乌坎村抗争Wukan Village Uprising
背景：被卖掉的土地乌坎村是广东省汕尾市下辖陆丰市东海街道的一个滨海渔村，人口一万有余，靠海吃海，也靠村集体的土地过活。2011年之前，这个村子在官方叙事里是远近闻名的文明村、和谐村。但在村子内部，另一本账已经算了多年：自上世纪九十年代起，村两委在村民不知情、未经村民同意的情况下，陆续把大片集体农用地转让、出租给开发商。按村民的说法，被卖掉的土地累计达数千亩，卖地款达七亿多元人民币，而发到每户手里的补助只有五百五十元。其中一块原属村集体的丰田畜牧场用地，被指卖给开发商碧桂园，要建滨海新区的住宅，是压垮村民耐心的最后一块地。土地按法律属村民集体所有，出售须经村民同意、收益归集体所有——这两条一样没有做到，账从未公开过，钱去了哪里，没人给过说法。Background: the land that was sold away Wukan is a coastal fishing village under Donghai Subdistrict, Lufeng City, in Guangdong's Shanwei prefecture, home to more than ten thousand people who lived from the sea and from the village's collectively owned land. In official telling, Wukan had long been a model “civilized” and “harmonious” village. Inside the village, a different ledger had been kept for years: from the 1990s onward, the village leadership transferred or leased large tracts of collective farmland to developers without the villagers' knowledge or consent. By the villagers' account, the land sold totaled several thousand mu and the proceeds more than 700 million yuan, of which each household received a one-off subsidy of just 550 yuan. One parcel in particular — land of the village's Fengtian livestock farm, allegedly sold to the developer Country Garden for a seaside housing project — was the last straw. Under Chinese law, collective land belongs to the villagers: a sale requires their consent and the proceeds belong to the collective. Neither rule was followed, the accounts were never published, and no one would say where the money went.
四十年的班子与两年的上访：乌坎的权力结构几十年没有真正变过。村党支部书记薛昌自1970年起担任这一职务，前后超过四十年；村委会主任陈舜意等人也在位多年，村委会九名成员中有五人自这一制度建立起就连任至今。选举在村民口中是走过场：名单早就定好，票投了也不算数。从2009年6月起，村里二十多名青年自发组织起来，先后十多次到陆丰市、汕尾市乃至广东省的信访部门上访，要求查卖地、查账目、重新选举，两年下来没有一次得到实质答复。这批青年后来组成乌坎热血青年团，成了抗争最早的骨干。2011年2月那次被村民指为造假的村委会选举过后，又传出村里最后一块成片农地也要卖掉的消息。上访的路走到了尽头，街头的路走到了起点。The forty-year leadership and two years of petitions: Wukan's power structure had barely changed in decades. Village Party secretary Xue Chang had held his post since 1970 — more than forty years; village committee director Chen Shunyi and others had also served for many years, and five of the nine committee members had sat continuously since the committee system was created. Villagers called the elections a staged show: the names were decided in advance and ballots counted for nothing. From June 2009, more than twenty young villagers organized themselves and petitioned over a dozen times — to Lufeng, to Shanwei, and to the Guangdong provincial petition offices — demanding investigations into the land sales and the accounts and a fresh election; in two years they never received a substantive answer. These young people later formed the Wukan Hot-Blooded Youth League, the earliest backbone of the uprising. After a February 2011 village election that villagers denounced as fraudulent, word spread that the village's last large tract of farmland was also to be sold. The petition road had run out; the street was next.
2011年9月21日至22日：上街与冲突2011年9月21日上午，数千名乌坎村民走上街头，涌向陆丰市政府大楼、村里的工业园和派出所，打出还我农田、让我们继续种田的标语，要求归还土地、惩治贪腐。官方通报的说法是，当天最初只有约五十人和平请愿，人群扩大后有人打砸建筑和设备、堵塞道路，警方随即介入，三名村民被抓。9月22日，冲突升级：上百名村民围住派出所要求放人；关于警察打伤孩子的传言在村里传开后，数百名愤怒的村民带着自制工具，包围了只有三四十名人员留守的派出所。数百名防暴警察赶到后与村民对峙、追打，村民拍下的视频里，警察挥着警棍追打各个年龄段的人，有村民形容他们像疯狗一样见人就打。英国《金融时报》报道，两名分别为九岁和十三岁的孩子伤势严重，一度流传有孩子死亡——官方随即否认有平民死亡，并通报十多名警察受伤、六辆警车受损。这两天的伤情数字，双方各执一词，至今没有一份共同认可的记录。September 21–22, 2011: the streets and the clashes On the morning of September 21, 2011, several thousand Wukan villagers took to the streets, converging on the Lufeng city government building, the village industrial park and the police station with banners reading “Give us back our farmland” and “Let us continue farming,” demanding the land back and punishment for corruption. The official account holds that about fifty people began peacefully, that as the crowd grew some smashed buildings and equipment and blocked roads, that police intervened and three villagers were arrested. On September 22 the clashes escalated: over a hundred villagers besieged the police station demanding the detainees' release, and after rumors spread that police had injured children, hundreds of furious villagers with makeshift tools surrounded the station, where only thirty to forty personnel remained. Hundreds of riot police arrived and chased and beat villagers; video shot by villagers shows officers swinging truncheons at people of all ages, and one villager described them as “like mad dogs, beating everyone they saw.” The Financial Times reported that two children, aged nine and thirteen, were badly injured, and a rumor of a child's death circulated — officials promptly denied that any civilian had died, and reported more than a dozen police injured and six police vehicles damaged. The two sides' injury figures have never been reconciled.
