Thoughts on Properly Handling a Series of Mass Incidents in the Sancha Area of Jianyang City

Starting in May, 1997, a group of people in the Sancha area of Jianyang City led by Su Kaifu, Liao Chao, and Wang Shugen used reducing of peasants’ burdens as a pretext, adopted methods such as petitioning with tens of thousands of signatures and posting big character posters to incite people to reject reasonable taxes. In addition, they secretly formed an organization, and petitioned in Beijing several times. By June, 1998 they have gathered and formed into mobs several times, continued expanding the incident which eventually evolved into besieging town and township governments, attacking schools, blocking traffic, smashing law enforcement vehicles, beating our on-duty police and government employees and resulted in multiple casualties. The damage was severe, and impact was abominable In accordance with the instructions of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, under the leadership of the party committees and governments at the Ziyang Prefecture and Jianyang City levels, public security organizations have used their roles as the main force to the full. In October, 1998 they adopted resolute measures, arrested the leading organizers and pacified the situation.