A commenter whom I have long respected alerted me to this absolutely horrifying story of corruption and the total disregard for human suffering that is still common in parts of China. No, not in Beijing or the cities you and I will visit on our vacations. In the more remote areas where the impoverished villagers have no say, and die at the whim of a corrupt official.

I can’t verify that this story is true, but I know the integrity of the young woman who posted it. And, unfortunately, I know it’s completely in keeping with other stories I’ve read about the utterly disenfranchised peasants — some 700 million of them — in China’s remote countryside. So I believe it.

[I] read an article that is a letter written to the central government pleading for an investigation in a village in northern china. The article is posted on 2003-12-8 so I assumed it’s written recently. Let me summarize what the letter is about.

A company in the village had poluted the only source of drinking water. Since 1998, the villagers had complained to the local government to make the company produce standard waste into the river so the water won’t be poluted. The government never responded.

Earlier this year some villagers had been poisoned for drinking the water. The villagers could no longer stand the irresponsibility and protested against the government. Instead of getting something positive, the company’s manager hired someone to drive a truck through the villager’s work unit. four villagers were killed and six wounded. The villagers found out this because they captured the driver and questioned him.

Later the police department sent a team to investigate. despite of the outcries by the villagers, the police department concluded the killing as a simple traffic accident. it’s clear then that the corruption was so deep rooted that there’s very little the villagers could do to protect their lives and to seek justice for those who were killed. so a respresentative sent this letter to the central government hoping they will be some response. since the local government also tightly controlled the media (so no reports of the incident were on TV), the author also posted this article online and wish more can hear about what happened.

I tried to post the link on some mainlanders’ bloggers’ site so they can help deliver the message. But I found the chinese government had completely blocked chinalaborunion.org.

Check out the post and the comments to it. And the photos that she links to. She also has a link to the entire post in Chinese. Great work.

UPDATE: If you made it this far, it’s important you check the related links that Adam offers.