Three Gorges migrants clash with police

By Other News Sources on September 14, 2001 • ( Leave a comment )

September 14, 2001

Radio Free Asia reported that up to one thousand migrants from the Three Gorges area, slated for resettlement in Hunan Province’s Yongzhou City, were gathering to block the city’s railway station and highway bridge in an attempt to secure a return passage to their place of origin.

The migrants had apparently petitioned the local government for help but, receiving no response, staged a protest. According to an official from the local police station, the local government sent in a large number of police, 10 of whom were hurt in the clash. No information was available about migrants injured. The police official, who wished to remain anonymous, said the city’s head of police had directed all police not to respond to migrants’ actions – such as cursing or violence – in an effort to avert a nationwide outbreak of protest by Three Gorges’ migrants.

Local officials have confirmed hundreds of migrants displaced by the Three Gorges dam clashed with police during a protest in Hunan Province on Monday, August 27, reports South China Morning Post. According to the Post, a scuffle broke out when police were brought in to control newly arrived migrants, displaced from Chongqing, who had taken to the streets of Yongzhou City to protest Three Gorges dam resettlement payments. One local official told the Post several police officers were injured when a handful of protesters became violent but declined to give further details about the two-hour long protest. Radio Free Asia estimated 1,000 demonstrators were involved, but a local police officer denied the report, saying most people present were onlookers who dispersed after local government officials persuaded them to move on – although he did not say what it was officials said to persuade them.

The officer said a crowd gathered outside Yongzhou City’s government offices and moved to the city’s train station, where protesters threatened to take the next train back to Chongqing. No arrests were reported and the train service was not disrupted. A Yongzhou Migration Bureau official denied that the protest took place, but two officials with the Yongzhou City government and the local committee of the Communist Party confirmed that it did, reports the Post. According to another local official, protesters demanded an immediate payment of a living subsidy amounting to 2,220 yuan (HK$2,086) over two years, to be paid in monthly installments on top of a single payment of 1,600 yuan to help migrants start new businesses. “The misunderstanding caused the dissatisfaction of several individuals who motivated other people to attend the protest,” he said.

While corruption cases related to the Three Gorges dam project are taboo in mainland media, accounts still appeared about protests by disgruntled migrants who find themselves cheated after arriving at their new homes, writes the Post. Promised compensation is often far less than expected because, migrants suspect, their resettlement funds have been pocketed by local cadres.