Thousands of villagers in southern China clashed with police during a protest against inadequate compensation for farmland flooded by a dam project, a news report said yesterday.
Hong Kong's Mingpao newspaper reported that about 10,000 villagers repeatedly scrapped with police over a four-day period last week when they tried to petition the local government in Guangxi Province's Yantan Township and to hold demonstrations near the dam.
From June 1 through June 4, villagers carrying banners and shouting slogans surrounded the Yantan No. 2 Hydroelectric Power Station's staff residence and marched to the dam site to demand higher compensation, the newspaper said.
It said several hundred soldiers and armed police were trucked in to help contain the protests and five villagers were injured in clashes. Several people were arrested, the report said, without giving numbers.
The paper said Yantan farmland was flooded several years ago when the dam caused the Red River to overflow its banks.
The report said villagers were enraged when the central government allegedly gave Yantan officials 2.8 million yuan (US$370,000) last year to help compensate residents -- but only a portion of it was distributed.
Villagers claimed that local officials pocketed some of the money.
The Mingpao said that villagers had been sporadically protesting the situation since April, but that last week's demonstrations were the largest yet.
The government has been giving every villager a subsidy of 30 yuan per month regardless of how much land they lost, it said.
A Yantan villager, surnamed Li, said that the situation had calmed down and that local officials were negotiating with the villagers, who were demanding 150 yuan a month.
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