[Marxism] Pollution protest leads to riot in China city

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

April 13, 2005, 8:12PM



Pollution protest leads to riot in China
Thousands join elderly in streets to demand that factories be moved
New York Times

BEIJING - Thousands of people rioted Sunday in a village in southeastern
China, overturning police cars and driving away officers who had tried
to stop elderly villagers from protesting pollution from nearby
factories.

By Wednesday afternoon, witnesses say, crowds convened in the village,
Huaxi, in Zhejiang province to look at a stunning tableau of destroyed
police cars and shattered windows. Police officers were reported to be
barring reporters from the scene, but local people reached by telephone
said villagers controlled the riot area.

"The villagers will not give up if there is no concrete action to move
the factories away," said a Mr. Lu, a villager who said he had witnessed
part of the confrontation. "The crowd is growing. There are at least
50,000 or 60,000 people." He would not give his full name.

Other villagers gave substantially smaller crowd estimates. They agreed
on the broad outlines of a violent clash villagers say came after they
had tried in vain for two years to curb pollution from chemical plants
in a nearby industrial park.

An account in a local state-controlled newspaper blamed local agitators
for the brawl and said thousands of people had set upon government
workers with rocks, clubs and sticks.

There were conflicting reports about injuries, and Lu said two elderly
women among the protesters had been gravely injured after being run over
by a police vehicle. The Dongyang Daily said more than 30 government
employees had been hospitalized, including five with serious injuries.
Neither account could be confirmed.

Huaxi is a few hours' drive south of Hangzhou, the provincial capital of
coastal Zhejiang. It is a short distance from the Zhuxi Industrial
Function Zone, the local industrial park that villagers say is home to
13 chemical factories.

"The air stinks from the factories," said a villager, Wang Yuehe. She
said the local river was filled with pollutants that had contaminated
local farmland.


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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: World

This article is:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/3133588


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