China Business News
July 29, 2008

This story on the July 3rd police raid in Shaoyang, Hunan province, was originally printed in the July 28th issue of Oriental Outlook Weekly, a news magazine owned by Xinhua. It was reprinted on the front page of today's China Business News. After two years of ongoing dispute over development plans for a reservoir near Shilong village, the Shaoyang government resorted to violent means to quell villagers' protests; on July 3, 440 police raided the village arresting 23 villagers.

The dispute began back on May 14, 2006, when the blueprint for building a new highway was released. As part of the project, a water reservoir nearby Shilong village was to be filled with soil to support part of the new highway. Because the the reservoir served as the main source of water for agricultural use in Shilong, the villagers were to be compensated for their loss. The villagers initially agreed to the compensation plan.

On May 16, two days after the plans to fill the reservoir were announced, rumors spread that the original plan had been to build a bridge, leaving the reservoir intact. Rumor had it that local government officials had changed the plan so they could make extra profit for themselves despite the fact that the new plan meant villagers would suffer from water shortage.

The villagers of Shilong stormed the construction site and the work to fill the reservoir stopped due to their harassment. The villagers posted slogans all over the construction site and swore that they would defend the reservoir.

The local government denied the charge that they had played a part in the decision to change the construction plans; they said that the landfill was approved by a committee of experts and authorized by higher levels of government. The government sent negotiation teams to try to persuade the villagers to accept the compensation they had been offered originally, but their efforts went unheeded. The villagers had little trust in the government and refuse to accept any plan that involved filling the reservoir.

On December 28, 2006, police arrested 2 villagers suspected of leading some of the protest activities. The villagers of Shilong responded with an even bigger protest that forced the government to release the men.

Beginning in 2007, Li Mingguo, the former village secretary of Shilong and likely the organizer of the villagers' activism, began to make his case to higher levels of government in Beijing.

In February 2007, the Shaoyang government received orders from the State Bureau to investigate the Li Mingguo's case. The Shaoyang government turned out a report which denied all the charges, ranging from corruption to hiring thugs to abuse villagers involved in the protests. The Shaoyang government countered by calling the villagers' harassment illegal and noted that villagers activities had already cost the government a huge amount of money.

So, finally the Shaoyang government resorted to violent means to break the deadlock; at 4 o'clock in the morning on July 3, 440 police raided the village and arrested 23 villagers suspected in taking part in the protests. The police themselves suffered six injuries in the assault. The government hopes this will end a two-year-long standoff between the government and the villagers of Shilong village. To confirm this, on July 10 the Shaoyang TV station broadcast a program announcing that the "last obstacle to the Shaoyang highway project had been removed." However, Li Mingguo, the one who was believed to be the leader of the strings of protests, is still at large.