The 'demolition' team aggressively brandish clubs and batons. (RFA)
The residents at No. 23 Complex of North Erli posted a petition on a well-known Internet forum to seek help, according to Radio Free Asia. It claimed that on the morning of Aug. 24 authorities from the China Tobacco Guangxi Industrial Corporation and Guangxi Road & Bridge Engineering Corporation dispatched nearly 400 men, all of them wearing black uniforms, safety hats, brandishing wooden clubs and police batons, to raid the No. 23 residential complex.
The message said that under the pretext of performing “official duties,” they drove out the residents walking around inside the complex, and assaulting those who came to defend them. One blogger, purportedly privy to the events, claimed that nine retired workers, who were residents were seriously injured—one suffered a broken skull, another a fractured arm, still another a broken nose.
Residents alleged on the Internet that the China Tobacco Guangxi Industrial Corporation colluded with corrupt officials and used the excuse of “technological renovation and infrastructure expansion” to attempt to illegally seize land.
As early as mid-2003 the corporation conspired with Guangxi Road & Bridge Engineering Corporation in an apparent attempt to deceive the government, and sold 3.79 acres of land at a rock-bottom price, according to Radio Free Asia. The land was originally used for warehouses belonging to a subsidiary company of Guangxi Road & Bridge Engineering Corporation. They erected the “Royal Dragon” luxury apartment towers selling at high prices, a violation of the land zoning, according to the report.
In 2007, these two companies bought the 1.8 acres of residential land of the No. 23 complex and 5 acres of industrial land from Teaching Instruments Factory at a price as low as 10,000 yuan (US$1464) per Chinese acre (60,000 yuan or US$8,785 per acre), without informing any of the 303 homeowners.
Sixty households refused to sign the “tear-down” agreement, according to the report. The residents say the two corporations bought-off leaders in the municipal government, who then put pressure on their subordinates, forcing a change in land zoning.
Other changes included shortening the usage period for the No. 23 complex, and setting the compensation rate for residents at 3000 yuan (US$439) per square meter, which is the rate for older districts, the report said. At this low rate, there would be no way residents could buy a similar house in the same neighborhood.
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