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Beijing still suppressing quake parents

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posted Sunday, 10 May 2009

 

When it comes to embarrassing or awkward situations governments can be be rather predictable. They tend to have a set repertoire of responses which they apply to any and all situations, and which they stick to doggedly. Even if they are plainly not appropriate, and even if they haven't worked in the past.

As you might expect, Beijing is no exception to this rule. In fact it is a world champion when it comes to following predictable course of action so doggedly that it would be funny if it weren't for the fact that innocent people tend to get trampled by said policies. Often by design.

As you might equally expect, Beijing's reaction to the Great Sichuan Earthquake of 2008 was also no exception to the rule.

At first, things went well. Beijing didn't deny that there was an earthquake, or that it was bad. Beijing sent generous quantities of aid and gave people the room that they needed to perform recuse operations based on need and accessibility rather than based on political criteria. However, things soon started to go down hill when reports started to emerge of schools 'collapsing as if they were made of Tofu' due to poor construction which was, in turn, due to corrupt official skimming off of the top. At which point Beijign's familiar habits started to come to the for.

To put things simply, Beijing admitted to the quake. After all, it couldn't exactly deny it, or be blamed for it. However, it did all that it could to obfuscate investigations into the collapsed schools because official corruption was something that it could be blamed for.

Reports quickly came in of of sub standard building materials having been used, of rebar that was listed on plans/manifests but which could not be found in the wreckage, and of corner cutting at every level. Reports also quickly began to come in of wrecked school sites being sealed off while other wrecked sites were being left open, of independent experts being turned away, and of parents being warned not to allow their experiences to be published online.

Grieving relatives were also turned away from school sites in the time after the quake, and are still being prevented from visiting them on anniversaries relating to the earthquake, or to the dead themselves.

From the pen of Michael Bristow, published through the British Broadcasting Corporation

China quake parents 'harassed'

By Michael Bristow

Parents who lost their children in China's earthquake fear they will not be allowed to properly commemorate the disaster's first anniversary.

Many parents want to return to the site of the schools in Sichuan that killed their children when they collapsed.

But the authorities have previously stopped them going to the schools on sensitive occasions, and are said to be monitoring the parents ahead of 12 May.

China has not said how many children were among the 90,000 dead and missing.

The government has admitted that nearly 14,000 schools - some of them poorly or hastily built - were damaged in the magnitude-8 earthquake.

Schools sealed off

One mother, Hu Hongfang, wants to return to Juyuan Middle School to mark the first anniversary of the death of her 15-year-old son Guo Jun.

But she is not hopeful that she will be allowed to get to the collapsed school site, in the city of Dujiangyan in northern Sichuan Province.

"On every occasion parents have wanted to pay their respects to their children, the whole school and nearby area have been sealed off," she said.

Other parents told the BBC a similar story.

Zhou Siqiang, whose daughter died at the Juyuan school, said parents have been prevented from visiting the site on a number of occasions.

He said they were stopped from going to the site on last month's Tomb Sweeping Day, when Chinese people traditionally visit family graves.

But he was undeterred. "I think I will join others and go to the school on the first anniversary of the earthquake," he said.

Across Dujiangyan, parents at another collapsed school detailed some of the methods used by the authorities to prevent them from staging public displays of grief.

These includes stopping them from leaving their homes and taking them away from the city during sensitive times.

Seeking answers

These parents, whose children died at Xinjian Primary School, say they fear the same will happen on the earthquake's first anniversary.

The local government and police did not want to immediately comment on the parents' claims.

But the man who runs a cemetery where many of the Xinjian schoolchildren are buried confirmed that there is a special team monitoring the parents.

Chen Hua, who works at Baoshanta Cemetery, told the BBC that the special "work team" was attached to the local police station.

Amnesty International this week released a report saying the authorities continued to intimidate and detain parents who had lost children in the earthquake.

It is particularly targeting parents who are still seeking answers about why so many schools collapsed during the earthquake, the rights group said.

"The government of China must cease harassing earthquake survivors who are seeking answers and trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives," said Amnesty International's Roseann Rife.

Parents who spoke to the BBC do not expect that to happen.

ACB finds it sad that Beijing is still operating a policy of "what we don't let people see doesn't exist", it amy have worked in the past, but it is a loosing battle in today's information age.

