The Party is Always Right:
WaPo:
The explosion of violence in Bo Mei, between Shantou city, in Guangdong province, and Hong Kong, ended a three-month lull in unrest that has unfurled across the Chinese countryside in recent years, posing a major political problem for the government of President Hu Jintao.
Most of the violent protests have erupted in farming villages over land seizures by local governments or factory pollution that seeps into fields and kills crops. Participants in the clashes here said Friday that Bo Mei's 10,000 residents rose up because authorities tried to demolish a pair of irrigation dikes constructed without authorization from the Guangdong provincial Waterworks Administration.
The two dikes were constructed in October with about $100,000 that villagers raised through donations. In repeated pleas to local and provincial authorities, villagers sought without success to win approval after construction was completed. Several villagers traveled to Beijing to petition the central government, also to no avail.
The dikes were essential, the villagers argued, because Bo Mei lies so far downstream that water flowing from hillsides to the South China Sea is exhausted before it reaches here. A couple died two years ago in a house fire, they recalled, because there was not enough water to douse the flames. More importantly, they argued, rice cultivation, the village mainstay, had become nearly impossible for lack of water for irrigation.
The explosion of violence in Bo Mei, between Shantou city, in Guangdong province, and Hong Kong, ended a three-month lull in unrest that has unfurled across the Chinese countryside in recent years, posing a major political problem for the government of President Hu Jintao.
Most of the violent protests have erupted in farming villages over land seizures by local governments or factory pollution that seeps into fields and kills crops. Participants in the clashes here said Friday that Bo Mei's 10,000 residents rose up because authorities tried to demolish a pair of irrigation dikes constructed without authorization from the Guangdong provincial Waterworks Administration.
The two dikes were constructed in October with about $100,000 that villagers raised through donations. In repeated pleas to local and provincial authorities, villagers sought without success to win approval after construction was completed. Several villagers traveled to Beijing to petition the central government, also to no avail.
The dikes were essential, the villagers argued, because Bo Mei lies so far downstream that water flowing from hillsides to the South China Sea is exhausted before it reaches here. A couple died two years ago in a house fire, they recalled, because there was not enough water to douse the flames. More importantly, they argued, rice cultivation, the village mainstay, had become nearly impossible for lack of water for irrigation.