Police Open Fire on Rioting Farmers, Fishermen in China

The confrontation was typical of the tension across China between economic development, which runs about 9 percent a year, and farmers' desire to retain the land that they regard as security for their families. The tension is particularly acute here in Guangdong province and the Pearl River Delta, where during the past two decades of economic liberalization, factories and dormitories have steadily eaten away at the rice paddies, corn fields and fruit orchards that used to flourish in the warm, wet climate.

For most of this year, Dongzhou villagers have been protesting on and off against the power plant project, originally scheduled to be finished in 2007 but now delayed. One protest leader, surnamed Huang, was arrested in July.

"It is illegal to impede the progress of a key infrastructure project," a Shanwei spokesman, Li Min, told Radio Free Asia then. "As for whether the compensation is reasonable, it was in line with the usual standards."

The villagers, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the current round of violence was set off when authorities arrested three village leaders who had gone to the hillside plant site Tuesday afternoon to lodge a complaint. Before long, they said, several thousand villagers gathered on the hilltop to demand their release.

Those villagers were dispersed by volleys of teargas fired by police, residents said. But shortly afterward, authorities dispatched between 400 and 500 more riot police into the village as reinforcements, the residents said. That contingent was met by several thousand angry villagers, they added, and police again resorted to teargas about dusk. This time, however, some villagers reacted by pelting police with the explosives, according to witnesses, and the police responded with sustained pistol and automatic weapons fire over the following three hours.

A similar confrontation occurred Wednesday evening on the main village road, leading to more attacks with gasoline bombs and several more hours of shooting, the villagers said. "The police kept on shooting until they drove away all the villagers," said a witness.

In the absence of official information from the government or Dongzhou hospital, reports flew from family to family of villagers killed, bodies burned and relatives unable to retrieve their slain loved ones left lying in the street. Some said 20 villagers were killed each night; others said the total was 14.

"I saw the bodies lying there," said one witness to Tuesday night's violence. "The family members were afraid to go and get them."

One villager, Liu Yujing, 31, said his younger brother, Liu Yudui, 26, was hit by two rounds, one in the heart and one in the bladder, immediately after he stepped outside the family home to see what was going on in the street Tuesday evening. "He died before we could get him to the hospital," Liu said.

Researcher Jin Ling contributed to this report.