South China Morning Post
May 31, 2006

Citizens complain as local governments illegally claim land for Three Gorges Dam project.

Displaced peasants have complained to Beijing that local governments in Chongqing, Sichuan province, have illegally claimed land for the Three Gorges Dam project. Their petition comes as Premier Zhu Rongji repeated promises that the quality of the massive project would not be compromised. Despite Beijing’s repeated warnings against graft in the US$70 billion (HK$545 billion) project, central and provincial authorities have received hundreds of complaints accusing grassroot officials of rampant abuses. These include claiming more land than required, reselling claimed land, faking the number of resettled peasants and embezzling public funds used for resettlement. In one case, land bureau officials in Zhong county were accused of overclaiming 134 hectares from Hungxing village, Zhongzhou township, forcing more than 1,300 peasants to leave their homes, the Guangdong weekly Nanfang Zhoumo reported. A petition by Hungxing villagers said the actual area of land claimed was 160 hectares, instead of the 26 hectares approved by higher authorities in Sichuan. Other petitioners have complained that Zhong county officials seized twice the approved amount of quality farmland from five other villages in the name of building towns or schools for resettled migrants. The "embezzled" land was used for private real estate development or resold by local officials. "Zhong county officials have claimed they calculated only ‘the land area that has paid taxes’, so the area actually claimed was much larger than the area reported to higher authorities," the report said. "But lawyers representing the villagers argued that there are no such thing as ‘taxed area’ or ‘non-taxed area’." Victims have appealed to central authorities to tighten supervision of the land claim process and monitor new town construction as most such development was sub-standard.