2015-05-04
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People’s Liberation Army veterans sit outside the provincial government office in south central China’s Hubei province, May 4, 2015.
(Photo courtesy of Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch)
Some 2,000 former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers staged a sit-in outside government offices in the central Chinese province of Hubei on Monday, calling on the government to resume paying their retirement benefits.
Rows of veterans clad in the distinctive green and red uniform of the PLA staged the protest outside the gates of the Hubei provincial government, eyewitnesses said.
“There are two or three thousand people here, and we want an explanation,” a veteran protester surnamed Zhang told RFA from the scene.
“There are probably around one or two thousand police and security guards.”
“Not a single government official has spoken to us so far,” Zhang said.
Most of the protesters are veterans of China’s brief 1979 border war with Vietnam，while others had fought in both that conflict and the Korean War (1950-1953), the Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website said on Monday.
An activist who joined the sit-in said a number of people had been detained briefly and then later released by police following “brief clashes,” with police and security guards.
“They were released after 2 p.m. [local time],” she said.
But no official had come out to meet with the protesters, an eyewitness told RFA.
“They are calling on the government leaders for a response, but the leaders aren’t coming out.”
He added: “There are a lot of police, security guards and plainclothes police here, and they have surrounded these people.”
Police had also told bystanders to move on, he said.
“They dare not try to move the old soldiers on, but they are grabbing people’s cameras and they won’t let anyone take photos.”
Campaigners have previously told RFA that there are currently “thousands” of military petitioners across China whose promises of jobs and pensions after their demobilization from the PLA haven’t been honored by the government.
Retired military personnel have been cited by officials and activists as a highly sensitive sector of the population, who might swing a tide of public opinion in their favor and against the ruling Chinese Communist Party because of their proven loyalty to their country.
Extreme economic hardship
Veterans have told RFA that many of them are now suffering extreme economic hardship in spite of their service to the nation, since the government stripped them of their official status in 2008.
“We are sitting here and making our demands, because a directive from the central government in 2004 said that veterans of both the [Vietnamese and Korean] conflicts shouldn’t be allowed to dip below the poverty line,” a veteran surnamed Chen told RFA from the scene.
