Guizhou riot was comprehensive attack on CCP
The in Guizhou, China after students believed relatives of local officials were implicated in the death of a classmate, is now looking like a very major incident in Chinese terms. It still provokes discussion and angst on Chinese . Here are some from the incident.
I have just been sent an excerpt of what my colleagues in ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Monitoring have gleaned today from Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency....
"1600 on 28 June, the relatives of the deceased gathered together about 300 or more people, who went on a demonstration in the county town of Wengan, holding banners...Instigated by a minority of people, some lawless elements assaulted the policemen with mineral water bottles, clumps of soil, and bricks. They then broke through the row of policemen with linked arms inside the ground floor lobby of the public security bureau building, smashed office equipment, and burned vehicles. .... At or around 2000, the lawless elements perpetrated beating, smashing, looting, and burning against the office buildings of Wengan County's CCP committee and government. At one point, they assaulted the nearby detention house of the county. The whole event lasted nearly seven hours.
"In this incident, the county CCP committee's building was destroyed by burning; 104 offices of the county government building were destroyed by burning; 47 offices and four facades of the office building of the county public security bureau were destroyed by burning; 14 offices of the criminal investigation building were smashed up; the entirety of the files and data at the domicile administration centre of the county public security bureau was destroyed;....(Source: Xinhua news agency domestic service, Beijing, in Chinese 1746 gmt 1 Jul 08)
Chinese opposition groups and websites claim there were in fact 10,000 people on the protest, that they were brutally treated. There are two western news network pieces based on user-generated content: and - both of which you can see on Youtube.
This area contains a high proportion of ethnic miniorities but from some press reports it seems that longstanding grievances over corruption - which one protester said had produced a shortage of drinking water - spilled over into this clash when the girl's family, believing she had been raped and murdered, accused the local party of a cover up.
What is clear is the scale of the attack on the entire apparatus of CCP rule in Guizhou: the party, the police, the courts and the secret police were attacked, their premises comprehensively trashed () and set on fire. A crackdown on "lawless gangs" is now in progress and as the, there has been a nationwide crackdown on all protests and petitions.
If you are going to the Olympics - either as a journalist, athlete or spectator - this will help you understand why the Chinese state is "maintaining social harmony": it is, as this incident shows, very brittle. If you are in Guizhou, and reading this, please leave a comment and tell us about your experience.
Comment number 1.
At 3rd Jul 2008, barriesingleton wrote:GOVERNED AND GOVERNANCE
What seems common, across the world, is that those in power are, as the old saw states, by their elevation, corrupted. When government sets the soldiers on the people, corruption is overt but when they play party political games, at obscene expense, with the (declining) mental and physical health of an entire nation, as here, the corruption is far more insidious, and needs a higher order of investigation. Decades ago we had the odd 'sage'; an a-political thorn in the side of our politically- mediated downward slide. Where are they now? Would they not have played a spotlight on the rot at home before scrutinising those awful foreigners?
(I suspect a fearless delve into Britain's decay might receive more attention here than Chinese angst!)
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