20 Reported Killed as Chinese Unrest Escalates

[Thom Little]

Residents of a fishing village near Hong Kong said that as many as 20 people had been killed by paramilitary police in an unusually violent clash that marked an escalation in the widespread social protests that have roiled the Chinese countryside. Villagers said that as many as 50 other residents remain unaccounted for since the shooting. It is the largest known use of force by security forces against ordinary citizens since the killings around Tiananmen Square in 1989. That death toll remains unknown, but is estimated to be in the hundreds.

The violence began after dark in the town of Dongzhou on Tuesday evening. Terrified residents said their hamlet has remained occupied by thousands of security forces, who have blocked off all access roads and are reportedly arresting residents who attempt to leave the area in the wake of the heavily armed assault.

"From about 7 p.m. the police started firing tear gas into the crowd, but this failed to scare people," said a resident who gave his name only as Li and claimed to have been at the scene, where a relative of his was killed. "Later, we heard more than 10 explosions, and thought they were just detonators, so nobody was scared. At about 8 p.m. they started using guns, shooting bullets into the ground, but not really targeting anybody.

"Finally, at about 10 p.m. they started killing people."





http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/asia/09cnd-china.html?hp&ex=1134190800&en=a42a6c1e282d9ade&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Career Prole]

1. The government will be collecting up their cellphones soon...

"Among other problems, in trying to come to grips with the growing rural unrest, the Chinese government is wrestling with a yawning gap in incomes between farmers and urban dwellers, and rampant corruption in local government, where unaccountable officials deal away communal property rights, often for their own profit.

Finally, mobile telephone technology has made it easier for people in rural China to organize, communicating news to one another by short messages, and increasingly allowing them to stay in touch with members of non-governmental organizations in big cities who are eager to advise them or provide legal help."

[RagingInMiami]

3. But aren't they the ones making the cell phones we use?

Getting paid slave wages, of course.

[bilgewaterbill]

6. All the more reason to rise up, no?

[RagingInMiami]

2. First France, now China

I think the world pendelum is beginning to turn.

[bilgewaterbill]

7. Can you elaborate? nt

[RagingInMiami]

8. Look at South America

Hugo Chavez, a left-winger, is running Venezuala. A female socialist looks like she is going to win in Chile (link below).

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/3515398.html

This global capitalist system that we've been experiencing is beginning to take its toll.

[bilgewaterbill]

11. Thank you for elaborating.

I thought you were going to say that France and China were examples of the failure of Socialist policies.

[wickerwoman]

4. This is a weird detail:

"Early reports from the village said the police opened fire only after villagers began throwing homemade bombs and other missiles, but villagers reached by telephone today denied this, saying that a few farmers had launched ordinary fireworks at the police as part of their protest. "Those were not bombs, they were fireworks, the kind that fly up into the sky," said one witness reached by telephone. "The organizers didn't have any money, so someone bought fireworks and placed them there. At the moment the trouble started many of the demonstrators were holding them, and of those who held fireworks, almost everyone was killed."

Why in God's name would you fire fireworks at heavily armed police? Even the kind "that fly up into the sky" come back down again. Was this an agent provocateur or just a really, really stupid person?

[Selatius]

14. Note the last sentence you quoted.

"...so someone bought fireworks and placed them there..."

Sounds like a provocateur to me.

[Zynx]

5. And a right-winger who was advocating sweatshop labor told me,

"You don't know that they treat their people like shit."

[lovuian]

9. The Chineese slave worker wants more wages and a better

life... they know the government is raping their country and them!!!

[cire4]

12. These weren't slave workers...

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons they were protesting was because of an inability to work and an inability to earn an income. They were poor farmers whose land was seized to build a power plant. The central government ordered compensation to be paid to them, but corruption at the local level (which many of China's problems have historically resulted from) prevented the compesation from getting to them.

[Nickdfresh]

10. There's trouble on the horizen...

with this ruthless, fascist Chinese gov't...

[Selatius]

13. I hate the Communist Party of China

I hope someday the Chinese will have their own revolution and overthrow the yoke of tyranny. The Party has adopted capitalism where it benefits the Party at the expense of the workers. They're authoritarians who never gave a damn about ordinary people even before the economic reforms.

[Thom Little]

15. China confirms it shot protesters

Chinese authorities have confirmed several protesters were shot dead in a confrontation with police at a village in the south earlier this week.

Six people died as result of the shooting in Guangdong province on Tuesday, the Xinhua news agency says.

Officials accused armed "instigators" of using anger about a local power station to incite the crowd.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4517706.stm