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DAM-L Three Gorges Probe: March 23, 2001 (fwd)
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Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 13:42:32 -0500
From: ProbeInternational@nextcity.com (ProbeInternational)
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Subject: Three Gorges Probe: March 23, 2001
THREE GORGES PROBE
March 23, 2001
A Three Gorges Probe exclusive
Three Gorges dam petitioners abducted
by Wang Yusheng
Five farmers who helped organize petitions by communities
being resettled to make way for the Three Gorges dam have
been abducted by police in the last three weeks.
The arrests follow earlier threats by Yunyang county
officials that migrants refusing to move out of the Three
Gorges area, or who accuse local officials of wrongdoing
and seek outside help, would be punished.
Three farmers were abducted on Mar. 12 in Beijing and
could face jail sentences of three to seven years for
"disturbing the Three Gorges Project's resettlement,"
although it is not known at this time whether they are alive
or dead.
The trio, all from Yunyang county's Gaoyang township in
Chongqing municipality, were three of eight people
representing Yunyang county residents unwilling to accept
their local government's resettlement plan. In early March,
the eight representatives had decided to travel to Beijing,
where buildings are tall and decorated beautifully, and
where many of the political elite live, to report their
situation to the "beloved" Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party in an effort to obtain justice for Three
Gorges migrants. But before they could do so, the Yunyang
county police went after them.
On Mar. 8, the Yunyang county police rushed to Gaoyang
township to arrest the eight migrant representatives, two of
whom were caught while another three fled. The remaining
three representatives, including lead organizer He Kechang,
decided that night to go directly to Beijing to appeal for
help. But the following day on Mar. 9, He Kechang was
stopped by two tall strong men (by their dialect, they came
from Yunyang county) when he arrived in Hubei's Yichang,
the site of the Three Gorges dam. Brandishing knives, the
two men shouted, "What do you want, your life or your
money?" and stabbed him in the stomach. It was lucky Mr.
He was not injured: his waistband protected him from the
attack, but all his belongings, including his identification
card, the appeal documents, and US$100 pooled from
Gaoyang residents for the appeal, were taken by the men.
Two days later, Mr. He and the two remaining
representatives arrived in Beijing. After learning of their
address there, the government of Yunyang county
dispatched five police to Beijing to arrest them. Without any
due process of law, Mr. He and the two representatives
were arrested, treated as fugitives, and placed in secret
custody. Their homes in Yunyang were ransacked and their
belongings wrecked. Several of their family members were
also detained by police.
In Gaoyang township, where most of the available land will
be flooded by the Three Gorges dam reservoir, more than
10,000 residents will be forced to relocate. In trial "distant"
resettlement projects launched by the Three Gorges Project
Construction Committee last year, people collectively
resettled in Jiangsu province's Dafeng city in the lower
Yangtze - over a thousand kilometres downstream of the
reservoir - were extremely dissatisfied with their new
conditions. Migrants complained they had received less than
what the government had promised them before leaving
their homes. To their outrage, migrants later discovered that
compensation funds earmarked for their resettlement had
been diverted by resettlement authorities for other purposes.
Knowing these facts, people who have yet to move out of
Gaoyang township are increasingly cautious, requesting that
the government give them sufficient compensation and fulfill
its promises before they decide to leave. However, the
government of Yunyang county turned a deaf ear to these
requests. Instead, it decided to detain all representatives of
migrants involved in appealing to higher authorities for help,
accusing them of "disturbing the Three Gorges'
resettlement." It was under these circumstances that
migrants in Gaoyang township decided to send their
representatives to Beijing to seek justice and it was then that
Yunyang police went after them.
Frightened now by the threat of violent intimidation,
migrants slated for resettlement in Gaoyang township in
Yunyang county, are being forced to register as "distant"
migrants.
This new directive requiring "distant resettlement"
represents a shift in resettlement policy from "settling all
migrants in nearby areas," to a combination of settling
migrants locally as well as moving them far away. The
policy shift occurred after the original plan was seriously
challenged by a variety of problems, including
environmental pressures resulting from migrants clearing
vulnerable marginal land in the reservoir area.
The new resettlement rules and regulations, called "Premier
Zhu's new policy," are designed to help reduce pressure on
the Three Gorges reservoir environment. However, it is by
no means easy to relocate mostly rural migrants to distant
parts of eastern China where the population density is
already great. What makes the situation worse, is that the
Three Gorges Project Construction Committee has
announced that 125,000 rural people will have to move out
of the Three Gorges area by 2003, when the reservoir is
scheduled to be filled to the height of 135 meters.
This deadline has intensified political pressure on local
officials in particular, county secretaries of the Communist
Party and the heads of county governments - these officials
will be removed from their current positions if they are
unable to fulfill the task of resettlement assigned to them by
central authorities. Under such circumstances, to keep their
positions and ensure an opportunity for promotion, local
officials in the counties affected by the project are using
every means at their disposal to force migrants to leave as
soon as possible.
Chongqing's Yunyang county provides such an example.
After the Chinese Spring Festival in January 2001, Huang
Bo, the secretary of the Communist Party of Yunyang
county, created a new procedure for resettling people called
"resettlement by legal system." This procedure has enabled
Mr. Bo to displace people from their homes, with police
force when necessary. Anyone who opposes this
resettlement procedure risks being labelled "a bad element"
against Three Gorges resettlement policy. In an effort to
speed up the relocation process, local officials are now lying
to people slated for resettlement, claiming that the state has
stopped its original policy of allowing migrants to secure
resettlement destinations for themselves, and has replaced it
with a policy that requires all migrants to be moved in
groups by local governments to other parts of the country.
Forced resettlement through high-handed measures, with
illegal arrest, detention, and suppression to those who try to
appeal to higher authorities for help and justice, will create a
crisis and jeopardize the smooth process of the Three
Gorges' resettlement project, causing even greater social
unrest.
It is time for the Chinese government and the international
community to pay attention to the situation unfolding in
Yunyang county.
We will watch the resettlement process and monitor what
happens to the Three Gorges petitioners. We are also trying
to lift the lid on the official rosy praise for the project's
resettlement process, to expose why the migrants affected
by the Three Gorges dam are so furious about their
relocation and how the money earmarked for their so-called
"resettlement with development" is diverted for corrupt
purposes at various levels - from the central government to
the province or municipality, to the city or district, county,
township, village, and finally to the group* (the lowest basic
unit in rural China). Wang Yusheng is a freelance reporter
based in Chongqing.
* In rural China, villagers 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 -
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