State media have said the incident left three dead and eight wounded, but residents have said the shooting resulted in the deaths of as many as 20 villagers. State media first blamed the Dec. 6 confrontation in the town of Dongzhou entirely on a small number of “instigators,” but announced Sunday that a police commander had been detained for mishandling the incident and causing “mistaken deaths and accidental injuries.”
The differing accounts, and the inability of the spokesman to address the shootings after a week, suggest that senior Chinese leaders may not be in agreement about whether police acted properly in opening fire on the farmers protesting land seizures in the town, about 125 miles northeast of here in Guangdong province, or about what the government should do in response.
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