十三名代表的临时理事会：冲突之后，上级政府换了打法：撤走明面上的警力，承诺成立跨部门工作组调查卖地问题，并同意让村民自己选出代表来谈判。2011年9月底，乌坎村民按宗族、房支推选投票，选出十三名代表组成乌坎村临时理事会，负责同镇、市两级政府交涉土地、财务和改选三件事。理事会会长是六十七岁的退休老党员林祖銮，他早年当过兵，做过村委会副主任和镇里的干部，在村里说话有分量，主张理性、和平、不打砸；副会长是四十二岁的村民薛锦波。理事会之下，村里还自发组织了妇女会和青年团，负责维持秩序、传递消息。一个没有先例的局面出现了：名义上的村两委还在，真正被全村人认的，是这十三个人。后来发生的一切——谈判、抓捕、围困、选举——都绕着这十三个人展开。The thirteen-member provisional council: After the clashes the authorities changed tactics: visible police were withdrawn, an inter-agency team was promised to investigate the land sales, and villagers were allowed to choose their own negotiators. At the end of September 2011, voting along clan and lineage lines, Wukan elected thirteen representatives to a Wukan Village Provisional Council, charged with negotiating land, finances and a new election with the township and city governments. Its chairman was Lin Zuluan, a 67-year-old retired Party member who had served in the army and as a deputy village head and township cadre, carried weight in the village, and argued for rational, peaceful action without smashing or looting; its vice-chairman was Xue Jinbo, a 42-year-old villager. A women's association and a youth league formed beneath the council to keep order and carry messages. An unprecedented situation had arisen: the old leadership still existed on paper, but the people the village recognized were these thirteen. Everything that followed — negotiation, arrests, siege, election — revolved around them.
2011年11月21日：五千人去陆丰谈判谈了近两个月，村民等来的三个工作组——查土地、查财务、查选举——被指全是走过场：账没有真查，地没有说法，负责选举事务的一名镇干部还被发现与碧桂园的一名开发经理有亲属关系。2011年11月21日，临时理事会组织村民再赴陆丰请愿。五千余名村民举着打倒贪官、还土地于民、惩治腐败、官商勾结的标语，步行到东海镇的陆丰市政府大楼前集合，代理市长出面接收了请愿书，队伍约一小时后和平散去，没有发生冲突。这是整场抗争中秩序最好的一次行动，也是一次摆在明处的警告：村民要的答复再不到，下一次就不会只是请愿。路透社等外媒当天的报道记下了人数，也记下了现场的克制。谁也没有想到，十八天后，等来的不是答复，是抓捕。November 21, 2011: five thousand march on Lufeng Negotiations dragged on for nearly two months, and the three official work teams — on land, on finances, on elections — were dismissed by villagers as theater: the accounts were never truly audited, the land question got no answer, and a township cadre handling election affairs was found to be related by family to a development manager at Country Garden. On November 21, 2011, the provisional council organized another petition to Lufeng: more than five thousand villagers, carrying banners reading “Down with corrupt officials,” “Return the land to the people” and “Punish corruption and official-business collusion,” marched to the Lufeng city government building in Donghai Town, where the acting mayor received their petition; the crowd dispersed peacefully after about an hour. It was the best-ordered action of the whole movement, and it was also a warning in plain sight: if an answer did not come, the next step would not be a petition. Reuters and other foreign media recorded the numbers that day, and the restraint. No one expected that eighteen days later what would come was not an answer, but arrests.
2011年12月9日：五名代表被抓警告没有换来答复，换来了抓捕。2011年12月9日，汕尾市官方一面开新闻发布会，称村民的诉求已得到承认，一面动手抓人。当天中午，薛锦波与张建成、洪锐潮两名朋友在村里一家餐馆吃饭时，被多名没有出示证件的便衣人员用一辆无牌面包车带走；同日被带走的还有另外四名理事会成员。五人被指向涉嫌故意毁坏财物罪和妨害公务罪，关进汕尾市看守所。抓捕的方式——便衣、无证件、无牌照车辆——后来被村民反复讲述：在他们眼里，这不是传唤，是绑架。理事会一下子少了五个人，村里的怒气却涨满了。带走他们的人大概没有算到，两天之后，其中一个人的死讯，会把整个村子推到与政府隔村对峙的地步。December 9, 2011: five representatives seized The answer that came was arrests. On December 9, 2011, Shanwei officials held a press conference declaring that the villagers' demands had been acknowledged — and on the same day began seizing people. Around noon, Xue Jinbo, lunching with two friends, Zhang Jiancheng and Hong Ruichao, at a village restaurant, was taken away by plainclothes men in an unlicensed minibus who showed no identification; four other council members were detained the same day. The five were accused of intentional destruction of property and obstructing official business, and held in the Shanwei detention center. The manner of the seizures — plain clothes, no papers, an unmarked vehicle — was retold in the village for years afterward: in the villagers' eyes this was not a summons, it was an abduction. The council had suddenly lost five of its members; the village's anger was full to the brim. Those who took them away had presumably not reckoned that two days later, news of one man's death would push the whole village into open confrontation with the government.
