8 killed in clash between villagers, builders
Print Edition
EIGHT people were killed and 18 others were injured on Tuesday during a clash between villagers and construction workers in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, in the latest land dispute to turn violent.
The conflict was triggered by a long-running dispute over the acquisition of land for a logistics center in the village of Fuyou, Jinning County, local officials said yesterday.
Six workers from the company building the Jincheng Pan Asia Industrial and Trade Logistics Center and two villagers were killed, the Jinning government said via its Weibo account.
It did not provide details of the conflict, but said that anyone found guilty of engaging in violence would be punished.
One of the 18 people hurt was in a serious condition, it said.
A villager surnamed Yang was quoted by news website thepaper.cn as saying the clash was started by the construction company, which “mobilized” nearly 1,000 people to attack the residents of Fuyou.
Another villager, whose name was not disclosed, told business news website caixin.com that the company recruited men from the local community.
Images allegedly showed rows of men standing in trucks wearing uniforms and helmets. They were armed mostly with sticks and shields, though swords and gas canisters were also used as weapons during the clash, Caixin reported.
Other images showed some of the uniformed men sitting on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs, after apparently being captured by villagers, it said.
The conflict between the construction firm and villagers dates back to 2011, when 200 hectares of lands were “forcibly acquired” for the development of the logistics center, thepaper.cn said.
Villagers protested against the development, but when they asked to see its official approval documents they were turned away, the report said.
Residents were angry that the development blocked Fuyou’s only access road and destroyed three of the village’s four drainage ditches, which in July of this year resulted in huge flooding and the destruction of a vegetable crop, local newspaper Spring City Evening News reported.
Villagers and construction workers first clashed in June, thepaper.cn said.
Violent conflicts sparked by land grabs are nothing new in China. In March, a villager from Dujiatuan in the city of Pingdu, Shandong Province, was killed and three of his fellow protesters were injured when a tent they were sleeping in was set alight in the middle of the night.
The villagers had earlier been forced to sell their homes to make way for a property development and were dissatisfied at the remuneration they were paid.
The Dujiatuan village head and a real estate developer were later tried at the Qingdao Intermediate People’s Court, but a verdict has yet to be announced.
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