[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

DAM-L TGP protesters beaten, other 3 Gorges news from Probe International

----- Forwarded message from ProbeInternational -----

From ProbeInternational@nextcity.com  Mon Jan 15 14:29:27 2001
Return-Path: <ProbeInternational@nextcity.com>
Received: from www.nextcity.com (www.nextcity.com [206.186.92.10])
	by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA29023
	for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:29:25 -0500 (EST)
Received: from nextcity.com ([206.186.92.151]) by www.nextcity.com
          (Netscape Mail Server v1.1) with ESMTP id AAA188;
          Fri, 15 Jan 1999 14:27:02 -0500
Message-ID: <3A634DFD.ABEE0772@nextcity.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 14:22:37 -0500
From: ProbeInternational@nextcity.com (ProbeInternational)
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: ProbeInternational <ProbeInternational@nextcity.com>
Subject: Three Gorges Probe: January 15, 2001

THREE GORGES PROBE
January 15, 2001

Three Gorges dam protesters beaten, town held under guard

A central China settlement was put under official guard for
months after villagers protested the destruction of their homes, as
part of a local government plan to rebuild the area to
accommodate Three Gorges dam migrants.

During the August, 2000 protest, 19 residents living in a
Shuanghe Village settlement area in Kaixian County known as
Group 8*, were seriously injured by soldiers called in by local
officials to control the situation; 28 villagers were also detained -
four of whom remained in custody. Since the protest, to ensure
word of the villagers' plight does not get out, police now screen
everyone entering Group 8. Outsiders who try to gain entry, but
who give unsatisfactory answers under questioning, are likely to
be beaten and villagers are threatened with punishment if they
attempt to seek help.

The Group 8 protest is a result of a government plan to relocate
the Kaixian County seat, displaced by the Three Gorges dam, in
four villages in the county's Sima Township - an area that
includes Shuanghe Village's Group 8 and Group 7 settlements.
The move means demolishing the area and rebuilding it to
accommodate the relocated seat and a portion of the 110,000
migrants also displaced by the dam - one tenth of the total Three
Gorges resettlement population.

Representing the most affected county in the Three Gorges
reservoir area, the Kaixian government in April, 1999 forced 70
per cent of the Group 8 settlement - located 50 kilometres away
from the Yangtze River - to demolish their homes and share the
remaining 30% of homes left standing. The arrangement, enforced
without villagers' consent, packs several families at a time into
each available house. Unlike primary migrants (those directly
displaced from their homes by dams) the Group 8 villagers as
secondary migrants (people who must accommodate the
resettlement of primary migrants in their communities) were not
awarded compensation, and no provisions to give them
replacement land or shelter were made.

Two Three Gorges migrants, part of an underground migrants'
network that meets regularly to share information and plan
collective actions, managed to interview a Group 8 resident they
identify as Liu. Liu told them that villagers had asked their local
government for compensation and to officially recognize them as
secondary migrants but the requests, made on three separate
occasions, have not been responded to.

According to Liu, in August, 2000, construction workers led by
the vice-secretary of the Communist Party, arrived in the area to
force construction of the relocated county seat. Locals objected
and their arguments were later reported to the local district
authorities as an "organized peasant riot." When the government
of Wanzhou district, where Kaixian County is located, learned of
the "riot," armed Wanzhou police and Kaixian County soldiers
were ordered to Group 8 to disperse the villagers.

Village men who managed to escape official retaliation by fleeing
the area dare not return to Group 8, which has since been
classified as a prohibited zone cordoned off from the outside
world. The county government has issued stern warnings to
remaining locals, saying that anyone who appeals to higher
authorities for help will be caught and "locked up." Said Liu:

"Officials can decide whether people live or die. Without the
survival rights, we dare not tell anyone our real names. We will
face terrible disasters if the county government knows we talk to
you. Both of you are entrusted with a task and you are audacious
persons to see us. But you are very lucky. We are being watched
by people assigned by the county government. If found out, the
outsiders will be beaten up first and then inspected. We all are
lucky this time... Please pass a message to higher authorities..."

With migrant numbers rising as construction on the Three Gorges
dam continues, the issue of secondary migrants has become a
critical one. The use of violent force in the case of Group 8 is not
an isolated incident: Yunyang County officials have threatened to
punish migrants who refuse to move and make way for the Three
Gorges dam, or who accuse local officials of wrongdoing and
seek help.

According to the recent report by the World Commission on
Dams released in November, 2000, adversely affected people
must be given the chance to "negotiate mutually agreed, formal
and legally enforceable mitigation, resettlement and development
entitlements."

* In rural China, villages are often divided into numbered groups
- the updated equivalent of production teams, the lowest level in
China's now defunct people's commune administrative hierarchy.
Since the mid-1980s, most teams were replaced by groups.

- END -

Three Gorges Probe is also available in CHINESE at
http://www.probeinternational.org/probeint/ThreeGorges/tgp/chgifhz.html

If you do not already receive Three Gorges Probe news service,
send an email to <probeinternational@nextcity.com> with your
name and "subscribe TGP" or "subscribe CHINESE TGP" in the subject box.

For more information and Three Gorges Probe back issues go to
http://www.probeinternational.org/pi/3g/

Three Gorges Probe welcomes submissions. However, it is not a forum
for political debate. Rather, Three Gorges Probe is dedicated to
covering the scientific, technical, economic, social, and environmental
ramifications of completing the Three Gorges Project, as well as the
alternatives to the dam.

Publisher: Patricia Adams
Executive Editor: Mu Lan
Assistant Editor: Lisa Peryman
ISSN 1481-0913

----- End of forwarded message from ProbeInternational -----