薛锦波之死：官方的说法薛锦波被抓两天后死了，年仅四十二岁。官方的说法是这样的：12月9日他被刑事拘留后，家属当天还给他送去了治疗心脏病、哮喘的药物；12月11日上午他突感身体不适，干警把他送往汕尾市逸挥基金医院抢救，医院称经持续抢救无效，于上午11时40分死亡，诊断死因是心源性猝死。汕尾市公安局的通报还称，薛锦波到案后曾供述自己毁坏财物、妨害公务。12月11日下午，省、市检察机关与中山大学派出的专家对遗体做了尸表检验；12月14日，中山大学法医鉴定中心给出结论，可以排除外力导致的死亡。汕尾市电视台播出了抢救医院急诊科主任的采访，称死者胸部、腹部、头部没有外伤痕迹，没有血迹、淤痕。新华社的报道还说，薛锦波有哮喘和心脏病史，法医没有发现受虐待的证据。这就是官方版本的全部要点：一个有病史的人，在作出供述之后，心脏突然出了问题。The death of Xue Jinbo: the official account Xue Jinbo died two days after his seizure, aged forty-two. The official account runs as follows: after his criminal detention on December 9, his family delivered medicine to him that day for heart disease and asthma; on the morning of December 11 he suddenly felt unwell, officers rushed him to Shanwei's Yihui Foundation Hospital, and despite continued resuscitation he died at 11:40 a.m., the hospital diagnosing sudden cardiac death. Shanwei police also stated that after his arrest Xue had confessed to damaging property and obstructing official business. On the afternoon of December 11, experts from the provincial and municipal procuratorates and from Sun Yat-sen University performed a surface examination of the body; on December 14, the university's forensic center concluded that death by external force could be excluded. Shanwei television broadcast an interview with the emergency department director of the hospital that had treated him, who said the body showed no external injuries, no blood and no bruising to the chest, abdomen or head. Xinhua reported that Xue had a history of asthma and heart disease and that forensic examiners found no evidence of abuse. That is the whole of the official version: a man with a medical history, whose heart suddenly failed after he had confessed.
薛锦波之死：家属看到的家属看到的，是另一个版本。12月11日深夜11点，陆丰的官员打电话给薛锦波的女儿薛健婉，询问她父亲的完整病史，称人已病危送医；家属赶到汕尾后被挡在外面等了几个小时，得到的只有死亡的消息。十名家属后来获准看遗体，但不许带相机和电话。据多名看过遗体的家属向外媒讲述：遗体遍布淤青和伤口，两个鼻孔凝着血，双手拇指被反向扭曲，膝盖淤伤，背上有一大块像是被脚踢出来的淤青，而衣服却是干净的——家属由此认为，他是被脱去衣服后殴打的。薛健婉公开否认父亲有任何心脏病史。关于检验，必须如实记下的是：先后有过两次，第一次由汕尾市公安方面进行，第二次由中山大学法医作出，家属均不在场；家属拿到的书面报告很短，没有回应他们的疑问；官方曾要求做解剖检验，家属拒绝了；另有官媒报道称家属同意法医的心源性猝死结论，薛健婉对香港媒体明确否认。没有照片留下来。两种说法针锋相对，本站不采信任何一方——能够确定的是：一个四十二岁的村代表，在被便衣带走两天后死于羁押之中，而他的死因，从未有过一次家属在场、程序公开的查验。The death of Xue Jinbo: what the family saw The family saw a different version. At 11 p.m. on December 11, a Lufeng official telephoned Xue's daughter, Xue Jianwan, asking about her father's full medical history and saying he was critically ill in hospital; the family rushed to Shanwei, were kept waiting outside for hours, and received only the news of his death. Ten relatives were later allowed to view the body, but were forbidden cameras and phones. According to several relatives who spoke to foreign media, the body was covered in bruises and cuts, both nostrils were caked with blood, the thumbs were twisted backward, the knees were bruised, and a large bruise on the back looked like the mark of a kick — while the clothes were clean, leading the family to believe he had been stripped and then beaten. Xue Jianwan publicly denied that her father had any history of heart disease. The record on the examinations must be stated plainly: there were two of them, the first conducted on the Shanwei public security side and the second by Sun Yat-sen University forensic examiners; no relative was present at either; the written report the family received was short and did not answer their questions; the authorities requested a full autopsy and the family refused; and although a state-media report claimed the family agreed with the cardiac verdict, Xue Jianwan explicitly denied this to Hong Kong media. No photographs survive. The two accounts stand opposed, and this site credits neither — what is certain is that a 42-year-old village representative died in custody two days after plainclothes men took him away, and the cause of his death has never been examined in a proceeding his family could attend.
驱逐、围困与全村自治：死讯传回乌坎，村子炸了。12月12日起，村民开始每天在村里的仙翁戏台前集会。12月14日，愤怒的村民冲进派出所，把留守的警察和村里的党政官员全部赶出村子，在各个村口用树干、砖石设下路障，青年团的年轻人拿着对讲机轮班巡逻。警方随即反包围：约一千名武警和防暴警察封锁了进村的道路，物资进不去，渔船出不了海，粮食和食用油开始告急，村民靠邻村从田间小路接济才勉强撑住。当局还在村外摆出摊位，用米和油拉拢愿意站过来的村民，只拉到一百来人，摊位后来被村民关掉。这十多天里，乌坎实际处于村民自治状态：临时理事会设在供奉海神妈祖的庙里办公，村里分工组织了救护、巡逻和接待记者。在一段后来流出的内部讲话视频里，汕尾市委书记郑雁雄抱怨村民不找政府、偏去找几家腐败的外国媒体，还留下一句形容官民关系的话：老百姓的胃口越来越大，越来越聪明，越来越难管。Expulsion, siege and village self-rule: When news of the death reached Wukan, the village erupted. From December 12, villagers gathered daily before the Xianweng stage in the village. On December 14, enraged villagers stormed the police station and drove out the remaining police and all Party and government officials, barricading every village entrance with logs and bricks while youth league members patrolled in shifts with walkie-talkies. Police then besieged the besiegers: about one thousand armed police and riot police sealed the roads into the village, supplies could not enter, fishing boats could not go to sea, and grain and cooking oil ran short; only neighbors carrying food in across field paths kept the village fed. The authorities also set up a stall outside offering rice and oil to villagers willing to come over to their side; they won about a hundred takers, and the stall was later shut down by villagers. For more than ten days Wukan effectively governed itself: the provisional council worked from the temple of Mazu, goddess of the sea, and villagers organized medical aid, patrols and a rota for receiving journalists. In a leaked recording of an internal speech, Shanwei Party secretary Zheng Yanxiong complained that the villagers had not come to the government but to a few rotten foreign media, and summed up officialdom's view of the governed: ordinary people's appetites grow bigger every day, they grow smarter every day, and they are harder and harder to control.
