所產生，並向選舉它們的人民負責。它將實現孫中山先生的三民主義，林
肯的民有民治民享的原則與羅斯福的四大自由。它將保證國家的獨立、團結、統一及與各
民主強國的合作。-------毛澤東 對英記者甘貝爾十二項問題之答復(1945.9.27)
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