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SCMP Reporter

FURIOUS residents of three New Territories villages have threatened to use all means possible to fight a developer's plans to turn their ancestral graveyard into a luxury housing estate.

  Property agent Koon Yee Company, a subsidiary of Sun Hung Kai Properties, last week applied for a Supreme Court writ to stop residents of Chuk Yuen, Wai Tsai and Shan Pui villages near Yuen Long from entering the graveyard and using the land.

  What has further enraged the villagers is the company's demand they demolish the graves and exhume the remains from the 465-square-metre cemetery within the 100,000 sq m building plot.

  A Sun Hung Kai spokesman said the company had been unable to persuade the villagers to remove the graves, and warned they were not prepared to negotiate with them.

  ''We bought the land from a private landlord. It has [always] been private property, and using the land for burial without our consent is illegal,'' he added.

  ''We don't think there is any need to negotiate with the villagers. If they don't remove the cemetery, we'll take legal action to get them to do it.''   The legal move follows a letter sent by the company to the villagers on June 19 asserting their ownership and insisting they respond in three days.

  The letters were ignored, and a spokesman for the 400-strong Wong clan in Chuk Yuen village, Wong Kwok-cheung said: ''They bought the land. If they have a problem, why don't they come and discuss it with us directly?   ''We are very angry at being bullied by a big developer who has power and money. They can't just tell us to move. We don't care about the writ. Anybody buying a piece of land can apply for a writ telling people to leave.

  ''The crux of the matter is we have not been sufficiently consulted and respected throughout this whole affair.

  ''The Government seems to have put the responsibility on the developer to consult us, but they didn't; the Government should have first got our approval before it sold the land.

  ''We just heard about the Government's suggestion to develop the place last year. Of course we objected strongly and brought along a fung shui master to explain our case. Then we did not hear anything more about it until we read it in the Government Gazette.

  ''Our standpoint is we will never move our cemetery under any conditions. We have used it for four generations and for more than a century,'' Mr Wong said.

  ''If they do anything to our graves, we'll definitely gather around to stop them by any possible means,'' he warned. Mr Wong added the previous owner had allowed them free access to the site, which he said had exceptionally good fung shui.

  Complicating the affair is the fact Shan Pui village representative Lam Chiu-kuen has come to an agreement with Sun Hung Kai, much to Mr Wong's disgust.

  Mr Lam said: ''We have discussed the issue with the developer, and they said they had plans to develop the site without doing anything to our graves. That sounds acceptable to us.

  ''So at this stage we don't want too much publicity which might disrupt the deal. We have not talked about money and compensation. That's not too important.

  ''We don't care about other parties involved,'' he added, suggesting the united front apparently agreed by the communities had been abandoned.

  Trees on the disputed land had already been removed and the soil levelled in preparation for laying the foundations of the two-and three-story luxury villas when the Sunday Morning Post visited the site last week.

  The graveyard boasts both a mountain and sea view, and is just opposite a row of neatly built luxury homes called Fairview Gardens.

  The cemetery consists of three plots, one for members of the Wong clan, and two smaller ones belonging to the Wai Tsai and Shan Pui villages.

  The private cemetery contains the remains of at least 50 ancestors and relatives of the Wong clan. Ten urns containing human remains could be seen lined up neatly under a covered cement shelter near the main tomb.

  Inscriptions on one tombstone said the land was discovered by fung shui expert Chan Sau-chiu, and the burial of ancestors there would ''bring eternal blessings and prosperity to all descendants''.

  ''It has been my family's graveyard since the time of my great-grandfather, and our clansmen have been paying tribute to our ancestors here twice a year. We come together and bring all the animal sacrifices, fruit and paper offerings. Why should we have to move?'' asked Mr Wong.



'We won't dig up the dead'