In Chinese Uprisings, Peasants Find New Allies

The next morning, police and district officials came to take the books away -- to protect them, they said. Villagers called the Guangzhou Communist Party Discipline and Inspection Bureau, denouncing what they interpreted as an attempt to cover up malfeasance. But their calls elicited no response, they said. A group of elderly women moved into the three-story administration building and refused to budge. The ledgers would stay, they vowed.

As the sit-in continued, plainclothes security agents detained a protest leader as he rode his motorcycle down a village lane on Aug. 16. On hearing the news, hundreds of villagers poured out of their homes and surrounded the van into which the agents had stuffed the leader, blocking its passage.

After a several-hour confrontation during which the number of protesters swelled to more than 1,000, witnesses said, an estimated 500 riot police drove up in several dozen vehicles and waded into the crowd, swinging their batons. In Internet postings, villagers reported five of their number were arrested. A 16-year-old youth suffered a concussion, they said, and an 80-year-old peasant woman suffered a broken bone and had to be hospitalized. The sit-in continued, meanwhile, with the elderly women still refusing to leave. Within days, their numbers grew.

The district government two weeks later handed down a ruling that the recall motion was unacceptable because it was a photocopy, and the law demanded the original signatures. Outraged, a number of villagers, including elderly women, started a hunger strike outside the district headquarters building.

After several days, some of the hunger strikers were detained and later released on condition they return home, the protesters said. As they left custody about 3 p.m., they reported, officials gave them box lunches.

Despite the gesture, the atmosphere remained tense. As police moved in to make the arrests, one elderly woman threatened to blow up the building by igniting a canister of liquefied gas, according to witnesses. Yang sent messages to Chinese and foreign reporters recounting what was happening and urging them to visit. A reporter from the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post showed up, and two youths smashed her car windows with rocks.

Triumph for the Villagers

From that point on, things moved fast.

On Sept. 5, a delegation of villagers went to the district headquarters to present the original recall motion with the original signatures. But official patience had frayed. Activists later speculated that word had come down from Beijing that the uproar in Taishi -- and the confluence of political activism with peasant outrage -- had to be stopped. Although his role could not be determined, Premier Wen Jiabao visited the region Sept. 9-13 to confer with senior regional and city officials.

Beijing-based activists said they received warnings from the Civil Affairs Ministry about that time to back away from the Taishi dispute. "Everybody was scared," one of them recalled.

Back in Taishi, more than 50 vehicles drove up to the village administration building on Sept. 12 and disgorged hundreds of riot police, witnesses said. Swinging batons and training high-pressure hoses on the elderly women inside, the police cleared the building and made way for district officials to take away the account books.

Nearly 50 protesters were taken into custody. The next day, Yang was also arrested as he drove to meet a crew from the Hong Kong-based Phoenix satellite television channel. Lu was urged to leave, but refused. "You know, he is just like a farmer; he is stubborn," said an activist who has worked with Lu.

Then, in a surprise turn of events, the district government announced that the recall motion was proved valid and villagers should choose an election committee to organize a new vote for village chief, scheduled for the middle of October. The protests should now stop, it said, and activists with "ulterior motives" should be ignored.