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Bootleg deaths spark village rioting in Hunan
By Edward Cody (Washingtonpost.com)
Updated: 2005-12-05 10:32 By that time, the motorcycle lookout, Deng Guoping, had started calling
farmers on his mobile phone, alerting them to the confiscation and beginning to
describe what he had seen from the distance. Relying on his account and another
by Deng Xiazai, who was in one of the official cars, the farmers said the two
dead villagers in fact were victims of a beating administered by the
anti-smuggling squad.
For unexplained reasons, the truck on which they were riding pulled over to
the side of the road for about 20 minutes soon after the township driver got
behind the wheel, they said, during which time anti-smuggling police wielding
iron bars apparently killed Deng Jianlan and Deng Silong. "We believe that's
when it happened," said Deng Suilong, Deng Silong's brother.
The bodies were then dumped by the roadside at two different spots and
officials concocted the story about how both men were crushed under the wheels
as a coverup, they alleged.
"We always have had people who smuggle
tobacco and get fined," said Deng Qiu, a former member of the elected village
council, "but this is the first time anything like this has happened. We lost
two men."
Deng Anlong, 49, another of Deng Silong's brothers and a member of the
current elected village council, said Deng Guoping came to his house about 4
a.m. with the news, and the two immediately went to investigate. They found Deng
Jianlan by the side of the road with the top of his head "all gone," he said,
and his body covered by wounds that seemed to them to be the result of a
beating. Moreover, only a tiny pool of blood lay under the body, Deng Anlong
recounted, suggesting it had been put there after bleeding out.
Deng Silong was discovered a short time later as the official cars pulled up
alongside the truck at the toll station. Liu, the party secretary who later
would get his teeth knocked out trying to pacify the rioting peasants, was
startled when he caught sight of the mortally in jured farmer, according to what
Deng Xizai told his fellow villagers later.
"My God, something awful has happened," Deng Xizai quoted him as saying.
Stability or Revenge?
The afternoon after their rampage at Yantang city hall, Shangdeng's peasants
were confronted with a sight they said they had never seen. Several trucks
bounced in along the dirt road, they said, carrying two dozen policemen and
local officials wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying shields and riot
batons.
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