Residents occupy seat of local government, fed up with officials selling off communal farmland

[GliderGuider]

Source: The Star

It takes an angry village to revolt in rural China
Residents occupy seat of local government, fed up with officials selling off communal farmland
Oct 11, 2007
Bill Schiller
ASIA BUREAU

XIANTANG VILLAGE, China–After years of simmering suspicion and mounting anger, the citizens of this sleepy south China village of 3,500 decided they weren't going to take it anymore.

They were disturbed by what they saw: local politicians seemed to keep getting richer and everyone else kept falling behind while communally owned farmland kept disappearing beneath commercial developments.

... snip ...

"Mao granted us this land," citizen Lai Shunyou explains solemnly, seated in one of the upholstered chairs. "And they (the former village committee) sold this land to developers behind our back!"

... snip ...

The records revealed details concerning land trades and factory rents and management fees about which the villagers had known nothing.

"There were millions in revenues – which was news to the villagers," said a short but detailed summary entitled "A Desperate Plea from Xiantang Villagers" compiled by citizens and provided to the Toronto Star.

... snip ...

"No one can hear of the villagers' suffering. Reporters are forbidden to report on it," the citizen's letter says.


Read more: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/265581

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Naomi Klien wrote about this sort of thing in The Shock Doctrine.

Read the entire article to learn more about news blackouts and citizen intimidation.

[Trillo]

1. I was just thinking of our own U.S. constitution and

the phrase "general welfare" in the context it was used back then, then I saw this news item. It is a phrase that seems at least somewhat similar to "communal farmland" as used in this article, in spite of my years of educational indoctrination that 'their system' and 'our system' are worlds apart. hah.

The power of groups of small committees scattered throughout the world, more similar than they are different, can do much harm when the only objective is money and greed.

[Robbien]

2. True. Just the meaning of the terms

Socialism means the society rules
Communism means the community rules
Capitalism means the money rules

And our indoctrination has led us to believe Socialism and Communism are bad.

Funny that.

[arikara]

3. They are doing this here in Canada

the BC Government basically gave away tens of thousands of acres of prime crown land on Vancouver Island to Western Forest Products. They pillage it for whatever logs they want which they are allowed to ship out of the country raw so people's jobs are gone. Then they get to carve it up for huge subdivisions. The giveaway was done because the logging corporation was having financial problems.

Has anyone ever heard of any government giving away anything to a citizen who was having financial problems?

At least in China, the people are revolting over it. Here we just do nothing.

[AlecBGreen]

4. this is a message to all those

who HATE America and the American government. Yes, its bad here but at least youre not over there... In China the media is wholly owned and operated by the central government and NOTHING is reported without say-so. These people will likely never know justice. If this happened in America, yeah the little guy would probably get screwed too but the chances of them getting juctice are at least better than zero, unlike our friends in Guangdong.

[LiberalFighter]

5. They need a Boxer Rebellion against the local authorities.