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Officials should heed kneeling petitioners
By Ni Tao |
April 29, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
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THE mayor of a northeastern city has been sacked for ignoring hundreds of petitioners kneeling to protest against what they say is corruption and inadequate compensation in government seizure of their land.
While it stoked rejoicing over "the triumph of popular will," the dramatic fall from grace of Sun Ming, mayor of Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province, on April 24, raised uncomfortable questions about some officials who are far out of touch with the people they are supposed to serve.
On April 13, more than 1,000 residents from two villages in Zhuanghe gathered in front of the government headquarters and demanded an audience with the mayor. Some of them stayed on their knees for about 30 minutes in hopes of drawing the mayor's attention to their plight.
Despite this show of deepest respect, Sun and his colleagues didn't deign to come out and take their complaints, Xiaoxiang Morning News reported on April 21.
Why should people still grovel before authorities when there are proper channels for airing their grievances? The obvious answer says a lot about how well these channels, known as petition offices, actually function in Zhuanghe.
In a briefing with more than 40 foreign diplomats in Beijing on Tuesday, a senior Party official, Gao Yongzhong, offered his views on intra-party democracy. He is head of the Party-building Institute at the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
"I think two issues stand out. One is that intra-party democracy is sometimes plagued by formality, the other is that the atmosphere on which genuine dialogue can thrive is not mature in a few regions and government departments," Gao was quoted as saying in a report published yesterday in the Beijing News.
If even Party officials cannot level with each other, how can petitioners expect not to be deceived when facing some devious officials?
When institutional methods of seeking redress fail to work, archaic, and somewhat undignified means of seeking justice are staging a comeback. In ancient China, people suffering injustices at the hands of dishonest magistrates would travel to the imperial capital for help from mandarins, in hope of possible noblesse oblige. If lucky, they might chance upon a viceroy or the emperor himself traveling incognito, and their pleas might be heeded.
Arrogance
Of course, ex-mayor Sun is not alone in snubbing petitioners, and his arrogance is overshadowed by some even more egregious official excesses. In Daliu Township of Luohe City, Henan Province, farmer Xu Lindong had been confined in a mental hospital for six and a half years since 2003 due to his support for a handicapped neighbor in a land dispute with the township government.
One cannot help but marvel at the complacence of Liu Qingning, deputy director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the People's Congress in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, when he proposed on March 11 that petitioners be sentenced to up to 15 years behind bars if they "seriously disrupt officials' work and life." The "offenses" include chanting slogans, staging sit-ins and unfurling banners.
It perhaps never dawned on Liu that people issue petitions to redress injustices, not for kicks. He should have also asked himself a question before spouting blather: who are forcing innocent people to take action that might lay them open to reprisals from vengeful officials?
"In much of rural China, village cadres, wielding unchecked power and acting as per orders from above, are the main culprits of many abuses we see today," He Junzhi, adjunct professor of political science at Fudan University, told Shanghai Daily on Tuesday.
It was with great sadness that I learned of the latest in a spate of deaths related to depredations of farmers' land, often abetted by village cadres. On April 22, Zhou Hongyan, a peasant in Xuchang County, Henan Province, was killed when trying to halt a dump truck sprinkling coal mine debris on land that once belonged to his household. A road-widening project necessitated its expropriation in 1999, the Beijing Times reported on Monday.
Zhou acted in rage at the village authorities, who withheld compensation from his family for 11 years. He dared the driver, an ex-convict hired by Zhou Songyan, the village Party secretary, to run over him. Undeterred by the farmer's obstruction, Zhou Songyan allegedly barked orders to the thug to drive on. The 30-ton truck then rumbled over Zhou Hongyan and killed him. The cadre and his thug turned themselves in to the police later that day.
While it stoked rejoicing over "the triumph of popular will," the dramatic fall from grace of Sun Ming, mayor of Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province, on April 24, raised uncomfortable questions about some officials who are far out of touch with the people they are supposed to serve.
On April 13, more than 1,000 residents from two villages in Zhuanghe gathered in front of the government headquarters and demanded an audience with the mayor. Some of them stayed on their knees for about 30 minutes in hopes of drawing the mayor's attention to their plight.
Despite this show of deepest respect, Sun and his colleagues didn't deign to come out and take their complaints, Xiaoxiang Morning News reported on April 21.
Why should people still grovel before authorities when there are proper channels for airing their grievances? The obvious answer says a lot about how well these channels, known as petition offices, actually function in Zhuanghe.
In a briefing with more than 40 foreign diplomats in Beijing on Tuesday, a senior Party official, Gao Yongzhong, offered his views on intra-party democracy. He is head of the Party-building Institute at the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
"I think two issues stand out. One is that intra-party democracy is sometimes plagued by formality, the other is that the atmosphere on which genuine dialogue can thrive is not mature in a few regions and government departments," Gao was quoted as saying in a report published yesterday in the Beijing News.
If even Party officials cannot level with each other, how can petitioners expect not to be deceived when facing some devious officials?
When institutional methods of seeking redress fail to work, archaic, and somewhat undignified means of seeking justice are staging a comeback. In ancient China, people suffering injustices at the hands of dishonest magistrates would travel to the imperial capital for help from mandarins, in hope of possible noblesse oblige. If lucky, they might chance upon a viceroy or the emperor himself traveling incognito, and their pleas might be heeded.
Arrogance
Of course, ex-mayor Sun is not alone in snubbing petitioners, and his arrogance is overshadowed by some even more egregious official excesses. In Daliu Township of Luohe City, Henan Province, farmer Xu Lindong had been confined in a mental hospital for six and a half years since 2003 due to his support for a handicapped neighbor in a land dispute with the township government.
One cannot help but marvel at the complacence of Liu Qingning, deputy director of the Legal Affairs Committee of the People's Congress in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, when he proposed on March 11 that petitioners be sentenced to up to 15 years behind bars if they "seriously disrupt officials' work and life." The "offenses" include chanting slogans, staging sit-ins and unfurling banners.
It perhaps never dawned on Liu that people issue petitions to redress injustices, not for kicks. He should have also asked himself a question before spouting blather: who are forcing innocent people to take action that might lay them open to reprisals from vengeful officials?
"In much of rural China, village cadres, wielding unchecked power and acting as per orders from above, are the main culprits of many abuses we see today," He Junzhi, adjunct professor of political science at Fudan University, told Shanghai Daily on Tuesday.
It was with great sadness that I learned of the latest in a spate of deaths related to depredations of farmers' land, often abetted by village cadres. On April 22, Zhou Hongyan, a peasant in Xuchang County, Henan Province, was killed when trying to halt a dump truck sprinkling coal mine debris on land that once belonged to his household. A road-widening project necessitated its expropriation in 1999, the Beijing Times reported on Monday.
Zhou acted in rage at the village authorities, who withheld compensation from his family for 11 years. He dared the driver, an ex-convict hired by Zhou Songyan, the village Party secretary, to run over him. Undeterred by the farmer's obstruction, Zhou Songyan allegedly barked orders to the thug to drive on. The 30-ton truck then rumbled over Zhou Hongyan and killed him. The cadre and his thug turned themselves in to the police later that day.
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