Chinese detain police commander in fatal shootings of villagers
BEIJING – In an unusual move, China said Sunday it had detained a police commander involved in last week’s shooting of villagers angered by land seizures.
Beijing has tended to whitewash past police excesses in social protest cases, analysts and human rights experts say, because security forces play a vital role in helping maintain control over China’s one-party state.
But the shooting of disgruntled farmers in Dongzhou – a seaside village near Hong Kong – came as the former British colony is hosting a World Trade Organization meeting. The violence embarrassed China’s government and made it difficult to cover the incident up.
“After a clumsy attempt to justify the police action, the local authorities had to dismiss and arrest the police chief to calm down the tension,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a senior researcher with the University of Paris. “These instructions probably came from the central government, concerned about its image and nervous about the overall social situation.”
The shooting occurred Tuesday night after police detained local leaders protesting the loss of their farmland and access to fishing grounds without compensation. The land has been seized by the government to build a wind power plant.
Provincial authorities, who have cordoned off the village, said Saturday three farmers were killed and eight wounded in the incident after a mob led by a few “instigators” blocked a road and threatened to blow up a power plant.
Villagers reached by phone, however, have said that 10 to 20 farmers were killed and several dozen were injured or missing. They said the confrontation came after months in which authorities refused to listen to their concerns.
More than 70,000 demonstrations were staged in China in 2004 alone, and in recent years authorities have tended to rely on intimidation, selective arrests and minor concessions – rather than deadly force – to quell protests. While there have been cases of police killing Chinese citizens since the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, analysts say, these usually occur in remote areas.