From RFA’s Cantonese service(ZH) Reporter: Bat Tzi-mo:
More than 8,000 farmers from six villages in Wuqing district of the northern port city of Tianjin have protested a massive land grab by local government amounting to around 10,000 mu (670 hectares) since 1992.
The local government has claimed it intends to build a reservoir in the nearby area, and began to requisition the land from farmers without any compensation.
Later, the farmers discovered that the land had in fact been used to develop large-scale commercial fish farms.
Later, the government re-zoned the area to “ecological”, but the villagers were still required to pay tax on it.
During the past few months, villagers have protested regularly at the construction site.
One villager, from Shangmatai township, told us: “We have tried to file a lawsuit in the court but the court did not accept our case. They said that we need the village committee to represent us; that we can’t do it as individuals.”
“Some villagers want to get their elected village chiefs removed and have a new election, but the police say they are holding illegal gatherings.”
“At times, we have had more than 2,000 villagers blocking the construction site. Because of the cold weather, there are only several dozen protesters now but they are doggedly going there every day.
Meanwhile, Mandarin service reporter Xin Yu was interviewing a villager(ZH) surnamed Cui:
农民崔先生向本台表示：“他们是92年征的地，93年建的库，94年下的批文，这按国家法律是不合法的，但他们在征地过程中也一直没通过我们，什么我们也不知道，一分钱也没得着。这土地是我们的，但我们村里多次上访，他们都不理我们。”
“They took the land from us in 1992, built the reservoir in 1993, then they got an administrative order from higher up in 1994 saying that this was illegal under China’s state legislation. But they didn’t consult us on any of this; we didn’t know about any of it. We didn’t get a penny. This land is ours, and we have petitioned on this issue on a number of occasions, but they just ignore us.”
记者：当局将你们那么一大块土地拿去征用，为何你们村民会不知道呢？
Q: How could you not know if the government had taken such a large area of land from you?
崔先生：知道，当时我们认为是征用建库，反正将来还得给我们，现在吃亏就算了，当时只有一个书记签的字。
“We knew at the time, but we thought it was to build a reservoir, and only the village Party secretary’s signature was on the deal. We know we’ve lost out now.”
An Wuqing government official acknowledged the existence of the Shangmatai reservoir project, but said he was unfamiliar with the details of the case, and hadn’t heard of the protest.
Filed under: China, East Asia, Newsdesk, cantonese, china_civil_rights, china_civilrights, china_graft, china_law, china_property, china_rights, china_unrest, east_asia, environment, governance, tianjin | Tagged: china_civilrights, china_land, china_law, china_property, china_rights, china_unrest, shangmatai, tianjin, wuqing
