A Chinese experiment in democracy meets fierce resistance

One villager's fight against corruption results in abuse and arrests.

from the September 3, 2008 edition / The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0903/p01s01-woap.html?page=2

Peter Ford

Huiguan, China - When Fang Zhaojuan began organizing her neighbors here to impeach village leaders whom she suspected of corruption, she had no idea that the challenge would lead her first to the hospital and then to jail.

She was following the law, after all, and had launched legal petitions signed by a large majority of villagers. They believed they had been cheated of proper compensation when their village council had sold land for industrial development to the government of a nearby township.

Mrs. Fang, her family, and colleagues on a recall committee, however, found themselves plunged into a violent political drama. This, they say, has shown residents of the hamlet just how narrow the boundaries remain for their democratic rights. It has also, they add, hardened their resolve to enforce them.

Huiguan, a nondescript cluster of brick houses outside the port of Tianjin, is like tens of thousands of other Chinese villages, on the verge of being swallowed up by a fast-expanding city. Its farmland has all but disappeared under new factories, and under circumstances that Fang, a 43-year-old widow, found suspicious.

"She never expected this," says her sister, Fang Zhaohui, displaying photographs of Fang's bruised and bloody body taken in the hospital six weeks ago, after thugs had broken into her home and beaten her. "She never expected it would be so difficult and that the government would be so black."

"The township government is abusing its power," complains Li Guangde, a village activist who has so far avoided jail. "They are putting difficulties in our way and a lot of pressure on us. Perhaps some township officials were involved in the land sale and maybe there was corruption. I don't know."

Democratic hopes sputter

Chinese law prescribes direct democratic elections for village councils, and provides for recalls if a majority of villagers lose faith in their leaders. "But that is only the law," cautions Yawei Liu, head of the China Program at Atlanta's Carter Center, which has worked with the Chinese authorities to strengthen village self-rule.

"Once you move into the real world it is very difficult to enforce," he adds.

Ten years ago, when China's definitive law on village elections came into effect, many officials and some foreign scholars touted it as heralding broader democracy nationwide.

Today, such hopes are sputtering. Fang's fate illustrates one key weakness of the experiment: It is very hard for grass-roots democracy to thrive in a vacuum where superior levels of government are undemocratic.

"Unless there are changes higher up, this kind of democracy cannot be sustained," fears Dr. Liu.

"At any point in the process the authoritarian system can come into play" to frustrate villagers' democratic aims, says Kevin O'Brien, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied village governance in China for years. "This story is an example of bottom-up democracy being swamped by undemocratic people who are used to giving orders."

On the other hand, Dr. Liu points out, "the beatings and the jailings are a reflection ... that the villagers are so keenly aware of their rights there is nothing else the government can do."

Recent events in Huiguan show that "when people know they have been given some political rights, they are going to take advantage of this," adds Li Lianjiang, a village elections expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "This is a positive sign of democratic growth."

Roots of dispute

The drama here began last November, when Han Baocai, an 80-year-old farmer, filed a complaint with the Tianjin municipal government about the way in which the Huiguan village council had sold more than 50 acres of commonly held land to the higher-level township government of nearby Xiaozhan.

Villagers claim now that Xiaozhan paid 10,000 RMB per mu ($8,500 per acre), and sold it to developers for 800,000 RMB per mu ($685,000 per acre), alleging that the Xiaozhan and Huiguan authorities shared the profits at the villagers' expense.

Xiaozhan deputy Communist party secretary Liang Hongbin insists that the township paid a fair market price for agricultural land and that villagers were compensated according to the law.

Party Secretary Hao Shumin acknowledges the Xiaozhan government sold the land to developers for nearly twice what it paid for it, because the land's status had changed from village agricultural land to nationally owned industrial-use land, increasing its value. But he says the price was less than a tenth of what the villagers claim.

Huiguan villagers, however, believed they had been cheated, and in January they began the process specified by the village democracy law to recall their elected council.

From the start, they say, the Xiaozhan authorities put obstacles in their way, which villagers sometimes managed to overcome by appealing to officials at higher levels of the district government hierarchy.

