Evicted villagers make secret trips to put their case in Beijing

Villagers evicted from Xiaoguwei island to make way for Guangzhou's University Town are not going quietly from their ancestral homes.

After learning in June 2002 that Xiaoguwei had been selected as the site of the campus, the villagers sent three representatives to Beijing to plead their case against eviction, but they got no further than the Guangzhou East Railway Station.

Sent back to the island, the villagers decided to make another attempt to get to Beijing in November that year.

Huang Yaoqiang, who lives in a tent in a temporary village set up by those evicted, said: 'First they took the ferry to Yuzhu. From there, the villagers took a taxi to Dongguan and then a bus to Xiamen where they boarded a flight to Tianjin . From there, they made their way to Beijing, arriving on November 8 during the National People's Congress [session].'

That circuitous mission failed to prevent their eviction late last year when construction work began, but the villagers persisted in making secret journeys to lobby Beijing - in January, March and June.

Meanwhile, the residents of Guolang and Nanting, who erected a tent settlement after being evicted, had their shelters torn down by officials time and again.

Mr Huang said he and his fellow villagers had not wept when their houses were demolished, but could not hold back their tears when their tent homes were destroyed.