China dissident Chen Guangcheng escapes house arrest

One of China's best known dissidents, Chen Guangcheng, has escaped from house arrest and has released a video addressed to Premier Wen Jiabao. In it he makes three demands, including one that Mr Wen investigate what Mr Chen, who is blind, calls the brutal beating up of his family members. Rights activists say Mr Chen slipped out of his home in Dongshigu town in Shandong province on Sunday. His whereabouts are unclear, but supporters say he is safe in Beijing. Unconfirmed reports say Mr Chen may have taken refuge in a diplomatic mission. Mr Chen, 40, had been under house arrest since he was released from a four-year jail sentence in 2010.

In the video, delivered from a darkened room and posted online by Boxun, a Chinese dissident news website based in the United States, Mr Chen asks that:

Premier Wen investigate and prosecute local officials Mr Chen says beat up his family members
The safety of his family be ensured
Corruption in general in China be dealt with and punished according to the law
Mr Chen names some local officials who told him that they "do not care about the law" and that "a few hundred people" were hired by the local government to "lock down" the village he lives in.

The Chinese authorities have come under international criticism for their treatment of him. At one point his daughter was barred from school. Many sympathisers who have tried to visit his home say they have been beaten up. In the video, Mr Chen says: ''I may be free but my worries are for my family… my wife, my child, my mother. Perhaps because of my leaving, they may become the target of more brutal abuse.'' The plight of Mr Chen has become famous around the world. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly called for his release and is due to visit Beijing next week. An activist based in the United States who has been in close contact with Mr Chen confirmed that the dissident had left Shandong - about eight hours' drive from Beijing.

"Now I can share with you Chen is now in the 100% safe location in Beijing. That's how much I can share with you,'' Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, based in Texas in the US, told the BBC via email. Another activist based in China, He Peirong, who has been campaigning for his freedom, told various sources that she drove him to "a safe place" outside Shandong. There are also unconfirmed rumours that Mr Chen is at the US embassy in Beijing. The US embassy ''would not comment'', says an Associated Press news report. In the same report, Ms He denied the rumours published in Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao newspaper, saying that she had spoken to people at the embassy.

"I can tell you he's not at the US embassy, and he's not in Shandong,'' she told AP. The authorities appear to be moving against those believed to have been involved in Mr Chen's escape. Reports on Friday said that local authorities had surrounded the house of Mr Chen's brother, Chen Guangfu, and nephew, Chen Kegui, in Dongshigu, near Linyi...

The fact that Chen Guangcheng has chosen to address Premier Wen Jiabao rather than President Hu Jintao or other leaders suggests he wants to challenge Wen Jiabao to put into practice his repeated calls for political reform and action to root out corruption among officials. Wen Jiabao often presents a more caring side than most in the leadership, frequently appearing in disaster areas and showing sympathy with the victims. In this case, however, it is highly unlikely that Premier Wen - or anybody else in the Chinese leadership for that matter - will respond to Mr Chen's request.

Nevertheless, Mr Chen's dramatic escape and videotape once again put his situation in the spotlight of international attention. Awkward questions will be asked of Chinese officials at news briefings, and human rights organisations are likely to resume putting pressure on the authorities in China over the treatment of Mr Chen and his family. While dissidents like Chen Guangcheng pose a constant headache to the authorities, they themselves have few options. If they leave China and start a life in exile in the West, they gain freedom, but lose contact with their families, relatives and friends.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17865465

Chinese activist fears 'insane retribution' on family after escape:

In a video message, Chen confirmed he was beaten and said 90 to 100 local officials were involved in his detention. He expressed "extreme concern" about retaliation against his family. Chen confirmed reports about his maltreatment that have appeared over the years. "The truth was even worse," he said. "I formally made three requests to Premier Wen Jiabao. First, severely punish criminals. Second, look into this yourself, and third, send a special investigation team to find out the truth." Chen is believed to have used the cover of darkness in which his blindness – he lost his sight at the age of five – gave him an advantage over his captors. He previously attempted to dig a tunnel without success.

