Top Biz News
Funds distributed by 'castes'
By Li Xinzhu (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-03 07:58
Officials in one village in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region are using a sort of caste system to distribute welfare and compensation funds, disrupting residents' lives, according to a recent news report.
For the past 16 years, a highly unequal distribution of government funds in Yinliuyao, a village of 1,056 people in the city of Baotou in this region, has gone largely unnoticed by outsiders until a report by China National Radio yesterday morning.
A village referendum in 1993 ruled that all local residents were to be divided into five classes depending on the length of their stay.
Belonging to a higher class meant not only the ability to obtain more shares of welfare and compensation funds for the transfer of their farmland, but also a higher chance of marrying well in Yinliuyao.
The original settlers of the land, or those who had lived there since 1963, belonged to the top class, whose members were eligible to receive all compensation funds and relevant welfare in full.
The allocation of compensation funds became a heated topic in the village in recent years, as Baotou had bought out a major share of Yinliuyao's farmland for non-agricultural purposes.
But the local leadership, or the legally autonomous villagers' committee, reportedly chose to allocate the funds to Yinliuyao's original settlers first.
Those who had moved to the village between 1963 to 1973, or people belonging to the second class, receive 85 percent of all compensation funds and welfare. Those from the lowest class could only get 30 percent or less of the money involved.
The local residents are born into their respective classes, making the rights hereditary, according to village Party chief Jin Yougen, who stressed that the village committee does not have five "classes", but rather five different solutions.
He insisted that the decisions were democratically made, and the village "simply cannot satisfy" everybody's natural demand to get the money and welfare in full.
"We voted for this. Only 252 villagers out of the total of 1,056 objected," Jin told China Daily.
All of the 252 came to Yinliuyao after 1973, he said.
"Majority rules," Yin added, claiming that similar rules are in effect in many villages from the same district.
Jinbushiyao, a nearby village, is governed in a similar way and separates its residents into four different classes, also defined by the length of their stay.
"I don't see anything wrong with this rule. Things should be done this way," Jinbushiyao Party chief Liu Jie said.
| ||||
A historic national law that promised self-management for farmers has been allowing direct elections of village committee members since 1988. The law addresses China's 604,000 village committees, in which more than 2.3 million rural citizens have been elected.
"Villagers' autonomy should be autonomous within the extent of law. Democracy isn't meant to sacrifice the interests of the minority and is not a simple voting process," said Wang Baoming, a law professor at the National School of Administration.
"Approaches like this bring extremely negative impacts such as inequality and identity discrimination, both of which democratic nations cannot tolerate," he said.