外媒进村：乌坎能撑住围困、并最终迫使省里让步，一个重要原因是外面看得见村里。英国《每日电讯报》记者马尔科姆·摩尔在对峙开始后进入村内驻守发稿，是最早把围困实况从村里传出去的外国记者之一；英国广播公司、路透社、《纽约时报》、《华尔街日报》、半岛电视台和香港媒体随后密集跟进，记者多由村民骑摩托车走小路接进村。墙内的报道则几乎为零：香港大学新闻及传媒研究中心12月19日的一项调查统计，当时内地两百多家报纸没有一家报道乌坎；微博上乌坎、陆丰、汕尾等词被屏蔽，村民的微博被删除。村民对内地记者戒心很重，只让境外和香港记者进村——在他们看来，能把消息送出去的人，才是安全的来源。一位村民当时对记者说，村里的存粮只够十天左右，但他们不打算屈服。这句话后来被反复引用，因为它把围困的账算得很清楚：粮食有数，日子也有数，就看哪边先撑不住。Foreign reporters inside the village: That the siege held, and that the province eventually conceded, owed much to the fact that the outside world could see inside the village. Malcolm Moore of The Daily Telegraph entered Wukan after the standoff began and filed from inside — among the first foreign correspondents to report the siege from within; the BBC, Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera and Hong Kong media followed intensively, their reporters mostly carried in on villagers' motorbikes along footpaths. Inside the wall, coverage was near zero: a December 19 survey by the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre found that none of more than two hundred mainland newspapers had reported Wukan at all; on Weibo, the words Wukan, Lufeng and Shanwei were blocked and villagers' posts were deleted. Villagers were wary of mainland journalists and admitted only Hong Kong and foreign press — in their eyes, whoever could carry the news out was a source of safety. One villager told a reporter at the time that the village had about ten days of food left, and no intention of surrendering. The remark was quoted again and again, because it did the siege's arithmetic plainly: the grain was counted, the days were counted, and it was a question of which side broke first.
朱明国谈判、12月21日协议与遗体的归期：12月20日，局面松动：广东省委派出的工作组由省委副书记朱明国带队，省里公开承认村民的基本诉求合理、此前处理中有错误，承诺严查腐败。在此之前的12月18日，林祖銮曾拒绝过一次谈判邀约，开出的条件是先放人、先交还薛锦波遗体、先还地，三样不答应就不谈。12月21日，林祖銮与朱明国面对面谈判，达成协议：村民取消原定的游行、拆除路障；省方承认临时理事会的合法性，承诺不秋后算账，释放被抓的其余村民，交还薛锦波遗体并调查其死因，公开村里的财务，查处被村民指认的责任官员，处理选举问题，重新分配被占的土地。12月22日，朱明国进村，受到村民欢迎，被羁押的几名代表随后陆续获释——有报道指获释附带取保候审的条件、指控并未当场撤销，此细节未核，见文末。协议里最受关注的交还遗体，兑现得最晚：2012年1月中旬，外媒仍在报道遗体没有交还、家属拒绝在自然死亡的说法上签字；直至2012年2月中旬，家属才终于把薛锦波安葬，同年2月16日村里为他开追思会。遗体具体在哪一天交还，没有官方公开记录。Zhu Mingguo, the December 21 agreement, and the long wait for the body: On December 20 the ground shifted: a provincial work team led by Guangdong deputy Party secretary Zhu Mingguo publicly acknowledged that the villagers' basic demands were reasonable and that mistakes had been made in handling them, and promised a crackdown on corruption. Two days earlier, on December 18, Lin Zuluan had refused a first invitation to talks, setting three conditions — release the detainees, return Xue Jinbo's body, return the land; without those, no talks. On December 21 Lin met Zhu face to face, and an agreement was reached: the villagers would cancel their planned march and dismantle the barricades; the province recognized the provisional council's legitimacy, promised no reprisals after the fact, and undertook to release the detained villagers, return Xue Jinbo's body and investigate his death, publish the village accounts, pursue the officials the villagers had named, fix the election process and redistribute the confiscated land. On December 22 Zhu entered the village to a warm welcome, and the detained representatives were released over the following days — some reports say on bail, with the charges not withdrawn on the spot; this detail is unverified, see below. The most watched promise, the return of the body, was the slowest kept: in mid-January 2012 foreign media were still reporting that the body had not been returned and that the family refused to sign off on a natural death; only in mid-February 2012 could the family finally bury Xue Jinbo, and the village held a memorial meeting for him on February 16 that year. The exact date on which the body was handed over appears in no official public record.
