China compensates parents who lost their children in the Sichuan earthquake

by Yuliya Talmazan | July 28, 2008 at 11:12 am

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Chinese government is offering £11,800 (160,000 yuan) compensation contracts to the grief-stricken parents who lost their children in the Sichuan earthquake this May. The parents say they feel almost forced to sign the contracts and take the money. Many view it as a way to keep them complacent to prevent any possible social upheaval before the kick-off of the Olympic Games. Parents are angry with the government for not investigating the allegations that lousy building construction caused 7,000 schools to crumble during the earthquake, killing thousands of children.

Local governments in south-west China's quake-ravaged Sichuan province have begun a coordinated campaign to buy the silence of angry parents whose children died in the disaster.

But the pressure on parents is one sign that officials are determined to create a façade of public harmony rather than undertake any real inquiry into allegations that corruption contributed to the high death toll in the quake.

Riot police officers have broken up protests by parents; the authorities have set up cordons around the schools; and officials have ordered the Chinese news media to stop reporting on school collapses.

Even as negotiations with some parents continue, local governments have bulldozed the remains of many schools, appearing to close the door on a full investigation.

It is shocking but most of the parents are ready to put off their protests until after the Olympics. One of the fathers, Yu Tingyun, said:

"We don't want to get the government in trouble ahead of the Olympics," Yu said. "We don't want to hurt the nation's image."

Chinese authorities have also agreed to tweak their infamous One Child Policy to allow the parents who lost their children in the earthquake to have or adopt another child.

"Both officials and ordinary people said parents whose children died or were crippled in the quake had to be permitted to have another," Wang Yukun, vice-chairman of the standing committee, told the China Daily newspaper, which is the main English-language publication in China.