Guangdong sees new land protest 'resolved'

A land-dispute triggered protest in Huidong county, Guangdong Province has been peacefully dispersed, local authorities said Tuesday, shortly after Premier Wen Jiabao stressed the need to protect farmers' property rights.

Scores of people from Hexia village blocked the road leading to a resort construction project over the weekend by setting up bamboo shacks and holding banners, the Huizhou Public Security Bureau revealed Tuesday on its microblog.

The villagers removed road barricades before disbanding after meeting with local officials, and the matter had been resolved smoothly without any conflicts, the statement said.

A villager, who participated in the protest, told the Global Times on condition of anonymity that over 400 people started the protest Saturday against the ongoing resort construction project and blocked the road with four coffins.

Online pictures showed banners hanging across the road, which read "Collusion between local government officials and businessmen has caused suffering for locals," and "Return our land."

The villager said it was not the first time local people had resorted to public gatherings to express anger. They accused local authorities of secretly selling 80 hectares of collectively-owned farmlands to property developers in 1992 without offering any compensation.

Online photos showed the land is currently developed by China Vanke Co, the country's largest property developer by market value. The project is named Shuangyue Bay Resort.

"We know that the provincial government had warned local authorities not to forcibly requisite land without villagers' consent. We now require the village head to quit besides the halt of the construction," the villager said.

He added that after intervention from local officials on Monday, Vanke, which promises to finish the project in 2013, had agreed to halt the construction until the dispute was resolved.

The villager's remarks could not be immediately verified.

The Huizhou security bureau said on its microblog that several working teams have started a comprehensive investigation into the matter.

This incident came as villagers in Wukan, Guangdong held new village committee elections after months of protests against illegal land sales and fraud by former village officials.

Wang Yang, Party secretary of Guangdong, told reporters on Monday that provincial officials might convene a meeting in the latter half of this year and instruct the province to strengthen the building of village organizations with the experience and lessons drawn from the Wukan incident.

"Elections in the past were formalities and we just corrected the problem this time by sticking to the Party's principle of representing the interests of the people," Wang said, adding that the election in Wukan was nothing new.

During Monday's session of the National People's Congress (NPC)， Premier Wen Jiabao stressed that farmers' land rights were conferred by law and must not be violated.

"Farmland will be placed under strict protection and regulations concerning compensation for the expropriation of rural collective land will be formulated," Wen said.

The premier also called for better supervision and services for the transfer of contracted land-use rights, to further safeguard farmers' rights.

He Xuefeng, a professor and the director of the China Rural Governance Research Center at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, called on authorities at all levels to closely follow these instructions.

"Both farmers and authorities can try to extract maximum gains from land deals, but anyone who breaches laws during the process needs to be held accountable," He said, adding that incidents such as that in Wukan are not common.

Under current land ownership structure, rural collectives own the land. The collective, often a village committee, distributes land-use rights to households in 30-year "household management" contracts.

A new amendment to China's Land Management Law is being drafted to better protect farmers' interests in land expropriations, according to a report submitted by the Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee of the NPC to the NPC's Standing Committee.

Reforming and standardizing land expropriation practices and transfers of land-use rights over collectively-owned land (in rural areas) is an urgent task, as the current version of the law has been proven to be outdated, the report said.