China Town Sealed After Police Shootings

news.yahoo.com ^ | Fri Dec 9, 6:40 PM ET | AUDRA ANG,

[Esther Ruth]

China Town Sealed After Police Shootings By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer Fri Dec 9, 6:40 PM ET

BEIJING - Armed with guns and shields, hundreds of riot police sealed off a southern Chinese village after fatally shooting demonstrators and searched for the protest organizers, villagers said Friday.

Although security forces often use tear gas and truncheons to disperse demonstrators, it is extremely rare for them to fire into a crowd — as they did in putting down pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 near Tiananmen Square. Hundreds, if not thousands, were killed.

During the demonstration Tuesday in Dongzhou, a village in southern Guangdong province, thousands of people gathered to protest the amount of money offered by the government as compensation for land to be used to construct a wind power plant.

Police started firing into the crowd and killed several people, mostly men, villagers reached by telephone said Friday. The death toll ranged from two to 10, they said, and many remained missing.

State media have not mentioned the incident and both provincial and local governments have repeatedly refused to comment. This is typical in China, where the ruling Communist Party controls the media and lower-level authorities are leery of releasing information without permission from the central government.

The number of protests in China's vast, poverty-stricken countryside has risen in recent months as anger comes to a head over land seizures, corruption and a yawning wealth gap that experts say now threatens social stability. The government says about 70,000 such conflicts occurred last year, although many more are believed to go unreported.

The clashes also have become increasingly violent, with injuries sustained on both sides and huge amounts of damage done to property as protesters vent their frustration in face of indifferent or bullying authorities.

All the villagers reached by The Associated Press said they were nervous and scared, and most did not want to be identified for fear of retribution. One man said the situation was still "tumultuous."

A 14-year-old girl said a local official visited the village Friday and called the shootings "a misunderstanding."

"He said he hoped it wouldn't become a big issue," the girl said by telephone. "This is not a misunderstanding. I am afraid. I haven't been to school in days."

She added: "Come save us."

Another villager said there were at least 10 deaths.

"The riot police are gathered outside our village. We've been surrounded," she said, sobbing. "Most of the police are armed. We dare not go out of our home."

"We are not allowed to buy food outside the village. They asked the nearby villagers not to sell us goods," the woman said. "The government did not give us proper compensation for using our land to build the development zone and plants. Now they come and shoot us. I don't know what to say."

One woman said an additional 20 people were wounded.

"They gathered because their land was taken away and they were not given compensation," she said. "The police thought they wanted to make trouble and started shooting."

She said there were several hundred police with guns in the roads outside the village Friday. "I'm afraid of dying. People have already died."

"These reports of protesters being shot dead are chilling," Catherine Baber, deputy Asia director at Amnesty International, said in a statement. "The increasing number of such disputes over land use across rural China, and the use of force to resolve them, suggest an urgent need for the Chinese authorities to focus on developing effective channels for dispute resolution."

Amnesty spokeswoman Saria Rees-Roberts said Friday in London that "police shooting people dead is unusual in China and it does demand an independent investigation."

Like many cities in China, Shanwei, the city where Dongzhou is located, has cleared suburban land once used for farming to build industrial zones. State media have said the Shanwei Red Bay industrial zone is slated to have three electricity-generating plants — a coal-fired plant, a wave power plant and a wind farm.

Shanwei already has a large wind farm on an offshore island, with 25 turbines. Another 24 are set for construction.

Earlier reports said the building of the $743 million coal-fired power plant, a major government-invested project for the province, also was disrupted by a dispute over land compensation.

Authorities in Dongzhou were trying to find the leaders of Tuesday's demonstration, a villager said.

The man said the bodies of some of the shooting victims "are just lying there."

"Why did they shoot our villagers?" he asked. "They are crazy!"

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Clinton's beloved Chicoms don't take kindly to protesters. If Clinton had had his way, he would have done the same during MonicaGate.

[DragonMarine]

Hmmm...
Eminent domain cases don't seem so bad here, after all...
sarc/off

[Barnacle]

They were probably protesting having to work 18 hour days to make our Christmas presents affordable.

Those laborers really need to get in the spirit of it all.

Just explain to them that the profits will be used to produce weapons to defeat the West. Maybe that will perk them up and get them back to work.

[Iris7]

Well, you know, Chairmen Mao is the daddy of the People's Republic of China. Mao's quote that I like best is "Power comes from the muzzle of a gun."

Those villagers were contacted from outside by telephone. Imagine that. Boy, some heads will roll over this! Not cutting telephone - cell - whatever communication when doing an "anti-bandit" operation! Imagine the incompetence involved!

"Anti-bandit" is a term dating back quite a ways, popular in the Soviet Union in Stalin's time. Means a bunch of people were shot and killed. All quite legally, of course.

[durasell]

"Forget it, Jake. It's China town."

[Iris7]

One of the reasons the Beijing government is getting a bit trigger happy is that in Chinese history every successful revolution has come from the countryside, from the peasantry. The cities were always well taken care of by whatever dynasty is in power at the time.

Ah, "The more things change the more things stay the same!"

[Iris7]

Darn good quote.

Nicholson sure stunk in that movie though that is to be expected. Another movie about "the malefactors of great wealth" as another Leftist put it.

Old Jack said "You only lie to two people in your life:
Your girlfriend and the police." Baloney.

In a way you only lie to two people, though. First you lie to yourself and then you lie to everyone else.

