China has suspended work on a dam project in the southwestern province of Sichuan and sacked at least one Communist Party cadre as armed police patrol the streets weeks after thousands gathered in violent protests. At least one person was killed when tens of thousands of farmers in Hanyuan county protested over a hydroelectric dam project that will flood 100,000 people out of their homes. The local Communist Party propaganda office said Hanyuan county party secretary Tan Zhengyu had been removed from his post and replaced by one of his deputies. "The removal was suggested by the city party committee and approved by the provincial party committee," the official told Reuters.
An announcement had been made earlier this week, the official said. "Construction of the dam has been temporarily halted." The protest came amid a string of unusually violent demonstrations around the country that illustrated the extent of grievances in rural China, plagued by corruption and falling economically far behind the booming coastal regions. But the government is intent on maintaining social stability, and sent thousands of paramilitary police to quell the protest. Hundreds of farmers in the area were also detained after they surrounded a high-ranking provincial official whom Taiwan and Western media identified as Sichuan party chief Zhang Xuezhong. Nonetheless, the punishment of the county official suggests that the leadership is keen to reinforce a message of accountability, which became a priority in the months after President Hu Jintao took office. China dismissed a naval commander after a deadly submarine accident in May last year, sacked its health minister and the Beijing mayor for mishandling the SARS crisis, and fired officials for negligence over a coal mine explosion. "The rules may be correct, but the enforcement at the local government level may have problems... So we have to rethink what is wrong -- the rules or implementation," said Mao Shoulong, a public administration professor at the People’s University... |