It is not yet clear how Chen evaded the officials, police and plainclothes thugs who have been permanently camped in and around his home in Linyi since his release from prison in 2010. But activists said it was not an individual, opportunistic bid for freedom. "This wasn't a sudden thing. In order to escape from a place with so many guards must have taken a great deal of planning," said Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch. Chen's exact whereabouts are unknown. Several sources said he was in a place that was safe from the scrutiny of security agencies, prompting speculation that he may have taken refuge in a foreign embassy or consulate. The US embassy has declined to comment on the case.

According to the US-based group China Aid, Chen was "100% safe" in Beijing. But the group said that the activist He Peirong, one of the people who helped Chen flee, was arrested at her home in Nanjing on Friday morning. He, who is said to have been in close contact with the Chen family, had earlier told CNN that Chen's hands were trembling, but his spirits were high. She said he was injured in the escape... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/27/chinese-activist-fears-insane-retribution

Do China’s Village Protests Help the Regime?

Over the past two weeks, the western press has focused on a striking story out of China: a riveting series of protests in Wukan, a fishing village in the country’s prosperous south. The story is depressingly familiar: Corrupt cadres sell off public land and villagers get nothing. Anger builds and protests erupt. Inept local officials negotiate and then turn to violence, in this case encircling the town with police in hopes of starving the population into submission.

According to interviews with villagers, officials had been selling off communal land in Wukan since the early 1990s, with few locals seeing any of the proceeds. Resentment finally boiled over this autumn when the last large plot of land in the village was sold—at a time when rising inflation meant many villagers wanted the land to grow their own crops. They rioted, chased the party leaders out of town, and chose a dozen representatives to negotiate. Their demands were that the sales be investigated and officials removed.

Police then allegedly kidnapped five of these leaders and beat one of them to death, igniting the most recent protests that have captured the outside world’s attention. The other four remain in police custody. Scores of foreign reporters descended on Wukan, providing blanket coverage of the riots and negotiations between the villagers and government leaders. The riots ended Wednesday after the government made some concessions and villagers agreed to go home.

What to make of all this? The overall sense in western reports is that things are spinning out of control in China, that the center can’t hold and the Communist Party can’t manage. We are told that China has tens of thousands of similar protests each year. The exact numbers aren’t clear but official figures show a dramatic increase in “mass incidents” over the past decade from just a few thousand to, by some measures, 80,000. Subconsciously we get the message: protests are a sign of instability, ergo the stability of China under one-party rule is eroding.

And yet to a degree this analysis doesn’t add up. If the government is so worried about protests, then why does it make the statistics available in the first place?..

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/dec/22/do-chinas-village-protests-help-regime/

Lokpal a short cut that will not work: Amitabha Pande

There exists an astonishing perversity of consensus about the desirability of Lokpal. Everyone seems to think that having one is critical to the crusade against corruption. Will the Lokpal make even an iota of difference to the diversity of rent seeking avenues? Will it transform decision making processes and make decision makers more democratically accountable?

Is greater centralisation of authority in a public official and the creation of a whole new bureaucracy an answer to problems created by bureaucratic centralisation? The answer to all these questions is an overwhelming 'No'. Why then persist with a proposal which will only open yet another rent seeking opportunity? The proposal deserves to be summarily jettisoned.

Why? For one, a prescription made without knowing what the disease is, or after defining it in simplistic terms can lead to fatal after effects. Let's face it, even when we talk of 'financial' corruption, we are referring to a bewildering variety of wrongdoings - rent seeking, cronyism, misuse of authority for personal gain, embezzlement of public funds, patronage and favouritism. Each of these requires to be treated very differently and rarely, if at all, through a cure-all prescription like the Lokpal. The Lokpal votaries have not attempted a diagnosis and yet offer a universal prescription with the smugness of a self righteous quack..

... as the engine as well as the driver of the economy, (the India state) positions itself in a perfect situation to become a super rentier. Corruption is therefore embedded in the basic framework of the system.

The second factor is the structure of Indian democracy, heavily centralised, in which the legislature plays a secondary role to the executive and federated units and local governments get subordinated especially in the financial decision making sphere. Their primary role becomes something like that of a franchisee who operates the rent seeking business for the parent company on a revenue share model. The power to say 'no' is completely decentralised, so that everyone can block unless paid their share of rent, and the power to say 'yes' extremely centralised so that at the apex the highest share of the rent can be collected.

