International Herald Tribune

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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Residents said that Sunday night and Monday the police had detained between 20 and 40 suspects in the melee.
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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.
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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. )
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"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?"
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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.
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"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."
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"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."
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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."
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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.
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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.