More Troops Drafted in Central China After Bus Fare “Rioting” – HK Paper

Text of report by Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post website on 14 March

[Report by Ting Shi: "More Troops Drafted To Restore Order in Hunan"; headline as provided by source]

An uneasy calm has returned to a village in Hunan province that has been the scene of mass rioting after more troops were brought in to maintain order and the local government intervened to cut bus fees after public pressure, witnesses said.

Armed vehicles were moved in from the adjacent Guangzhou Military Region, which covers Hunan, and troops were stationed along the main streets of Zhushan village, in Yongzhou, where more than 20,000 farmers clashed with local police over a controversial increase in transport fees.

Witnesses said local authorities were tracking down the organizers of the protest, and scores of “violent villagers” who were believed to have smashed and burned at least seven police cars and nine buses.

“They were checking into many households and asking those who got involved to surrender to the police,” said witness Zhang Zilin.

Meanwhile, the local government has suspended Anda Transport, the bus company whose recent fee increases prompted angry villagers to take to the streets.

Several buses commissioned by the local government are serving the village for the time being and bus fees have been reset to the original level of 6 yuan.

“The buses are running really slow,” Mr Zhang said. “It almost took one hour to get onto one. The whole public transportation system looks paralysed.”

According to another villager, the local government has issued a mass-circulation notice declaring the “pacification” of the situation.

“It said it’s only a ‘small incident caused by a few troublesome villagers’ and now it’s all cleaned up,” Mr Tang said by telephone. “It also urged protesters to bring themselves in to the local police.”

The protest started peacefully on Friday but rapidly degenerated into a bloody clash after local police allegedly used force to crack down on protesting farmers.

According to witnesses, at least one junior high student was killed in the melee and several dozen injured people were sent to Yongzhou People’s Hospital.

The protesting farmers had refused to leave the local police station and the government offices until their request for lower bus fees was met. The standoff degenerated on Monday afternoon after anti-riot police started randomly hitting protesters with batons and electronic prods, and the demonstrators fought back with bricks and stones.

The local government had ordered members of police officers’ families to temporarily leave the village to ensure their safety, Mr Zhang said.

Hunan’s top leaders, who are in Beijing for the annual National People’s Congress, played down the incident, which jars with the push for a “harmonious society”.

Zhou Qiang, Hunan’s newly appointed governor and a protege of President Hu Jintao, said police had not opened fire on the protesters and he described the mass riot as “a very simple civil dispute between a bus company and the public”.

“It’s just a ticket price problem between a local bus company and the public. It can happen anywhere. Nobody was killed. The incident has been handled properly, and things have all calmed down.”

Meanwhile, Shanxi governor and former Hunan vice-governor Yu Youjun was heard asking two Hunan NPC delegates on the sidelines of the NPC session: “How could such a big incident happen in Yongzhou?”

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.