But with a recall committee of five villagers duly elected in February to oversee the impeachment referendum, Xiaozhan stopped sending representatives to Huiguan village meetings. Villagers complain that since the law requires all village votes to be observed by an official from the local township, the local government could nullify all their decisions simply by refusing to witness them.

The conflict sharpened with a disagreement over who had the right to participate in the recall vote. Xiaozhan government officials said eligibility restrictions imposed by Huiguan's activists were illegal, which rendered the recall process null and void.

When appeals to the Tianjin authorities to resolve the dispute went unanswered, villagers say, they went ahead with preparations for the recall vote, deciding on procedures, publishing a voter list, distributing ballots, and inviting local and district officials to witness the vote on July 5.

Violence follows vote

The day before the vote, village council president Yuan Shiwan and his two colleagues abruptly resigned. The recall vote went ahead anyway, garnering 617 votes in favor and none against, well over the 50 percent of village residents required for the motion to pass.

Despite the resignation and the vote, however, villagers said a crowd of them found Mr. Yuan and his colleagues still occupying the council offices on July 8. What happened next is unclear: Yuan claims to have been manhandled, knocked to the ground, and beaten; villagers at the scene say he was not touched.

Three days later, however, seven people including two of Yuan's sons showed up at Fang's house and beat her savagely, according to eyewitnesses who also photographed her injuries after an ambulance had taken her to hospital. One man was detained but later released, and nobody has yet been charged with the assault.

The next day Fang's son and a friend of his were arrested in connection with the alleged attack on Yuan. They were released two weeks later, and no formal charge was filed. A district court has, unusually, accepted their lawsuit against the police for wrongful arrest.

The Olympics factor

On Aug. 13, Fang and her fellow recall committee members mailed complaints about their treatment to a variety of offices, including the Supreme Court Anti-Corruption Office and the Tianjin prosecutor. But they abstained from visiting petition offices because "the government did not want anything to disturb the social order during the Olympics; they wanted a party spirit," explains Mr. Li.

The day after the Olympics closed, however, Fang and other villagers approached district officials to press their case. On their return to Fang's home, police arrested her; three other members of the recall committee; Han Baocai, the 80-year-old who had first raised the issue in contention; and one other villager, said Li, who was detained with them but released a few hours later.

The six others, and another member of the recall committee arrested later, remain in detention. They are being held on suspicion of "disturbing the social order," according to plainclothes police officer Zhang Congying, but neither Mr. Zhang nor the Xiaozhan police chief, Wang Jinting, would say what they had done to incur such suspicion.

Xiaozhan Deputy Communist Party Secretary Liang insists that Fang and her colleagues "were not arrested because of their recall effort. Nobody would be arrested for seeking to recall officials according to the law."

Consequences of direct democracy

Fang's sister, however, sees their detention as a warning to others. "If they arrest Fang Zhaojuan, other people won't dare cause any more trouble," she says. "They do it to suppress ordinary people."

A "barefoot lawyer," who is advising Huiguan's recall committee, but who asked not to be identified since he has already been jailed once for "counterrevolutionary activities," agrees.

"This case is a natural result of the social environment," he argues. "When ordinary people try to use their democratic rights, they will definitely suffer the consequences. The phenomenon of having a law supporting people's rights that they cannot actually enjoy is too common in our country."

The villagers say they are not giving up, however. "We want a fair solution to all the problems ... and a clear response to our vote," says Li. "We insist on it."

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罢免村官－基层民主实验遭遇剧烈抵抗

多维社记者林桂明编译报导/中国的有关法令规定，村民委员会的成员通过直接民主选举产生，如果达到一定比例的村民对他们失去信任，可以要求罢免他们的职位。但是，近年来中国各地罢免“村官”的实践证明，罢免程序要启动和真正生效，极为困难。村民们反对腐败“村官”的行动最后可能导致自己被虐待、被关押。前不久发生在天津郊区一个小村庄里的故事就是一个明证。

村民：民主权限竟这么小

基督教科学箴言报9月3日刊登的驻中国首席记者付毕德（Peter Ford）题为“中国一个民主实验遭遇剧烈抵抗”（A Chinese experiment in democracy meets fierce resistance）的文章，报导了天津郊区这个小村庄里发生的基层“民主”发展的故事。报导说，当村民房兆娟怀疑村领导犯有腐败行为，开始组织左邻右舍检举村领导时，她完全没想到的是，这场挑战竟然首先让她自己入了医院，最后入监狱。

