Parents still want answers on why their children died a year ago, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Sichuan province
CHINESE POLICE are rigorously enforcing a clampdown on reporting of “sensitive” areas in the area hit by the Sichuan earthquake last year in an effort to stop public anger over shoddily built schools having a politically destabilising effect.
“Private interviews are forbidden. This is a sensitive time,” said a police officer, as this correspondent was detained and brought to a barracks in Juyuan, a town devastated by the tremor nearly one year ago.
I had been driving on the road to Dujiangyan, one of the towns badly hit by the quake, to pick up a special press pass needed to visit earthquake zones.
Since Juyuan is on the way to Dujiangyan, I decided to go and see whether I could see the Middle School, which I had visited the day after the quake last year to witness hellish scenes as parents dug their children out of the mud and rubble.
Up to 300 children died in this school, which folded in on itself while buildings all around stayed standing – a perplexing, unjust sight that turned the grief of parents into outrage. Juyuan Middle School is now the most infamous school in China, and since the quake, the parents have been harassed and arrested as they seek justice for their children nearly one year on.
There was a heavy police presence in the town, and the atmosphere was tense. The school has been sealed off.
Driving down a country road to see whether I could track down one of the parents, I received a friendly phone call to say the police were after me. Unwilling to risk confrontation, and cause trouble for the parents, we turned around.
Shortly after we reached the main road, three police motorbikes, each with two uniformed officers, pulled us over. They were joined by two police cars and one more motorcycle.
We formed quite a cavalcade as we drove through the town, 50km from the provincial capital, Chengdu. The side streets of Juyuan, where the earthquake shattered buildings and left gaping cracks in the paving, has seen impressive levels of reconstruction, although there are still piles of debris lying around, and many people still living in temporary housing.
The number of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake is still unclear. Some estimates say 10,000 schoolchildren were among the 80,000 who died.
Angry parents blame shoddy building – “tofu construction” – for their children’s deaths.
In the grounds of the local government headquarters, makeshift barracks had been constructed on the grounds. I was glad I was dealing with uniformed police, as they tend to follow the rules. A day earlier, my colleague Jamil Anderlini from the Financial Times was roughed up and had his camera smashed by a group of plain-clothed thugs.
The officers gave us tea, and were polite in the interrogation room, trying to establish to whom we had spoken, details which I was not in a position to give. I asked why I could not see the Juyuan Middle School, saying I had been there a year previously and wanted to see how reconstruction was going.
I was told that private interviews were forbidden, and the school was closed.
We were told to leave Juyuan, although a friendly officer accompanied us to a makeshift school where students are being taught while a new school is being built. We were only allowed as far as the gates.
The father who tipped us off that the police were tailing us lost his 17-year-old son in Juyuan Middle School. His identity must remain secret.
His testimony illustrates well how, for many of the parents who lost children, the horror of May 12th remains very real, and is intensified because they do not feel they are getting answers to their questions about why their children died.
“I have been arrested seven times in the last year. The police just arrested me without saying anything since last year, till now. They put me in custody for up to three weeks. I tried to talk to the local courts but they just ignored me. All I want is a thorough investigation into why and how my child died. The government should let us speak,” he said.
“I have not had a job since then. My wife and I just rely on the government relief for earthquake victims, which is too little. In my family, I’m the only one petitioning. I raised my boy for 17 years; it is just difficult for me to forget him and forget my life with him. I miss him so much . . .” At this point he broke down in tears.