By staff reporter Zhu Tao

From Caijing Online

A crowd of 2,000 gathered outside the offices of the party committee in Longnan City, Gansu Province, on November 17 to protest forced relocations and a rumor that the city’s administrative center was moving towns. Early in the morning on the following day, the crowd lost control. Offices were raided and several cars parked nearby were damaged. According to the official report, a number of policemen and cadres were beat up, and 60 people were injured.

In the morning of November 17, 30 local residents who were made to vacate their home by the city planning board appealed to the city party committee for help, demanding a solution for their housing problems. Soon, a group of pedestrians had gathered to watch, resulting the traffic jam in front of the gate of party committee’s building.

By 8 p.m., 1,000 had filed into the courtyard behind the building. According to a report from the provincial newspaper Gansu Daily, the crowd amounted to 2,000 at most. As the night wore on, some people in the crowd started throwing bricks, stones, and flowerpots at police. Then steel clubs, chains, and axes appeared, and were used to attack the cadres and policemen trying to calm the crowd.

The instigators breached the building around 10 p.m., smashing property, looting and setting fire to the offices. Over two-thirds of the premises’ windows and doors were damaged. Computers, printers, and phones were destroyed, and 11 cars were damaged. Police finally took control of the situation around 2 a.m., according to the Gansu Daily.

The incident can be traced back to January 2004, when the State Council approved Longnan to become a city and set up the Wudu District as a new administrative center with favorable policies. As new buildings went up, many of the area’s residents were forced to move out. Many of them are still living in the temporary houses, waiting for new houses to be built by the government.

A rumor that Longnan’s administrative center would move to another district started circulating in March of this year, arousing the dissatisfaction of Wudu residents. They worried that the relocation would put an end to construction in their district and that construction on their new houses would be delayed. Many became vocal with their discontent.

The city government held a series of meetings, claiming the there were no plans to move the administrative center and reaffirming the government’s resolve to boost development in Wudu.

However, in the past few months, the rumor reared its head again. Some news sources even claimed the relocation plan had been sent to the State Council for approval. This appears to have sparked the recent protest.