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Parents of Sichuan quake victims fall silent after payment

Parents of children killed when poorly built schools collapsed in China’s earthquake remain angry, but police intimidation and cash payments have largely quelled their protests, locals said.

About 7,000 schools collapsed in the May 12 quake, often as nearby buildings stood firm, and relatives of the dead children initially spoke out loudly against the graft they believed led to the shoddy construction of the schools.

However a police crackdown in the months following the earthquake and the handing over of wads of cash to grieving relatives have apparently helped quash what was a rare moment of freedom of expression in China.

“The families have accepted compensation payments — they have to accept the money because the police can be very terrifying,” said a shop-owner surnamed Cheng near the Juyuan Middle School, where at least 200 teachers and children died and protests were amongst the angriest.

“When they accept the money they are told to keep quiet, we have all been told not to accept interviews [with the media],” Cheng said.

Chinese press reports show that compensation payments for each child lost were at least 32,000 yuan (US$4,500) throughout the quake zone.

But Cheng said the parents of each dead child at the Juyuan school received up to 170,000 yuan — more than five times as much.

Parents who spoke to AFP in June during the protests — some of which were forcibly quelled by police — refused to talk to journalists this week.

“It is not convenient for me to speak to you now, please don’t call,” said You Zhenghua, who had dug her 14-year-old daughter out of the Juyuan debris with her bare hands.

One father whose daughter survived the Juyuan collapse said relatives were still angry over why the building caved in.

“It is clear that poor construction was a problem — why didn’t other buildings here collapse?” he said, while asking his name not be used for fear of repercussions from authorities.

The earthquake left nearly 88,000 people dead or missing in southwest China’s Sichuan province and surrounding areas.

Official estimates show up to 9,000 teachers and students were killed in the collapses of the schools, but locals believe such estimates are far below the real numbers.

Immediately following the quake, China’s state-controlled press was allowed to report freely on the anger of the parents over the collapsed schools, but such freedoms were curbed three weeks later.

As part of the crackdown, two AFP staff members were among at least six foreign media representatives held by police for a short time and then ordered out of town after they tried to report at Juyuan and other schools in June.

“We have to be thankful to the media for their concern,” said Zao Sufang, 80, whose home near the front gate of the Juyuan school partially collapsed.

“Because of the reports, the situation here has ended much better than it would have otherwise,” she said.
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