A statement issued by the municipal government of Kunming said eight people, including two villagers, died in the violence Tuesday in the southwestern province of Yunnan, confirming earlier reports circulating on the Internet along with photos of bound detainees and charred bodies.
Other media reports said the dispute was over land compensation. It has become the chief cause of violent disputes in rural China, where villagers often resort to deadly confrontations.
Alarmed by the rising violence, the ruling Communist Party is pondering legal reforms that may grant more independence to local courts in hopes of alleviating tensions between residents and the local governments.
In the village of Fuyou at the heart of the dispute residents have complained about lack of compensation for land seized for a warehouse and logistics center. The government said the standoff between villagers and the developer had delayed the project since May.
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It said the villagers then bound the workers' hands and feet, beat them up, and poured gasoline on them before throwing them out to a road near the construction site.
Villagers wielding improvised weapons later stormed the construction site and clashed violently with hired hands, the statement said.
State media put the blame on the local government.
"It shows the local government has not made effective efforts to resolve the conflict between the developer and the villagers," read an editorial today in the Beijing Times newspaper, pointing out that the villagers had lost fertile lands that once provided them with handsome profits.