选举之一：从任命到三轮投票协议之后，乌坎进入它最出名的阶段。2012年1月15日，陆丰市东海镇党委在乌坎党员大会上组建新的村党总支部，任命林祖銮为党总支书记，并由他牵头筹备村委会重新选举——林祖銮后来改名林祖恋，英文报道中多写作Lin Zulian，说的是同一个人。此后三轮投票层层往上搭：2月1日，约六千名村民一人一票、无记名投票，选出十一人组成的独立选举委员会，负责监督整个重选过程；2月11日，六千五百多名村民投票选出107名村民代表，投票率约百分之八十五，薛锦波的女儿薛健婉也在当选之列。广东省委书记汪洋公开表示，要把乌坎的做法作为全省村级治理改革的参照。美国驻广州总领事馆派了观察员到场。《华尔街日报》当时给了一句评价：这场选举看不到那种通常玷污中国选举结果的共产党干预。The elections, part one: from appointment to three rounds of voting After the agreement, Wukan entered its most famous phase. On January 15, 2012, at a meeting of village Party members, the Donghai Town Party committee formed a new Wukan general Party branch and appointed Lin Zuluan its secretary, also putting him in charge of preparing the village committee re-election — Lin later changed his name to Lin Zulian, the form used in most English reporting, but it is the same man. Three rounds of voting then built upward, layer by layer: on February 1, about six thousand villagers, one person one vote, elected an eleven-member independent election committee to supervise the re-election, by secret ballot throughout; on February 11, more than sixty-five hundred villagers voted to elect 107 village representatives, a turnout of about 85 percent, with Xue Jinbo's daughter Xue Jianwan among those elected. Guangdong Party secretary Wang Yang said publicly that the Wukan approach should serve as a reference for village governance reform across the province. The US consulate in Guangzhou sent an observer. The Wall Street Journal's verdict at the time was that the election appeared free of the Communist Party meddling that typically mars Chinese election results.
选举之二：2012年3月3日2012年3月3日，村委会选举在村里的学校举行，投票从中午持续到傍晚，村民在标着秘密投票箱的隔间里填票，唱票的时候全村围观。乌坎共有登记选民八千二百二十二人，当天投票率百分之八十一点四五。林祖銮以6205票当选村委会主任，杨色茂以3609票当选副主任；3月4日补选产生其余五名委员，七人班子里坐着的全是当年的抗争骨干。法新社、美联社和路透社的记者都在现场。对绝大多数乌坎人来说，这是他们一生中第一次觉得自己的一票算数。一位六十三岁的村民对美联社记者说，选举公开透明，他很满意。多年以后回看，这一天是乌坎故事的最高点：一个被围困过的村子，用选票把带头抗争的人送进了村委会，而这个结果得到了省里的承认。The elections, part two: March 3, 2012 On March 3, 2012, the village committee election was held at the village school, voting running from noon into the evening; villagers marked their ballots in booths labeled “secret voting box” while the whole village watched the count. Wukan had 8,222 registered voters, and turnout was 81.45 percent. Lin Zuluan was elected village chief with 6,205 votes, and Yang Semao deputy chief with 3,609; a by-election on March 4 filled the remaining five seats, and the seven-member committee was made up entirely of veterans of the uprising. Reporters from AFP, AP and Reuters were all on site. For most people in Wukan it was the first time in their lives that their vote had counted. A 63-year-old villager told an AP reporter that the election was open and transparent, and that he was satisfied. In hindsight, that day was the summit of the Wukan story: a village that had been besieged sent the leaders of its resistance into the village committee by ballot — and the province recognized the result.
选上之后：查账、追地与磨掉的希望但选票能换班子，换不来土地。新班子上任后先做了两件在当时很少见的事：把村委会的开支砍掉一半，账目逐月公开。即便如此，村民只认一条标准：地要回来多少。据副主任杨色茂2013年接受法新社采访时的说法，村里要追讨的土地约六千五百亩，新班子只追回了一成多，约三分之一已经建上了房子，事实上永远回不来。官方的口径完全不同：新华社报道称，两年内有三百三十三公顷被非法转让、划拨或闲置的土地已退还村里——而这个数字在2013年2月就已经公布过一次。两个口径差在哪里，始终没有人说清：市里连乌坎的村界和地籍都不肯确认，争议土地的总面积至今没有定论。旧班子的处理结果也让村民寒心：2012年4月，省工作组公布，薛昌被开除党籍、没收违法所得十八万九千二百元，包括陈舜意在内的八名原村干部受到党纪处分，陆丰、东海另有十二名干部受处分、两人被移送司法机关——但村民最恨的那些人，没有一个坐牢。2014年的换届选举中林祖銮连任，可是两名最敢说话的当选委员已经先走了一个：庄烈宏流亡美国寻求庇护；据当时的报道，杨色茂在换届前被以涉嫌受贿带走、次日取保。希望就是这样一年一年磨掉的。林祖銮在2016年3月2日给全村的公开信里形容，被占的土地遭到了权力、金钱和黑恶势力的糟蹋。In office: the accounts, the land chase, and hope wearing away But ballots could replace a leadership, not recover the land. The new committee first did two things that were rare at the time: it halved the village committee's expenses, and published the accounts monthly. Villagers, however, judged it by one standard only: how much land came back. According to deputy chief Yang Semao, speaking to AFP in 2013, the village was pursuing about 6,500 mu of land, the new committee had retrieved only a little over ten percent of it, and about a third was effectively gone forever, built upon. The official figure was entirely different: Xinhua reported that 333 hectares of illegally transferred, allotted or idle land had been returned to the village over two years — a figure that had already been announced once in February 2013. Where the two accounts diverged was never clarified: the city would not even confirm Wukan's boundaries and land registry, and the total area in dispute remains undetermined to this day. The treatment of the old leadership chilled villagers too: in April 2012 the provincial work team announced that Xue Chang had been expelled from the Party with 189,200 yuan of illegal income confiscated, that eight former village cadres including Chen Shunyi had received Party discipline, that twelve more cadres in Lufeng and Donghai had been disciplined and two transferred to judicial authorities — yet not one of the men the villagers hated most went to prison. Lin Zuluan was re-elected in the 2014 election, but two of the most outspoken elected members were already gone: Zhuang Liehong had fled to the United States to seek asylum, and, by contemporary reporting, Yang Semao was taken away on a bribery suspicion shortly before the vote and released on bail the next day. Hope wore away year by year. In an open letter to the village dated March 2, 2016, Lin described the seized land as having been ravaged by power, money and gangsters.
