China: A climate of fear has gripped a south China fishing town as villagers evade patrols and defy a police campaign to encourage them to denounce their neighbours in the wake of a bloody crackdown two weeks ago.
A cordon of checkpoints has virtually isolated the town of Dongzhou, where police put down protests over a government land grab on December 6th, killing at least three people.
Witness accounts from several villagers do not dispute the government's official death toll. But being cut off from the rest of the world has made it difficult to sift truth from rumour and fuelled talk of a government cover-up, a death toll as high as 20, and even bodies being dumped at sea.
Several men were still unaccounted for, locals said.
"We know there are three, but there are others we just don't know about," said one village elder. "Maybe they have been arrested or they threw their bodies in the sea."
Notices pasted on walls in a nearby village set a December 20th deadline for anyone involved in "attacking the police" in Dongzhou to turn themselves in and for people to hand over neighbours they are hiding, if they want to receive lenient treatment.
Residents that offer information which leads to arrests could receive rewards and anonymity, the notices continue, referring to the protests as "a grave case of lawbreaking" instigated by criminals, three of whom had been arrested.
"Anybody who deliberately conceals or protects criminals will be fully investigated and prosecuted under the law."
Nearly a week after the shootings, China confirmed that police killed three people "in alarm" after protesters attacked them and reports said the official who ordered the shooting had been detained.
A note given to Reuters identified one of the dead as a local man, who had returned from doing business in Shanghai to get married. Curious about the protests, he went to the site to get a look and ended up being shot, it said.
"Police are still oppressing the families of the dead, demanding that they cover up the truth and destroy the corpses and any traces," the note, written by a villager, said. "The people of Dongzhou can only call on the media to expose this injustice and demand that the government offer all the dead an explanation."
Amnesty International said the incident was thought to be the first time Chinese police had fired on protesters since the military crushed the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.
Villagers said the families of those killed had been promised 200,000 yuan ($25,000) each.
"We blame those above," said a local man. "I don't know who it was, but they let the corruption go on here for so long. They let local officials take all the good land and that's what started this trouble."
At an incense-filled temple at the entrance to the village, several women bowed in silent prayer. "We're heartbroken," said one woman after offering fruit and burning incense for the families of the dead and for Dongzhou itself. "But there's nothing we can do, so I went to the temple to do this."
The Dongzhou demonstration is the latest in a series of crises that are turning booming Guangdong from a province once associated with economic openness into one resembling a political basket case.
"It's the most scandal-ridden province in China," said Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic and veteran democracy campaigner.
Despite pledges from Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao to cultivate a more accountable leadership, analysts say the problems plaguing Guangdong are unlikely to hurt the career of its party secretary, Zhang Dejiang.
Guangdong, neighbouring Hong Kong, has been plagued with crises since 2002 when Mr Zhang (59) took the helm of the province that accounted for about one-ninth of China's economy last year and attracted some $10 billion in foreign direct investment.
It was there that the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) emerged in 2003, and although the country's health minister and Beijing's mayor were sacked for their role in covering up the outbreak, Mr Zhang hung on.
The same year, Sun Zhigang, a university-educated migrant worker, was beaten to death in police custody in Guangdong. More than 20 officials, including senior police, were sacked or censured for Mr Sun's death.
The list goes on. The editor and former manager of Southern Metropolis Daily, which broke the story on Mr Sun, were later jailed on corruption charges in a case critics say was retaliation for their reports on Sars and workers' rights.
"Because it's advanced economically, people think it's going to be advanced politically as well and that just doesn't seem to be the case," said a Western diplomat in Beijing.
This year thugs terrorised the Guangdong village of Taishi, where residents were petitioning to sack their elected village chief, who they say is corrupt. Then came the violence in Dongzhou.
But Mr Zhang, who is from China's northeastern rustbelt and studied economics in North Korea, has managed to stay on, protected by powerful backers. - (Reuters)