The proponents of the Lokpal Bill show complete ignorance of these systemic flaws and accept the structure of decision making as it is. One of the biggest flaws in such thinking is the premise that the fear of getting caught keeps a check on corrupt behaviour. In fact, it is well established that policing and crime often develop a cosy relationship and a vested interest develops in keeping crime alive to sustain an expansionary police, especially if crime acquires a strong financial dimension. Such instances will grow exponentially with a super powerful agency like the Lokpal and the removal of existing safeguards which offer a modicum of protection to the honest.

For the dishonest the deterrent value of a powerful Lokpal is very little. It only means that he has to work out more ingenious ways of escaping detection. Vigil keepers invariably look for deviation from procedure, forgetting that most of the really corrupt are clever enough to be meticulous in their paperwork. Paradoxically, higher the level of procedural correctness required, higher the chances of the bidders having to pay more for a smooth passage. For the rent collectors along the approval chain, it is not necessary to deviate from procedure or to influence the purchase decision in favour of any bidder...

There are no short cuts to tackling corruption. The State has to be made to reduce the sphere of its activities and devolve most of its powers and resources to the smallest feasible unit of democratic governance. Decision making has to involve the participation of the maximum number of people and there has to be a concerted effort to move from bureaucratic to democratic processes. Budgets, as instruments of control have to replace administrative hierarchy based controls with clearly designated responsibilities to 'Budget Holders' for achieving budgeted outcomes. Internal delegation of powers has to follow the principle of 'maximum possible' rather than 'minimum necessary'.

The grand crusade against corruption has, instead of mobilising popular support for a transformation of governance has reduced itself to a campaign for centralised controls and a further diminution of the institutions of democracy. What we need is more democracy, not less.

Read more at:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/lokpal-a-short-cut-that-will-not-work/1/165359.html

Calibrated Indifference: Understanding the Structure of Informal Labour in India

The phenomenon of informality in labour relations is now an accepted fact of economic life in India. Between 7 and 8 percent of India’s total labour force of 390 million persons (inclusive of families and agrarian workers) work in the so-called organised sector, in registered firms, on regular salaries. This leaves some 350 million people in the unorganised, or informal sector, that allows (fifty-five years after Independence) for a work process that remains unmonitored, unregulated, casualised and without access to any official security systems whatsoever. Most registered firms also employ a certain percentage of causal labourers, thus ensuring a symbiotic link between two kinds of labour-process.


There exists a large body of data about this, indicating considerable research (both official and non-governmental), but insufficient attention has been paid to analysing endemic informality as a systemic structure. What determines its persistence? Is it sufficient to define it in terms of casual, unregulated, seasonal, unregistered, underage or mediated employment, or are there other aspects that need to be taken into consideration? What are the connections between these features, and its functional dynamic? Higher standards of living for these 350 million people would create massive demand and transform the economy. Why is this not happening?


Iniquitous work regimes are held together by what is euphemistically known as extra-economic coercion. One aspect of the relations governing informality that should enter a rigorous definition, is the prevalence of corporal punishment and intimidation as the mode of control at the work place. The state’s regulation of the recruitment and working conditions of casual and contractors’ labour is non-existent, laws on minimum wages rates in agrarian labour are rarely enforced, and maternity leave, health and accident insurance, are unknown, (despite being present in the recommendations of say, the National Commission on Rural Labour of 1991). Official under-regulation implies that other, ‘conventional’ modes of recruitment and regulation involving caste, kinship and gender operate in their place. What are these, how do they operate and what purpose do they serve in the larger order of things? This paper will explore of these issues..


Even a cursory study of casual labour and informality in India provides insights for an understanding of the most endemic of Indian malaises, that everyone complains of but few can comprehend. The relentless habit of subtracting from wages and deploying conventional prejudice for holding down those of ‘low’ social status, is, in my opinion, the stable foundation of the Indian economy and polity. Here is ‘corruption’ in action, performing its most vital function, blending caste and capital, tradition and modernity, economic coercion and violence in a system of untrammelled plunder. State officials are aware of this, and possess the power to enact and enforce regulations. That they choose not to do so implies that the problem goes much deeper. As we have noted above, it is political authority “that gives legitimacy and permanence to systems of social relations”

Read the full paper and download the pdf file: http://www.sacw.net/article2401.html

Goa’s Rs 800 cr mining scam

The country’s mining scandals have claimed one chief minister already. On 5 September, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested G Janardhan Reddy, former Karnataka minister, for the Obulapuram Mining Company’s role in illegal mining as documented by the Karnataka Lokayukta in July. Since the CBI is said to be probing the roles played by as many as 65 mining companies, the logical question is: who will be the next big fish to be caught in the net?

