International Herald Tribune
The IHT online
Villagers in China riot over SARS
Erik
Eckholm/NYT The New York Times
Monday, April 28, 2003
Fury suggests mounting social tensions as fear spreads faster than
the virus
CHAGUGANG,
China China's first SARS riot took place in this rural town Sunday night
as an angry mob of thousands, believing that a local school would be turned into
a ward for SARS patients from nearby Tianjin, ravaged the interior of the
four-story building.
.
Chagugang, a market town among farms and small factories 20 kilometers (12
miles) northwest of the port city of Tianjin, was quiet but tense Monday morning.
The junior high school, which was suddenly closed last week for construction,
was guarded by scores of police officers and two busloads of paramilitary troops
in riot gear.
.
Hundreds more police officers lined the road through the town, preventing
visitors or residents from approaching the riot scene. In private, residents
were unanimously defiant and resentful of what they see as disdainful treatment
by big-city officials.
.
"We are people, too!" snapped an elderly woman who like others
interviewed would not let her name be used. "This disease is exactly what
everyone wants to avoid, and they want to throw it right at us."
.
The mob attack here is the first reported instance of violence directly
associated with the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. It
suggests mounting social tensions as fear spreads faster than the virus itself
and as the Chinese authorities - accustomed to operating in a high-handed manner
with the public - begin their belated and stringent efforts to control the
highly contagious disease.
.
Defending "social stability" has been a mantra of national leaders who
are struggling to cope with labor protests and rising inequality, but now it
appears likely that the roaring SARS epidemic will be a new source of social and
political conflicts.
.
Several Chagugang residents said that the mob had included more than 10,000
people before it was dispersed by the police around midnight. By that time,
witnesses said, the partly built new rows of bedrooms in the building were torn
apart, some construction materials had been burned and the windows were all
shattered.
.
Residents said that Sunday night and Monday the police had detained between 20
and 40 suspects in the melee.
.
Local officials declined to confirm the arrests, but an official of Chagugang
township acknowledged when reached by telephone that the violence had occurred.
"Of course people will be punished if they engaged in smashing property and
robbery," he said.
.
The official said that the school was being rebuilt, not to house sick patients
or those with suspected SARS, but as a quarantine center for people who had
close contacts with SARS patients, or for travelers returning from high-SARS
regions. (Tianjin had 22 confirmed and 55 suspected SARS patients as of Sunday,
compared to more than 1,000 in Beijing, a two-hour drive away. )
.
"The villagers are unscientific, and trusted rumors," said another
official, a man identified as Wei, of the Wuqing District government that
includes Chagugang.
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The distinction did not impress local people.
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"This just isn't right," said a farm-machinery repair man who works
near the school site. "If they're afraid of exposing the people in Tianjin
to the disease, then why wouldn't they be afraid of exposing all of us out here
in the villages?"
.
Local residents said they learned about the project only when the school was
suddenly closed, and that officials had done nothing to lay the groundwork for
such a potentially controversial project.
.
"One day last week the classes were ended, students were sent away, and
carpenters came in," a young man said. "The government never
communicated with us, but just suddenly decided to build a facility here."
.
"The people started trashing the school yesterday," he added.
"Most things they just threw into the river, but some pieces of wood they
burned outside the school."
.
Even a central government official from the area, who happened to be visiting
his home from Beijing, expressed sympathy for the protesters. "For the
people to protect their interests is a very normal thing," he said. "They
can endure economic challenges, but when it comes to matters of health, their
tolerance is lower."
.
In Beijing on Monday officials of the World Health Organization told reporters
that they remained frustrated by the lack of detailed information on where, when
and how the virus had spread through the population. Without such data, the
experts said, it would be impossible to judge whether the broadly applied
quarantines and other restrictions are making a difference.
.
On Sunday, World Health Organization officials met with the Beijing Communist
Party Secretary and the acting mayor to discuss the problems. The city chiefs
agreed to cooperate fully, but local health agencies are struggling to analyze
the sudden flood of cases, the international officials said.