Loved ones mourn dead in China protest

DONGZHOU, China — With anguished sobs and incense offerings, family and friends mourned the dead Monday in a southern Chinese village where police shot and killed protesters in a land dispute with the local government.

The violence Dec. 6 in Dongzhou, northeast of Hong Kong, was the deadliest in a series of confrontations throughout China between police and villagers angry at corruption and land seizures.

Witnesses said police fired rounds for more than 12 hours as thousands demonstrated over inadequate compensation for land used to build a coal-fired power plant.

In an apparent effort to diffuse local anger over the incident, the Chinese government has detained the commander of forces that shot and killed people. The government put the death toll at three, while villagers said as many as 20 were killed.

Officials contacted by phone refused to identify the commander. But the Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao, which has close ties to the Beijing government, gave his surname as Wu and said he was deputy police chief of the nearby city of Shanwei.

The detained commander's "wrong actions" were to blame for the deaths, said a statement issued Sunday by the government of Guangdong province, where Dongzhou is located. It did not say what those actions were.

On Monday, police in black uniforms continued to guard this coastal village, stopping vehicles entering and leaving the community, frisking visitors and checking their vehicles.

One family burned paper money and incense sticks — a traditional ritual for the dead — in the street in front of their home, some members sobbing loudly. Neighbors said they were the family of a man in his 20s who was killed in the shootings.

A woman, said to be the dead man's wife, lay on the ground looking exhausted. An elderly woman slumped between two people who supported her. Family members tied a strip of white cloth around their heads, a gesture of mourning, as neighbors left condolence money in a box on the ground.

Another villager who re- fused to give his name said that his neighbor had been killed and officials refused to return the body to the dead man's family unless they agreed to cremate him immediately. The family was offered $5,000 in compensation if they accepted the terms, the man said.