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The Battalion
Page 5
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BEIJING (AP) - Small, bloody
land wars are breaking out in the
Chinese countryside as local offi
cials looking for quick profits
push peasants off their land and
sell it.
After the government split up
Mao Tse-tung's communes in the
early 1980s, it assigned small plots
of land to each rural family for at
least 20 years.
But as the rural economy devel
ops, businessmen are shopping
for land for stores, factories and
other commercial ventures.
Technically, they cannot buy
land — in socialist China, it be
longs "to the whole people." But
they are buying "land use rights"
and evicting peasants who know
no other life but farming and have
no way to obtain new land or jobs.
Peasants from across China are
traveling to Beijing to appeal to
central authorities. Several peas
ants interviewed by The Associat
ed Press reported being beaten or
arrested by rural police. They told
of mass brawls between peasants
and police resulting in serious in
juries.
Occasional articles in the offi
cial media confirm their stories
and hint that the problem is be
coming a major one.
The stories illustrate the abso
lute power local officials wield
over peasants and the lack of a le
gal process.
They also undermine the com
mon assumption that social insta
bility is limited to China's cities
and that the government need not
worry about rural discontent.
"Deng Xiaoping doesn't care
about us," one dispossessed peas
ant said after appealing in vain to
authorities in Beijing. Like all
those interviewed, he spoke on
condition of anonymity for fear of
punishment.
Deng is China's 87-year-old se
nior leader, and his policies have
fostered the capitalist-minded
pursuit of profits that is causing
officials to sell off land.
A Chinese source told the story
of a land war in the Longjin town
ship, in southwestern China's
Yunnan province. Two peasants
from the township traveled to Bei
jing and appealed in writing to
central authorities for help.
Their statement, seen by the
AP, said the fight began late last
year, when the township Commu
nist Party secretary told 1,000 fam
ilies their land had been sold to a
local businessman. He wanted to
plant a commercial apple orchard.
The families were told they
would get $3.65 per mu, which is
less than one-fortieth of an acre.
Even in Longjin, where average
family income is about $55 a year,
20 yuan is not much.
When the businessman sent his
workers to dig up the fields, the
peasants fought them and people
on both sides were injured, the
statement said.
In late December, several vil
lagers made the three-day train
journey to Beijing and appealed to
the State Land Administration Bu
reau. The low-level clerks who
staff the bureau complaint office
told them to go home, where they
were promptly arrested as trou
blemakers.
Other villagers came to their
rescue, attacked the police and
seized their guns and handcuffs.
The next day, police went to the
village in strength and arrested 47
people. Again the villagers pooled
their money and sent delegates to
Beijing.
Officials at the land bureau sent
them to the State Council, which
sent them to the Agriculture Min
istry, which passed them on to the
Public Security Ministry.
No one tried to resolve the case.
Another group of beleaguered
peasants got the attention of the
influential, state-run Peasants'
Daily, but even then local officials
refused to budge.
The paper recently carried a
front-page report of the land war
in Ninghe County near Tianjin,
about 90 miles east of Beijing.
Eleven peasant families who
had reclaimed a tract of wasteland
were told last fall that their
20-year contract was being can
celed in its seventh year. When
police came to take the land by
force in March, the peasants
staged a sit-in and 11 were arrest
ed.
Court lifts stay, puts murderer to death
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - Double mur
derer Robert Alton Harris was put to death in
the gas chamber Tuesday after the U.S.
Supreme Court lifted a dramatic last-minute
stay that had blocked California's first execu
tion in 25 years.
"You can be a king or a street sweeper, but
everybody dances with the Grim Reaper,"
Harris said in a final statement, released after
he was executed for the 1978 murders of two
San Diego 16-year-old boys.
Harris, 39, died quietly at dawn after an ex
traordinary night of cross-country judicial du
els between the U.S. Supreme Court and the
9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Following the filing of four stays by the 9th
Grcuit on Monday, frustrated justices in
Washington voted 7-2 to order the appeals
court not to issue any more stays without per
mission.
