Under Siege

"In Heaven there is the Thunder God, on Earth there is Lufeng and Wukan."

The 20,000 residents of Wukan, a resilient, determined group of Chinese citizens, could use some help from the Thunder God. Their resistance to continue permitting their local provincial government to keep looting their ancestral farmlands for commercial development when they would far prefer to maintain it for agricultural sustenance has placed them under siege.

Beijing, looking at its rule of 1.3-billion Chinese, estimates there occurs roughly 180,000 "mass incidents" annually in China. These are unfortunate occurrences, where people assemble in a mass protest, a grievance against some perceived wrong, an incident, an injustice, where the government sends in its troops and swiftly settles the 'unrest'.

The need for 'harmony' is paramount.

What is occurring now in Wukan is slightly out of the ordinary. The people of Wukan are not prepared to be placated, nor are they prepared to surrender their anger to the firm control of their communist overseers whose counsel has kept them firmly under its thumb for the last three decades. They have been forcibly removed, the villagers now on their own, and liking it, immensely.

They feel no obligation to be harmonious to the plans of their government.

Their initial protest saw one of their leaders, Xue Jinbo, 43, taken into police custody. For interrogation, of course, and to give the authorities the opportunity to change Xue Jinbo's stubborn mind. And then, of course, to return him to the village to do his obligatory part in changing the collective minds of the villagers.

Something went wrong. Now the villagers are insisting that he be returned: "Return the body! Return our brother! Return our farmland! Wukan has been wronged! Blood debt must be paid! Where is justice?" they now scream, infuriated and resolutely refusing to lay down their rightful wrath against their oppressors.

"There were cuts and bruises on the corners of his mouth and on his forehead, and both his nostrils were full of blood. His chest was grazed and his thumbs looked like they had been broken backwards. Both his knees were black. They refused to release the body to us." Xue Jinbo's 21-year-old daughter, Xue Jianwan.

The world has been alerted about China's latest troubles. But not China, that news is censored, internally. China has no wish to inform the rest of the country of its problems with "seditionists". The villagers' access to food and water has been cut off; none allowed in, and officially no one allowed out; they are under siege.

"We think we can last for ten to twelve days. We are using a corridor to the next village to smuggle in meat and vegetables on the back of motorbikes, but each trip takes an hour. The main problem is rice, but we are taking each day as it comes."