The Goa Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, bids fair to be the next target of inquiry. Official data and documents accessed by Firstpost  on show that he either aided or abetted or looked the other way when illegal mining activities running into over Rs 800 crore were taking place. And this figure refers to only illegal mining over the last four years.

For example, Goa government records show that there are 90 active iron ore mines in the state. But 48 of them were shown to be extracting more than what their environmental clearances (EC) allowed them. In other words, more than half the mines are breaking the law – and Kamat has done little to rein them in. Read more:

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/yeddy-reddy-kamat-goas-rs-800-cr-mining-scam-is-next-76286.html


Also read about the debate between Hartman de Souza and the Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal on how and why Tehelka didn't report the story:
http://kafila.org/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-tarun-tejpal-hartman-de-souza/

What is Corruption?

The Currency of Sentiment: An Essay on Informal Accumulation in Colonial India
A seminar paper delivered in 1999, the full text of which is available on pdf at this link: http://www.sacw.net/article2236.html


Introduction: The most striking thing about the term `corruption’ is the combination of its ubiquity as a diagnostic category in the sociology of administration, with its rhetorical, pejorative meaning in civil and political life. One the one hand it is treated as an analytical term in state discourse and in an ideological spectrum ranging from proponents of the status-quo to its radical critics. Development experts, World Bank economists and politicians cite corruption as a barrier to `growth’, free investment and social justice. Sociological processes, institutional flaws, cultural norms and errors of judgement by policy makers may be cited as its causes. It may be attributed to insufficient modernisation, looked upon as an inevitable reaction to cumbersome bureaucracies, or treated as a fact of life. It has also been treated as an inevitable symptom of transition from backward (and more recently, ex-Communist) economies to modernity. In this case its pejorative aspect gets diminished - it has been suggested that “the taking of bribes by government officials in these countries can be viewed with equanimity to the extent that it at least indicates an understanding of how market forces operate in a liberal economic environment”. 

‘Corruption’ is equally useful as a rhetorical device in criticisms of the establishment. Politicians of different persuasions regularly accuse their opponents of corruption, although these accusations are often references to personal characteristics and idiosyncrasies rather than part of a systemic critique. Its normative tint makes corruption a suitable idiom for a range of populisms, not to speak of imperial concerns. And by describing as fortuitous elements of degeneration which signify fundamental shortcomings in the polity, the discourse of corruption serves to detract from broader issues.

The phenomenon denoted by the term `corruption’ is steeped in ambivalence. However its rhetorical use permits of no ambivalence - to aver that such and such person (or institution) is corrupt is an unambiguous statement about the character of the said agent. It is this perpetual oscillation between a crystalline ethical judgement when used in any Present and a phenomenological translucence when these judgements are scrutinized, either in the same Present or historiographically, that has given `corruption’ its unique stamina in public discourse. It satisfies the need for monochromatic explanations of malfunctioning systems, even as it promises to quench our thirst for a moral statement about those systems. In our period, when the globalised world economy envisioned by Marx has come into its own, `corruption’ flourishes in the vocabulary of modern capitalist society, its usage fraught with the tension I have pointed to above.

This liminality of meaning is not accidental, but derives from its special function as the acceptable, assimilable malaise of the capitalist order. We are all against corruption. It is supposed to occur everywhere (alas, human nature is such, etc); and at the same time it is the one flaw that the discourse of Capital allows us to find in capitalist society. Its usage suggests that corruption is a mere epiphenomenon which will fade away with the advent of honest politicians, or be controlled within tolerable limits, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. Either way, criticisms of corruption as well as promises to eradicate it may always be made, since like Capital (if Fukuyama is to be believed), it will be with us for quite some time...  
<http://www.sacw.net/article2236.html>