然而，她只是依据法规办事，发起几乎全村男女老少签署的一份合法的请愿书。他们认为，村民委员会把集体农田卖给邻镇政府做工业开发项目时，克扣了村民们应得的赔偿金。

但是，房兆娟、她的家人，和罢免委员会的同事发现，他们陷入一出充斥着暴力的政治戏剧。他们说，此事让这个小村的村民们了解到，他们民主权益的界限竟然是这么的窄小。另外，他们还说，这件事让他们更加下决心去行使这些不多的权益。

会馆（Huiguan，音译），位于天津郊外，是由一群形状不一的砖房组成的小村，这里就像中国其他成千上万座村落一样，处在被飞速扩张的城市吞噬的边缘上。他们的农田几乎都变成了新工厂，而且，多数是在如43岁的寡妇房兆娟所质疑的情况下发生的。

“她从未想到过会这样，”她的妹妹房兆慧（Fang Zhaohui，音译）说，她向记者出示了许多张房兆娟于6週前被一群流氓打得遍体鳞伤，送入医院时的照片。“她从未想到会那么样困难，政府会那么样黑暗。”

“乡镇政府滥用职权，仗势欺人，”一名迄今还没有被关押起来的村里积极维权活动人士李广德（Li Guangde，音译）抱怨说，“他们屡次阻碍我们，还向我们施压。一些镇政府官员可能也参与了卖土地的事，也是腐败份子。我都搞不清楚了。”

法律给的民主希望落空

中国的法令明文规定，村民委员会的干部都要通过直接民主选举产生，而且，如果大多数村民对他们失去信任，可以要求并启动程序罢免他们职位。“但是，这只是有法而已，”在亚特拉大，与中国当局合作加强中国村民的自主权的卡特中心的中国项目主任佐治亚周边学院历史系教授刘亚伟(Yawei Liu)警告说。

他接着说：“但是一旦到了现实环境时，实际执行起来就非常困难了。”

10年前，当中国的乡村选举法生效时，许多官员和一些外国学者都把它视为带动全国更广泛的民主化的先驱。

如今，这种希望在落空。房兆娟的命运显示了这场民主实验的一大缺点：在一个高层政府是非民主化的空间中，基层民主很难蓬勃发展起来。

刘博士担心说：“除非高层有所改变，不然，这种民主是无法持续下去的。”

长期研究中国乡村政府问题的加州柏克利大学的凯文－奥布赖恩(Kevin O'Brien)教授说，“对民主选举程序的任何一个阶段，专制体制都可以进行干涉，”来阻碍村民的民主目标的实现。“这个故事正是由下至上的民主发展，被习惯于听从发号施令的非民主群体淹没的一个典型案例。”

另一方面，刘博士指出，“殴打和拘留也反映出，村民们清楚地了解自己的权益，而政府无技可施了。”

香港中文大学的乡村选举专家李连江还表示，最近在会馆村发生的事件显示，“当人们清楚他们被赋予某些政治权益时，他们就会行使它们。这是民主成长的正面迹象。”

罢免风波的起源

最初，这出戏是去年11月开幕的。当时，80岁的农民韩宝才（Han Baocai，音译）向天津市政府投诉会馆村村民委员会，指出村委会把村里50多英亩集体的土地卖给附近的小站镇政府的交易疑点丛丛。

村民们称，小站镇以每亩1万人民币买下这些土地，现在，又以每亩80万人民币卖给开发商。他们认为小站和会馆的当政者私下把卖土地的利润放进了自己腰包，而受损失的则是村民。

小站镇副党委书记粱红斌（Liang Hongbin，音译）坚持称，镇政府是以公正的市场价买下农田的，而且，已经依法向村民支付了补偿。

党委书记郝淑民（Hao Shumin，音译）承认，小站镇政府以将近两倍于原价的价格把土地转卖给了开发商，因为土地的定位已经从村的农田变为了国有工业用地，价值上升了。但是，他说转卖的价格还不到村民所说的十分之一。

