Deadly ethnic clashes between Hui Muslims and Han Chinese in central China were met yesterday with a military blockade and a news blackout as officials attempted to curb the unrest and cover it up.
Despite the heavy presence of paramilitary police in Zhongmou, the rural county in Henan Province where a sudden outburst of violence killed at least seven, possibly many more, local residents remained uneasy.
"We don't dare go out in the fields to work," said a peasant woman in Nanren village, which is predominantly Muslim and has been a flashpoint in the riots that began last Thursday and were only brought under control on Sunday.
Farmers from Nanren clashed with their neighbors in Nanwei, which is Chinese, after tempers flared over a traffic dispute. As well as the dead, 42 were injured, state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Locals disputed the official toll, saying as many as 20 had lost their lives as ethnic animosities flared across this county of rice fields fed by the water of the Yellow River.
Eighteen people were arrested, according to Xinhua, which carried a brief report only on its English-language service, which targets a mainly foreign readership.
None of the Chinese media mentioned the unrest and reports of the incident were blacked out when broadcast by the BBC and CNN television networks.
"All the 18 detained are Han Chinese," a teacher at a Nanren elementary school told reporters. "They were held because they killed a Hui child who was on his way to school."
On Tuesday, Nanren resembled a ghost town, as police officers and communist party leaders patrolled the streets to prevent new disturbances, locals said.
There were unconfirmed reports Muslims from other parts of China had tried to get to Nanren to join the fight.
Some of them attempted to travel to Henan by train, but were prevented by police from getting off, while others arrived in buses and managed to break through the cordons, according to locals.
Foreign journalists trying to enter Nanren Monday were either turned back or detained.
Most residents in Zhengzhou, the Henan provincial capital less than 40km east of Zhongmou, appeared to have heard only vague rumors about the riots, and many were shocked as the vehemence of the clashes.
China's Huis are descendants of Arab and Persian traders. Over the centuries they have mixed so thoroughly with the Han Chinese that they are indistinguishable from each other but for religion, customs and dress codes.
In related developments, officials have vowed to "severely punish" organizers of a mass protest in southwest China amid a simmering conflict over farmland requisition for a hydroelectric project, residents said yesterday.
Around 100,000 people are to be relocated to make way for the Pubugou dam in Sichuan Province's Hanyuan County, and many are unhappy at the compensation payments offered.
Tempers boiled over on Thursday and Friday last week when villagers said at least one person was killed and scores were injured as tens of thousands of people clashed with armed police.
Some protesters were savagely beaten by police in the melee, villagers said.
"They were beating people. Some people were crying, some were on their knees begging for mercy," a resident surnamed Peng from Jinyan village told reporters.
The accusations were denied by an official, surnamed Liu, at the local migration bureau. Liu also denied that anyone died in the clash.
Villagers said officials were now trying to hunt down the protest leaders.
"They said that they will arrest those who led the protests, those who are responsible," said a farmer from Dashu village who identified herself only as Wang.
Another resident surnamed Dong from the same village said officials had made a television appeal to urge people to turn themselves in.
"They said those who don't turn themselves in will be arrested," she said.
Local officials, led by Sichuan Provincial Party Committee Vice Secretary Li Chongxi, met with villagers Monday to listen to their requests, Sichuan newspaper Ya'an Daily said.
Li was quoted as saying that the Pubugou hydroelectric project -- temporarily suspended due to the protests -- must go ahead and people who incited the protests must be punished to ensure social stability.
But residents remained defiant and said unless they receive more reasonable compensation, they will take to the streets again.
They said officials had visited several villages to admonish and calm down residents but have not yet offered new conditions for compensation payments.
"The riot has died down, but this is only temporary. We have to go out there again because the compensation is just too low. How can we make a living like this?" Peng said.
Villagers said they had been offered between 180 and 320 yuan (US$21 and US$38) per mu (0.0667 hectares) of land which they say is not enough to make up for the annual income of 7,000 yuan from each mu they make from growing wheat, turnip and beans.
"Premier Wen Jiabao (
The lands of some 100,000 farmers in 40 townships spread throughout three counties are expected to submerged by the dam project. Up to one million farmers, many unhappy about their future prospects, are expected to be relocated to make way for the Yangtze's Three Gorges Dam, when the world's biggest hydroelectric project is fully completed by 2009.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS