Parents can't refuse quake hush money

THE official came for Yu Tingyun in his village one evening a couple of weeks ago. He asked Yu to get into his car. He was clutching the contract and a pen.

Yu's daughter had died in a cascade of concrete and bricks, one of about 240 students at a high school who lost their lives in the May 12 earthquake which struck China. Yu became a leader of grieving parents demanding to know whether the school, like so many others, crumbled because of poor construction.

The contract had been thrust in Yu's face during a long police interrogation the day before. In exchange for his silence and for affirming that the ruling Communist Party "mobilised society to help us" he would get a cash payment and a pension.

Yu, a wiry 42-year-old driver, had resisted then. This time he took the pen. "When I saw that most of the parents had signed it, I signed it myself," Yu said softly. He carries a framed portrait of his daughter Yang in his shoulder bag.

Local governments in south-west China's quake-ravaged Sichuan province have begun a coordinated campaign to buy the silence of angry parents whose children died in the disaster. Officials threaten that the families will get nothing if they refuse to sign.

Chinese officials had promised a new era of openness in the wake of the earthquake and in the months before the Olympic Games, which begin next week. But the pressure on parents is one sign that officials are determined to create a façade of public harmony rather than undertake any real inquiry into allegations that corruption contributed to the high death toll in the quake.

Officials have come knocking on parents' doors day and night. They are so intent on getting parents to comply that in one case a mayor offered to pay the air fare of a mother who left the province so she could return to sign the contract.

The payments vary by school but are roughly the same. Parents in Hanwang said they were being offered the equivalent of £4,400 in cash and a per-parent pension of nearly £2,800.

Flush with tax revenues after two decades of double-digit economic growth, China has used its financial muscle to make Beijing and Shanghai into architectural showcases and to open diplomatic doors in Africa and Latin America. At times, the one-party state also acts like a multinational corporation facing a product liability suit, offering money to people with grievances in the hope of defusing public protests. Most people, the government assumes, put profit before principle.

The tactic appears to work, including in the cases of the collapsed schools. Many parents say they signed the contract, even if they were displeased with the terms and still angry at the lack of any real investigation.

"Most of the parents now feel tired of this," said Liu Guanyuan, 44, whose 17-year-old son died in the collapse of Dongqi Middle School, also the grave-site of Yu's daughter.

Officials are also using more traditional strong-arm tactics. Riot police officers have broken up protests by parents; the authorities have set up cordons around the schools; and officials have ordered the Chinese news media to stop reporting on school collapses. A human rights advocate trying to help some parents, Huang Qi, has been jailed.

Local government leaders have repeatedly promised to get to the bottom of why a staggering 7,000 classrooms collapsed in the quake, killing 10,000 children. But there is little evidence that they have conducted more than a cursory examination, and there are some hints of a cover-up. Even as negotiations with some parents continue, local governments have bulldozed the remains of many schools, appearing to close the door on a full investigation.

The issue remains one of the most delicate facing the Chinese government. Many parents accuse local officials of negligence or corruption during the construction of the schools. Some say they still hope the central government will take action, and they plan to go to Beijing to file petitions after the Olympics.

"We don't want to get the government in trouble ahead of the Olympics," Yu said. "We don't want to hurt the nation's image."

The compensation contract offered to parents from Hanwang is written as if the parents were beseeching a beneficent ruler for money.

"We will obey the law and maintain social order," it says. "We vow resolutely not to take part in any activity that disturbs post-earthquake reconstruction."

Another section is full of praise for the Communist Party: "Natural disaster is merciless, but the world is full of love. The party and the government reached out their hands to us and mobilised society to help us and alleviate our hardships."

The contract does not state the payment amount, which officials discussed orally, the parents said.

Before sunset last Monday, Yu walked along a river running past the eastern wall of the school compound. Peering over the wall, one could see piles of bricks and concrete strewn all over the ground. Yu pointed out the few standing ruins of the main building. His daughter's classroom had been on the fourth floor.

"We could hear them under the rubble," he said. "We passed them milk and water, but it was no use."

He smoked and stared at the debris.

Would the parents try protesting again? he was asked.

"We don't dare," he said.