但是，会馆村民认为，他们受骗了，因此，于08年1月间开始依据村民主选举法的程序要求罢免他们选出的村民委员会成员。

他们说，一开始，小站政府就百般阻扰他们，有时候，村民们可以通过向更高层的区政府上诉来克服这些困难。

虽然，村民们于2月份时选出5名罢免委员会成员，由他们负责监督村干部的工作，但是，小站镇停止派遣代表参加会馆村的会议。村民们抱怨，由于法律要求所有乡村级的投票必须在地方乡镇政府的监督下进行，地方政府可以通过拒绝派人到现场见证他们的投票过程，来使他们的任何决定变为无效的。

此外，双方的的冲突因为谁有权参与罢免投票的问题进一步加深。小站镇政府官员说，会馆村民采用的资格限制不符合法规，因此，投票结果将是无效的。

村民说，当他们向天津市政府申诉，请求他们解决双方纠纷时，无人理睬他们。最后，他们还是继续进行罢免投票的准备工作，决定好投票程序，发表了选民名单，分发了选票，并要求当地和区政府官员于7月5日到场见证结果。

罢免投票后的官方暴力

投票的前一日，村委员会主任苑世万和两名同事突然辞职。这次罢免投票仍然照计划举行，共617票赞成，无人反对，远比需要通过决定的50％的村民选票要多。

村民们说，尽管村委员会成员自己主动辞职和投票结果，但是，到7月8日时，他们发现苑世万和他的同事仍然占据委员会办公室。此后发生的事情就不清楚：苑世万声称自己被人围起来殴打；村民们说根本没有碰他。

但是，根据目击者证词，3天后，包括苑世万的两名儿子在内的7个人出现在房兆娟的门前，残酷的殴打她。他们还拍摄有房兆娟被送往医院，全身是伤的照片。一名打人的男子被拘留，但是，不久后获释，其他人都没有被起诉攻击罪。

第二天，房兆娟的儿子和一名朋友因为被指控殴打苑世万被逮捕。他们2周后获释，并没有被正是起诉。一区法院一反常例，已经受理了他们起诉警察胡乱逮捕他们的控诉案。

8月13日，房兆娟和其他罢免委员会成员向包括最高法院反贪污腐败部门和天津检察院等多处政府办公机构寄了有关她的经历的投诉信。但是，他们放弃访问上访办公室的选择，李广德解释说，因为“政府不希望在奥运会期间，有任何扰乱社会秩序的事情发生；他们希望大家服从上级的精神。”

但是，奥运会结束后的头一天，房兆娟和其他村民就找到区政府官员重提他们的事情后，在他们回家的路上，警察逮捕了房兆娟和其他3名罢免委员会成员；还有最初提出村官和政府的腐败问题的，80岁的韩宝才；其他一名村民说，李广德也和他们一起被拘留，不过，几小时后获释。

另有6人和另外一名罢免委员会成员后来也被捕，至今仍在拘留所中。根据便衣警察张聪颖（Zhang Congying，音译）的说法，他们被捕的原因是有“危害社会秩序”的嫌疑，但是，张聪颖和小站镇派出所所长王金廷（Wang Jinting，音译）都说不出他们到底干了那些涉嫌违法的事情。

小站镇副党委书记粱先生坚持称，房兆娟和她的村里人“并不是因为他们搞罢免活动而被捕的。依据法律，要求撤销官员并不会被捕。”

政府杀鸡儆猴

但是，房兆娟的妹妹认为，这是政府杀鸡儆猴的手段。她说：“如果他们逮捕房兆娟，其他人就不敢闹事。他们是为了压制其他普通村民才这么做的。”

一名为会馆村罢免委员会做顾问的“赤脚律师”也同意她的看法。由于这名“赤脚律师”已经因为“反革命行为”罪被拘留过，所以，他要求记者不要公开他的身份。

他认为：“这个案子是中国社会环境的必然结果。当普通老百姓想要行使他们民主权益时，他们肯定要付出代价。在我们国家，这种法律规定的权利人民实际上享受不到的现象已经太普遍了。”

然而，村民们说，他们不会放弃。李广德说：“我们希望所有问题有个公正的结果......对我们的投票给一个清楚的回答。我们要坚持这点。”