[durasell]

The movie is fairly historically accurate in terms of L.A. history. Polanski changed the original ending, which confused a lot of people. But even if you don't like the movie, John Huston's performance is brilliant.

[Esther Ruth]

"The more things change the more things stay the same!"

***
Oh, I hope and pray not in this case. All this capitalism over there is suppose to change all this.

[Iwo Jima]

But, but, but, China is a capitalist country! We can do business with them! Or so we've been told repeatedly.

[Iwo Jima]

..a local official visited the village Friday and called the shootings "a misunderstanding."

When you have a billion people to play around with, killing ten is just a "misunderstanding." You'd probably have to kill at least 10,000 people before it became "unfortunate" and at least 1,000,000 before it became a "tragedy."

[Iris7]

Huston did a good job. His abduction scene is great. I found the movie striking and memorable. I think on balance I liked it.

I generally do not like movies. It looks like "Chinatown" was trying to do a Raymond Chandler but not doing it very well. Of course, neither did Chandler, heh heh.

Speaking of Chandler (though of course Hammett did the story) "The Maltese Falcon" had some good scenes though the movie was terribly poorly edited. Just cut to bits. Even continuity suffered so that my fourteen year old girl found the movie only poor. My taste is eccentric I am told.

I thought the "Falcon" love interest chickie was terrible. Bogart was workmanlike but no more, as usual (though "Casablanca" is wonderful, the greatest propaganda movie of all time). Greenstreet's "Falcon" was fun and Lorre wonderfully and drolly overdone. That guy had a sense of humor only rarely seen in his movies.

Getting back to "Chinatown" Polanski is/was a creep with little girls. Nicholson has never impressed me, always pushing for center stage front like Lord did in "Hawaii Five Oh". "Chinatown" is better than most modern American stuff, pretentious and sentimental but well shot and edited. Skillful lighting.

[Iris7]

Don't think "capitalism" will change much in China. Internal politics forces heavy propaganda and merciless administration. Of course this is true in very many places indeed.

[Lancer_N3502A]

Goin' in to eliminate the witnesses.

[durasell]

I believe the Maltese Falcon was directed by Huston.

Chandler did L.A. probably better than anyone, though he often had trouble with plotting. Check out The Big Sleep screenwriter credits if you get the chance. You might be surprised.

[Iris7]

Dang interesting post, your last.

"I believe the Maltese Falcon was directed by Huston."

Look what googled:

"'The Maltese Falcon', scripted and directed by Hollywood first-timer John Huston" Betcha a nickel he didn't edit the cut I saw last.

"Check out The Big Sleep screenwriter credits if you get the chance."

Google again:

"William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett". Far out.

I bet Brackett did the real work unless Faulkner was a bit sober. She was a talented writer.

Screenplays are a bugger, I think you would have to do do the camera angles, framing, and script, the whole thing, direction, cast, editing, everything, all at once like Miyazaki does for his anime. I like his "Porco Rosso".

"Seven Samurai" was nearly all done by Kurosawa, scripting as well as direction and editing. That movie was cut from 200 minutes to 160, what a shame. Original script is lost. Out takes long gone.

Oh, yes, "Seven Samurai" is the greatest war movie by a huge margin. "The Grand Illusion" is #2, almost surely, though I did not think so until the end when first viewing. Long as I am being egocentric (and when am I not?) maybe "Das Boot" for #3 but only in German, that dubbed thing is just horrible.

Actually I do not like most movies. The good ones, though, Ahhhhhh.

[durasell]

Faulkner was, apparently, sober when he worked on the script. He was supporting a large extended family back home in Oxford and needed that thousand a week very badly. Though there is the famous story about how he met up with Frederick Faust (aka Max Brand) at Musso & Frank's, and vanished for three days on a drinking binge.

For the record, Huston was a Hollywood bad boy. I don't think he had a job until he hit thirty. Spent most of his time drinking, brawling and picking up women. His father got him the Maltese Falcon to direct to keep him out of trouble. The thing is, his life experience shows in his work -- vastly better than the "film heads" that NYU and UCLA churn out.

The studios were factories back then. The whole idea of movies being "art" would have struck them as nonsenese. Books were art, movies were entertainment -- similar to how video games are viewed now.

Check out Runaway Train -- an American film with a screenplay by Kurosawa.

[Iris7]

Interesting. Keeping Faulkner sober in those days must have been interesting to watch.

You mentioned "The Big Sleep". Many striking scenes, the car being pulled out of the water, the poisoning of the "little guy" (poisoning symptoms baloney, though, reality is very dramatic for cyanide, say), the first meeting with the Colonel (that guy was great) in the greenhouse, the first meeting with the nympho daughter, the house the second time with the dead guy on the floor. Bogart was good in the beginning greenhouse scene.

So many loose ends though, and one must concentrate to follow the plot (I enjoyed that.) Modern audiences would be lost in minutes, too much tv watching. Good movie and worth one's time.

Suggest a few worth watching so I can put them on my "to do"? Seriously. "Runaway Train", got it.

[durasell]

Faulkner, like Fitzgerald, was really trying to do an honest day's work for the studios. Faulkner had mounting debts and Fitzgerald had bills from private schools and nut houses. The writers who didn't take it very seriously, Dorothy Parker, Charlie MacArthur (the Front Page guy) and Benchley, seemed to have more success. None of these people were really designed for longevity. Most were dead before 65.