Liulangzhuang voices 1

http://liulangzhuang.net/read.php?tid=3

Liulangzhuang is a village with several hundred years of history. We villagers lived here for generations, but our peaceful rural existence shielded from the outside world no longer exists, it has been replaced by something the media and the village officials characterize as dirty, disorderly and bad! May be ask, if one sees a dirty and disorderly house, is it legitimate to criticize the heads of the household as responsible for the mess? If so, when there is a dirty and disorderly village environment, can the village head and village party secretary evade responsibility for that? To relocate the whole village in the name of it being “dirty, disorderly and bad” is something we villagers cannot accept!

In the village now there are slogans that say relocating will benefit us by creating a better environment for our children, but, may be ask, what is there in the plan that deals with improving our lives in the present? We already made a livelihood for ourselves by building new buildings with our own two hands, why is it necessary to tear down the homes we have lived in for generations? What about the good farmland sold off cheaply, the village factories leased out? The income was not used to improve the lives of the villagers at all, instead we lost our means of earning income, with no guarantee for the future. The leadership turned a blind eye to us, we are not to add to the nation’s worries and be a burden, but must solve the problem of how we will subsist from now on by ourselves. In the meantime, for various reasons they have invaded and seized our private property,  and dealt with us harshly about what we will get in compensation.  We are determined to resist! The reasons are:

1. The village representatives were not selected from among village residents. The majority do not live in Liulangzhuang, they are relatives of village officials, therefore they do not serve the villager’s interests.

2. The problem of compensation for years of agricultural labor has not been settled.

3. When villagers transfer from rural to urban household status, the issue of what sort of social security payments they will receive has not been settled. Many villagers are already near retirement age, but social security ordinarily requires a minimum of 10 year payments by individuals into the system in order to be eligible.

4, According to state law, property rights should not be violated. [details omitted]

As the organizing body of the collective economy [of the village], the village committee has decided to violate the lawful rights and interests of the members of the collective [the villagers]. Those whose rights have been violated, we villagers, appeal to the People’s Court to rescind their actions.

We strongly demand that the  financial dealings of the village committee be made public!

The village we knew in former days has become distorted beyond recognition. We have to carry the reputation of being dirty, disorderly, and bad. But you[ the village committee] have for many years done not one small thing for us. When it came to selling off our property you sold it off, when it came to squeezing us dry, you exploited us in full. Now the village we have lived in for hundreds of years is today going to be demolished! When it comes to filling in the financial accounts, you concoct various pretexts to cheat us, taking the income for yourselves. And you are the village representatives? It’s too ridiculous! We realize how much we have been insulted.