From Yulun Jiandu, translated by CDT:
On June 2, reporters sat in with farmers of Xiayang Village of Haicang District of Xiamen City, Fujian Province, in their court trial suing the Xiamen city government for refusing the request to re-consider district government seizing the village’s land for golf and other developments. Other villages were also affected in the latest rounds of land grabs.
The village of nearly 2,000 were starting to make a good living with increasingly profitability of maritime fishing. Farming cannot even produce enough food for the villagers. Thanks to good policies over the years, the village could earn over 10 million yuan by just fishing, which also helped in providing enough for food.
But when the district government, after setting up a government-run investment firm, seized all the land, and beachland and fishing infrastructure too, the villagers didn’t put up a nasty protest as they wanted to return the favor of fishing fortune in recent years thanks to government policies. And they didn’t even bother to raise questions on the little compensation from the government, about 8,000 yuan per head. [Full Text in Chinese]
But when the government didn’t deliver the promises made earlier then it took the land, villagers were angered and they went petitioning to Xiamen. They requested the city government to re-consider the land grab and compensation issues. Their request was rejected. And they had no other choice but sued the city government.
Now landless, and fishless, the villagers cannot make a living and many young people stay home idle without a job. Some say, “no sea to fish, no beach to breed, no job to find, no social security to seek, no source of income to live on and no money to start up a business.”
See also part one: Land Seizure Prompts Farmers To Sue Gov