2016年6月：深夜带走与电视认罪2016年，追地四年无果的林祖銮决定再动一次。他起草了给上级政府的请愿材料，指控官员与商人勾结、继续非法卖地，并定于6月19日召开村民大会商量集体上访。6月17日深夜至18日凌晨，特警翻墙进入他家，把七十多岁的林祖銮带走，官方随后宣布他因涉嫌受贿被采取强制措施；他的孙子一度也被带走问话。6月21日，官方电视台播出了林祖銮的认罪视频：他对着镜头说，由于自己不懂法，他在村里的工程和采购中拿了巨额回扣。村民不信。林祖銮以前聘请的律师对美联社说，这个认罪很可能是为了保护家人才作出的；家人为他请的律师葛永喜，被司法当局要求退还律师费，其律所被禁止承接任何乌坎的案子。从6月19日起，村民顶着官方的警告开始每天游行，要求释放林祖銮、归还土地。June 2016: taken in the night, and a televised confession In 2016, after four fruitless years of chasing the land, Lin Zuluan decided to move once more. He drafted a petition to higher government accusing officials and businessmen of colluding to sell more village land illegally, and called a village assembly for June 19 to discuss a collective petition. In the night of June 17–18, special police climbed the wall of his house and took the elderly Lin away; authorities announced that he was under coercive measures on suspicion of bribery, and his grandson was also briefly taken for questioning. On June 21, state television broadcast Lin's confession video: facing the camera, he said that, due to his ignorance of the law, he had taken huge kickbacks on village construction projects and purchases. The village did not believe it. A lawyer Lin had previously engaged told AP that the confession was likely made to protect his family; the lawyer the family hired, Ge Yongxi, was made by the judicial authorities to return his fee, and his firm was barred from taking any case from Wukan. From June 19, defying official warnings, villagers began marching daily, demanding Lin's release and the land back.
2016年9月8日：判刑与翻供2016年9月8日，佛山市禅城区法院开庭审理林祖銮案。法庭称审理是公开的，但只有三名家属获准旁听。法院认定，林祖銮在村里的建设工程中收受贿赂四十四万余元，在村经济联合社购买抽沙船等经济往来中收取回佣十五万元，两罪合并执行有期徒刑三年一个月，并处罚金二十万元；串通投标一项则证据不足、不成立。他在庭上认罪，表示不上诉——但这不是他最后的话。10月12日二审开庭时，他当庭否认大部分指控，包括一审时承认的部分，并认为量刑过重；10月20日，佛山市中级法院二审宣判，维持原判。电视认罪在前，庭审认罪在中，二审翻供在后，这条顺序本身，就是这起案件留给档案的东西。村民的游行没有因为判决而停下：从6月19日到9月12日，他们连续游行了八十五天，要求放人。September 8, 2016: the sentence — and the recantation On September 8, 2016, the Chancheng District Court in Foshan heard Lin Zuluan's case. The court called the trial public, but only three family members were allowed in the gallery. The court found that Lin had taken more than 440,000 yuan in bribes in village construction projects, and 150,000 yuan in kickbacks in the village economic association's purchases of sand dredgers and other dealings; combining the two offenses, it sentenced him to three years and one month in prison and a fine of 200,000 yuan, while a bid-rigging charge failed for insufficient evidence. In court he pleaded guilty and said he would not appeal — but that was not his last word. At the second-instance hearing on October 12, he denied most of the charges, including parts he had admitted at trial, and argued that the sentence was too heavy; on October 20, the Foshan Intermediate People's Court upheld the original verdict. A televised confession first, a guilty plea second, a recantation last: that sequence is itself part of what this case leaves to the archive. The villagers' marches did not stop for the verdict — from June 19 to September 12, they marched for eighty-five consecutive days, demanding his release.