Quite frankly, it's an insult to 5,000 years of Chinese history, not to mention the relatives of the dead, that Beijing cannot come clean about this. Beijing had a wonderful opportunity to address the problem of corruption head on, it also had a wonderful opportunity to blame everything on corrupt builder and to use them as scapegoats (opportunities like that don't come along every day, after all), but no. Beijing didn't come clean, and it didn't even make a make a half hearted attempt to blame the construction companies. Instead it attempted to cover everything up in the hope that people would just forget about it.

What reports did get out largely got out because Beijing had its hands too full to stop them, and what information has come out of Beijing has been too little, too late.

Shame on you, Beijing. Shame on you. Its the Tiananmen parents fiasco all over again.

Note: Since the time of Michael Bristow's writing, Beijing has released child death figures.

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View Comments/Add a Comment (4)


1. A-gu left...
Tuesday, 12 May 2009 7:55 pm :: http://a-gu.blogspot.com

No great surprise there.


2. Don Tai left...
Thursday, 14 May 2009 12:15 am :: http://www.dontai.com/wp/

It's sad but true, and I agree, so predictable. My heart goes out to the parents. This is such a great opportunity to combat corruption, the morally right thing to do, but alas, it's also clear anti-corruption is not on the government agenda. Interestingly, one of the demands of the students of 6-4 was to combat widespread corruption. Sadly, after 20 years, one can clearly see little progress. As my teacher in Beijing told me, history can be and will be rewritten in the future. We simply need to wait.


3. CindyK left...
Saturday, 16 May 2009 3:07 am :: http://apcit.blogspot.com/

But the world is watching and listening. It is courageous people like you who will not be silenced that manage to get the truth out. It can't be long before the government is forced to make changes. There are many people in the world outside of China who are as outraged as you are over these matters. God bless those of you who stand strong against these wrongdoings.


4. ACB left...
Sunday, 17 May 2009 12:34 am

CindyK:

Oh, how ACB wishes that that were true. Yes, there are many people both inside and outside of China who wish for change with all of their hearts, but ACB cannot see this change happening soon, and cannot ever see it being forced from the outside. Things will change, eventually, but it will be slow and it will be painful, and a lot of good people will be hurt along the way.

For most people in the world China is very big and very far away. It is the place that cheap T-shirts and pirate DVDs come from, and most people cannot relate to it. ACB studied in the West for many years, and most people there do not understand what it is like, or what needs to be done. In deed, it was not until after ACB had seen life in both the East and the West that ACB understood what needed to be done.

Foreigners often think of China as being like the Soviet Union, and they become angry when ACB tries to explain to them that China is not a Communist state except in name, and that it is not a monster looking to destroy or subvert them or their way of life. They get a distorted picture of what China is like from NGOs with their own agendas and the go blundering trying to apply loose Western values to China. Not understanding what has been forced on the Chinese people against their will and what is the desire of the Chinese people. When they do this they are self defeating. They anger the Chinese people and rather than being seen as kindred spirits they are seen as imperialists trying to force Western values on China.

Some foreigners do a lot of good, but others only make China's resistance to change stronger and strengthen the Government.

For their part foreign governments aren't much help, either. America feels that it has a duty to help China change, but what it wants Chian to change into is another America. This is not good for the Chinese people. Like the foreign people Washington does not understand what has been forced on the Chinese people, and what is part of the Chinese people. They do not know what it means to be Chinese, only what it means to be American. So they try to make China into America which only furthers resentment of the West and fears of foreign imperialism. Washington does not know when to hold its tongue or when to be diplomatic and it makes things worse. Washington also is constricted because china has such a large hold over the US economy. America's prosperity and consumer lifestyle has been sustained these past 15 years by cheap imports from China, and its government spending has been sustained by Chinese buying treasury debts and US currency. So China has America over a barrel. Washington could cut China off. It could ruin the Chinese economy with sanctions and action at both the UN and WTO. But it would destroy America, too, because without cheap Chinese goods and currency reserves the US consumer sector would collapse and with it Wall Street and the US economy would collapse. It is like the Mutually Assured Destruction that we all feared during the Cold War, but the Americans fear being poor more than the Chinese do, and they would turn in on themselves and break before China would because many Chinese are still poor and they are too proud to give in, so Washington would blink first, and it knows this. For this reason for all of Americas talk on freedom and democracy it won't do anything. It can't do anything. It has words but no actions, and its words only make Beijing tougher and more resistant to change.

Ameirca has not acted ion Tibet. It does not even recognize Taiwan as a country. It won't act to brign freedom to the Chinese people.

It brings great sorrow to ACb that the people who are wrong are so many qand only make things worse, and the people who are right are almost powerless.