The dissenters — Justices John Paul Stevens
and Harry A. Blackmun — focused on the is
sue of the gas chamber as cruel and unusual
punishment.
The last stay came after Harris was strapped
You can be a king or a street
sweeper, but everybody dances
with the Grim Reaper.
— Double murderer Robert Alton
Harris
to the death seat.
Witnesses spent an uncomfortable 12 min
utes watching Harris as he waited to die, smil
ing and nodding in the brightly lighted green
chamber.
A telephone rang with a reprieve about a
minute before the execution was to start, said
prison spokesman Lt. Vernell Crittendon.
About two hours later, Harris was back in
the metal chair. At one point, he looked at San
Diego Police Det. Steven Baker, father of victim
Michael Baker.
"He mouthed the words T'm sorry,"' Baker
said later. On the day of the killings, it was
Baker who arrested Harris for bank robbery
without knowing his son was dead and Harris
the killer. Outside San Quentin's gates Tues
day, Baker said he nodded back to Harris.
"He was probably sorry at the time, but
that's 14 years too late," Baker said.
The gas was released at about 6:05 a.m., and
shortly afterward Harris' head jerked from left
to right before falling slowly to his chest. He
appeared to be unconscious about 6:12 a.m.
and was pronounced dead at 6:21 a.m.
In the witness chamber. Baker and his ex-
wife, Sharron Mankins, showed little emotion
as they watched their son's killer die.
FBI, lawyers reach
tentative settlement
on racial bias claims
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
FBI and lawyers for more than
300 black agents said Tuesday
they have reached a tentative
agreement to settle the agents'
claims of racial bias.
Six black agents will be pro
moted to supervisory positions
and will receive back pay under
the agreement, and another 67
black agents will be given new
positions or special training.
The settlement would head
off a potential class-action law
suit by the black agents. The FBI
agreed that "disparities" in
treatment between black and
white agents existed in some ar
eas of its personnel system, but
it did not admit to racial dis
crimination.
"We certainly wouldn't ac
knowledge either intentional
discrimination or discrimina
tion as a result of adverse im
pact," Joe Davis, the FBI's gen
eral counsel, told a news confer
ence. "We do see disparities."
The agreement caps a year of
negotiations between the law
yers and the FBI. Blacks and
Hispanics have complained for
several years of job discrimina
tion at the agency.
"This is a far-reaching settle
ment that will result in
changes" in the FBI's personnel
practices, David Shaffer, an at
torney for the black agents, said
at a separate news conference
earlier in the day. "It should be
a major step in giving (black
Americans) more confidence in
the FBI, or at least in its direc
tor."
FBI Director William S. Ses
sions became personally in
volved in the issue a year ago,
when he held unprecedented
face-to-face meetings with un
happy black agents and agreed
to open agency records in an ef
fort to avert a lawsuit.
The six agents to be promot
ed will receive a total of about
$115,000 in back pay covering
three years, Davis said. Other
black agents will receive pay
ments to make up the gap in
some awards and bonuses they
received that were too low.
The FBI also agreed to pay
the black agents' legal fees and
expenses, which were not speci
fied.
As required by the agree
ment, the FBI is in the process
of hiring outside consultants to
recommend changes in its per
sonnel procedures and to moni
tor compliance. The consultants
will receive "millions of dol
lars,” said Joseph Sellers, anoth
er lawyer for the black agents,
who is with the Washington
Lawyers' Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law. He declined
to specify the amount of the
consultants' contracts.
"It's an expensive proposi
tion," Davis said, adding, "Liti
gation is a lot more expensive."
Liz Cassell, a spokeswoman
for the black agents, said she
and other blacks were denied
promotions on the basis of race.
Some were unjustly fired or put
on probation in reprisal for
speaking out, she said.
"I am relieved that we've
reached some sort of agree
ment. ... I think it's a moral vic
tory for us," Cassell said.
A year ago, a special task
force recommended discipline
for 11 FBI supervisors and
agents involved in a long-run
ning racial harassment case.
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