2016年9月13日：凌晨清场2016年9月13日凌晨三点左右，大批武警和防暴警察进入乌坎，挨家挨户抓人。村民敲响铜锣报警，天亮后数千名全副武装的警察封锁了村内的路口。据村民讲述和现场流出的视频，警察向村民发射了大量橡皮子弹、催泪弹和震爆弹，村民以石块、砖头还击。官方当天通报抓了十三名煽动闹事的村民；路透社的报道说数十名村民在冲突中受伤；流亡美国的原村委委员庄烈宏的记述则称受伤者达数百人。伤情数字没有独立核实的渠道，本站并列记录，不取其一。当天晚些时候，五名在村里采访的香港记者被警察带走，有记者称遭到殴打，收留记者的村民也被带走；官方还开出悬赏，举报藏匿记者者有奖。国际特赦组织当天发表声明，要求释放仅因和平行使表达与集会权利而被抓的村民。八十五天的游行，在这一夜之后停了。September 13, 2016: the pre-dawn raid At about 3 a.m. on September 13, 2016, large numbers of armed police and riot police entered Wukan and began house-to-house arrests. Villagers beat gongs to raise the alarm, and by dawn thousands of fully armed police had sealed the village's intersections. According to villagers' accounts and video that came out of the scene, police fired large numbers of rubber bullets, tear-gas canisters and stun grenades at the villagers, who answered with stones and bricks. The official statement that day announced thirteen villagers arrested for inciting unrest; Reuters reported that dozens of villagers were injured in the clashes; the account of Zhuang Liehong, an elected committee member now exiled in the United States, put the injured in the hundreds. There is no independent channel to verify the injury figures, and this site records them side by side without choosing. Later that day, five Hong Kong journalists reporting in the village were taken away by police, some saying they were beaten, and villagers who had sheltered them were detained as well; the authorities also offered a reward for information on hidden journalists. Amnesty International issued a statement that day calling for the release of villagers detained solely for peacefully exercising their rights to expression and assembly. After that night, the eighty-five days of marches stopped.
2016年12月：九名村民判刑2016年12月17日，海丰县法院用一天时间审理了九名乌坎村民的案子；12月26日，宣判用了不到半小时。九人，六男三女，以非法集会、聚众扰乱交通秩序、扰乱公共秩序、妨害公务等罪名分别获刑：魏永汉十年六个月，洪永忠六年六个月，杨金珍六年，吴芳五年，庄松坤、蔡加粦、李楚禄、陈素转各三年，张炳钗二年。据家属和维权律师的记述，从被抓到宣判，家属没有收到过起诉书，也没能为他们请到律师；九人当庭全部表示要上诉。另有十三名村民当时仍在等待审理，他们后来的下落没有任何公开报道，未核。至此，2011年那场抗争的骨干，要么进了监狱，要么流亡在外，要么从此沉默。乌坎的第二次抗争，以九份判决书收尾。December 2016: nine villagers sentenced On December 17, 2016, the Haifeng County Court tried nine Wukan villagers in a single day; on December 26, the sentences took less than half an hour to announce. The nine — six men and three women — were convicted of illegal assembly, gathering to disrupt traffic, disrupting public order, obstructing official business and related offenses: Wei Yonghan received ten years and six months; Hong Yongzhong, six years and six months; Yang Jinzhen, six years; Wu Fang, five years; Zhuang Songkun, Cai Jialin, Li Chulu and Chen Suzhuan, three years each; and Zhang Bingchai, two years. According to the accounts of families and rights lawyers, from arrest to sentencing the families received no indictment and were unable to hire lawyers for the nine, all of whom stated in court that they would appeal. Thirteen more villagers were then still awaiting trial; what finally happened to them has never been publicly reported, and is recorded here as unverified. With that, the backbone of the 2011 uprising was in prison, in exile, or silent. Wukan's second uprising ended in nine judgment documents.
林祖銮出狱与乌坎的现状：林祖銮的刑期到2019年届满。据对话基金会的刑满释放记录，他于2019年8月3日从广东省阳江监狱获释，时年七十五岁，获释后处于警方全天候监控之下；此后，公开报道中再没有出现过他的消息。乌坎本身也从新闻里消失了：2016年9月之后，没有再发生过成规模公开抗争的报道；当年被卖掉的土地最终追回了多少、村里的财务后来如何、107名村民代表和此后的历届选举如何运作，公开渠道都查不到可以核实的更新，见文末核实说明。这个村子留给外界的最后画面，是纪录片《迷失的航线》里那些雾气中的渔船——导演李莉从2011年跟拍到2016年，拍下了一个村子从沸腾到沉寂的全部过程。本站最后一次核查为2026年10月：乌坎村的土地争议是否最终得到解决，无公开记录。Lin's release, and where Wukan stands: Lin Zuluan's sentence expired in 2019. According to the Dui Hua Foundation's prisoner release records, he was released from Yangjiang Prison in Guangdong on August 3, 2019, aged seventy-five, and has been under round-the-clock police surveillance since; he has not appeared in public reporting again. Wukan itself vanished from the news: after September 2016 there have been no reports of further large-scale public protest; how much of the sold land was ultimately recovered, what became of the village finances, and how the 107 village representatives and the later elections functioned, cannot be verified through public channels — see the verification note below. The last picture the outside world has of the village is the fishing boats in the mist of the documentary Lost Course, whose director Jill Li filmed in Wukan from 2011 to 2016 and recorded a village's whole passage from boiling point to silence. As of this site's last check, in October 2026, whether Wukan's land dispute was ever finally resolved is a matter of no public record.
