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Police, villagers clash over irrigation system

Thousands of villagers clashed with police in southern China over government plans to tear down sluice gates built by villagers for irrigation, leaving one woman dead and several people injured, newspapers and witnesses said yesterday.

About 4,000 villagers gathered on Wednesday to stop police from demolishing the pair of gates in Bomei, a village in Guangdong Province, and were dispersed with tear gas and water cannons, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily.

The newspaper and Radio Free Asia, a US-funded broadcaster, said a woman in her 30s had died. Radio Free Asia said she was hit in the head by a tear gas canister. Ming Pao said at least 10 other people were injured.

The South China Morning Post newspaper said the villagers were armed with "homemade weapons including petrol bombs" and fought to keep more than 1,000 police officers from the gates.

Such fierce confrontations between farmers and authorities are becoming more common across China's vast countryside, as bitterness grows over corruption and land seizures.

"There was chaos here," said one villager who was reached by telephone. He gave only his surname, Huang, for fear of official retaliation.

An official in Xilu, the town which oversees Bomei, said he was "unclear" about the situation and hung up. Telephone calls to government offices in Bomei and to the provincial government were not answered.

Huang said villagers built the sluice gates in September to irrigate their crops, but the local officials deemed the structures illegal. When the government decided to tear the gates down, "this enraged us," Huang said.

During the conflict, he said, police "launched tear gas toward villagers. Some villagers' eyes were seriously hurt."

Hong Kong Cable TV showed footage from Bomei after the clash. The road was covered with broken bricks and two trucks had their windows smashed and were burned.

A woman identified only by her surname, Huang, told the TV station from a hospital bed that she was injured while watching the clash.

"I was standing by a small shop. I was just watching with my sister," said the woman, who had a large white bandage over her nose. "The tear gas was pretty intense ... A tear gas canister hit me right square in the nose, then I fell down."

One villager was arrested, according to the South China Morning Post.

"The reason why we won't allow them to tear down the sluice gates is because they are our only water supply for irrigation," said Huang. "Bomei is a very big village with a population of more than 10,000. We need the sluice gates badly."

He said several villagers were killed in a blaze about four years ago because there "was not enough water supply which delayed the fire fighting."

The deadliest clash in recent years occurred in the nearby village of Shanwei in December, when police fired into a crowd of people protesting the requisitioning of land for a power plant. At least three people died, according to official accounts, though residents put the death toll as high as 20.
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