回望：乌坎模式与幻灭乌坎当年得到的注视是空前的。英国广播公司和《纽约时报》称这场抗争的规模与持久在中国现代史上可能是第一次，《华尔街日报》称它是2011年中国最严重的群体性事件。和解之后，乌坎模式成了热词：省委书记汪洋说，要用它改革全省的村级治理；时任国务院总理温家宝在2011年12月27日说，中国不能再以牺牲农民的土地权利来降低城镇化和工业化的成本。也有人从一开始就泼冷水：《大西洋月刊》指出，乌坎村民打出的效忠执政党的标语说明，这场抗争并不比每年成千上万起土地纠纷更特殊。半岛电视台拍了四集纪录片，跟踪乌坎的民主转型。五年之后再看，关于模式的讨论已经变成了关于幻灭的讨论：选举留了下来，土地没有回来；带头的人进了监狱，模式在官方叙事里被改写成一个失败的教训。乌坎真正的遗产，也许不在任何一方的叙事里，而在一个简单的事实里：一万多名普通村民，曾经自己选出代表、自己管过村子、自己投过算数的票，而且全世界都看见了。In retrospect: the “Wukan model” and the disillusion The attention Wukan received at the time was unprecedented. The BBC and The New York Times called the protests' scale and longevity a likely first in China's modern history; The Wall Street Journal called them the most serious case of mass unrest in China in 2011. After the settlement, “the Wukan model” became a buzzword: Party secretary Wang Yang said it would be used to reform village governance across Guangdong, and Premier Wen Jiabao said on December 27, 2011, that China could no longer sacrifice farmers' land rights to reduce the costs of urbanization and industrialization. Some poured cold water from the start: The Atlantic noted that the villagers' banners pledging loyalty to the ruling Party made the protest less exceptional among China's thousands of annual land disputes. Al Jazeera filmed a four-part documentary following Wukan's democratic transition. Five years on, discussion of the model had become discussion of disillusion: the elections remained, the land did not come back; the leaders went to prison, and the model was rewritten in official narrative as a failed lesson. Wukan's real legacy may lie in neither side's narrative, but in a single fact — that more than ten thousand ordinary villagers once chose their own representatives, ran their own village, and cast votes that counted, and the whole world saw it.
档案来源：本条目依据的材料包括：英国《每日电讯报》记者2011年12月在村内的驻村报道；英国广播公司、路透社、美联社、法新社、《纽约时报》、《华尔街日报》、《金融时报》在2011年至2016年间的系列报道；财新、香港《明报》《南华早报》及阳光时务等中文媒体的报道；香港大学新闻及传媒研究中心关于内地报道缺位的调查；广东省工作组与佛山、海丰两地法院的公开通报（见新华社、南方网等）；国际特赦组织2016年9月的声明；美国国会及行政当局中国委员会关于林祖銮案的记录；对话基金会2019年的刑满释放记录；流亡村民庄烈宏关于2016年12月审判的记述；以及中英文维基百科乌坎事件条目所汇辑的出处。本站对相互冲突的数字和说法一律并列归属，不合并、不取舍。Sources for this entry: This entry draws on: the in-village reporting of The Daily Telegraph's correspondent in December 2011; reporting series by the BBC, Reuters, AP, AFP, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times from 2011 to 2016; Chinese-language reporting by Caixin, Hong Kong's Ming Pao and South China Morning Post, and iSun Affairs; the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre survey of the mainland coverage blackout; public notices of the Guangdong work team and of the Foshan and Haifeng courts, as carried by Xinhua, Southcn and other outlets; Amnesty International's September 2016 statement; the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China's record of Lin Zuluan's case; the Dui Hua Foundation's 2019 prisoner release records; the exiled villager Zhuang Liehong's account of the December 2016 trial, published by China Change; and the source apparatus assembled in the Chinese and English Wikipedia entries on the Wukan protests. Where figures and accounts conflict, this site attributes them side by side, without merging and without choosing.
核实说明：本条目的核实原则如下。薛锦波的死因是全案最大的争议：官方与中山大学法医的说法是心源性猝死、可以排除外力致死；家属的说法是遗体遍布伤痕、死者并无心脏病史。双方说法本站均只作归属记录，不采信任何一方。两次尸表检验家属均不在场，遗体没有照片存世，这是争议至今无法落定的根本原因。以下数字存在口径冲突，本站并列呈现：2011年9月冲突的伤情，村民与官方说法不同；被卖土地的总面积与追回比例，村民、村委会与新华社的口径不同；2016年9月13日的受伤人数，路透社说数十人，村民记述说数百人。以下事项标记为未核或无公开记录：薛锦波遗体交还家属的确切日期，目前仅能确认家属于2012年2月中旬将其安葬；2011年12月获释的代表是否附带取保候审条件；2016年12月之后另十三名待审村民的最终处理结果；2016年之后乌坎土地争议与村级选举的最新情况；林祖銮获释后的近况。本站只写能找到出处的话；出处打架的地方，就把打架本身写进档案。Verification note: The principles of verification for this entry are as follows. The cause of Xue Jinbo's death is the largest dispute in the whole case: the official and Sun Yat-sen University forensic account is sudden cardiac death, with death by external force excluded; the family's account is a body covered in injuries and no history of heart disease. This site records both by attribution only, and credits neither. That no relative was present at either surface examination, and that no photograph of the body survives, is the fundamental reason the dispute cannot be settled to this day. The following figures conflict by source and are presented side by side: the injury toll of the September 2011 clashes, where villagers' and officials' versions differ; the total area of land sold and the proportion recovered, where the villagers', the village committee's and Xinhua's accounts differ; and the injury count of September 13, 2016, where Reuters said dozens and villagers' accounts say hundreds. The following are marked unverified or a matter of no public record: the exact date Xue Jinbo's body was handed to his family — only the family's burial of him in mid-February 2012 can be confirmed; whether the representatives released in December 2011 were freed on bail conditions; the final disposition of the thirteen further villagers awaiting trial after December 2016; the state of Wukan's land dispute and village elections after 2016; and Lin Zuluan's circumstances since his release. This site writes only what can be sourced; where the sources fight, the fight itself is written into the archive.