As the special struggle to sweep away organized crime and eliminate evil forces advances in depth, some "village tyrant cadres" who have long controlled grass-roots organizations and plagued their neighbors have gradually surfaced. Some of them are keen to use money to buy "officials" and become "officials" to earn money, and some use clan forces and violent means to sabotage grass-roots elections, seriously disrupting social order and eroding the foundation of the party's grass-roots governance.
On August 25, the Hainan First Intermediate People's Court rendered a first-instance judgment on the case of Wen Dongqing and 32 others for organizing, leading, and participating in a mafia-type organization, and the defendant Wen Dongqing was sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for five years, and confiscation of all personal property. Defendant Wen Aichun was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for one year, and confiscation of all personal property; other defendants were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of up to 17 years, with corresponding additional sentences.
After trial, the Hainan First Intermediate People's Court ascertained that Wen Dongqing organized and led a mafia-type organization in the Hou'an area of Wanning, Hainan Province, for nearly 20 years, with a strict organizational structure, clear hierarchy, and a large number of members and stability of the organization. The organization confronted the local party committees and governments, organized and controlled villagers to make large-scale illegal petitions, fabricated factual reports, accused local party committee and government leaders who did not obey the interests of their organizations, influenced the personnel appointments of the party committees and governments, and even tried to make local government leaders criminally punished by picking quarrels and provoking troubles and illegal petitioning.
Clan forces control village committees
The WendongQing case is a typical family-style "underworld" and belongs to the "village tyrant cadres". This mafia-type organization uses clan and blood as a link to gather family members, children, nephews and friends, and develops and grows its organization and growth through long-term control of grass-roots village political power.
According to the procuratorate, the mafia organization had long controlled the grass-roots political power, and its leaders even led family members to storm the police station. Successively, the defendants of the Wen family, Wen Yawu, Wen Aichun, and Wen Dongqing, operated in the dark through bribery, intimidation, and other means to obtain the post of director of the Quchong Village Committee, and also privately managed the official seal of the villagers' committee and illegally developed the membership of the organization to form illegal control over the Quchong Villagers' Committee. After the rape of Wen Yunsen, a nephew of Wen Dongqing, a member of the organization, the organization was able to collectively make false testimony by means of a meeting of the village committee to prove that Wen Yunsen was a mentally ill person, so that he could evade the punishment of the law.
Since 1995, Wen Aijing has served as the secretary of the party branch of Quchong Village, Hou'an Town, Wanning City, and Wen Dongqing has used his family's influence to invest in the construction of the Hou'an Farmers' Market, using violence, threats and other means to drive the merchants of the old market to the market, and his father Wen Xingrong has long opened "big and small" casinos in the market. In 2001, the police of the Hou'an police station investigated and punished the casino and brought Wen Xingrong back to the Hou'an police station for investigation. After hearing the news, Wen Aijing led more than 20 members of the Wen family to storm the police station and smashed the vehicles of the police station, causing an extremely bad social impact in the local area.
Due to the illegal control and major influence of the organization in the Hou'an area, the local people called Hou'an Town "Dongqing City" and the Hou'an Farmers' Market "Dongqing Market".
The scene of the WendongQing trial
After the "village tyrant" was released from prison, he still controlled the grass-roots political power for a long time
In addition to Wen Dongqing, Wanning also has a "village tyrant cadre" who can still serve as a grassroots party organization cadre after he has been imprisoned, even if he has been in prison and served a sentence. According to media reports, Pan Haiwen, former secretary of the party branch and director of the village committee of Wanning Yongfan Village, has been a village cadre since 1997 and was sentenced by the court in 2001 for intentional injury. After his release from prison in 2004, he used his fellow prisoners as a link to recruit clan members and idle members of society to gradually control the grass-roots organizations in Yongfan Village, and even joined the party. In the past 15 years, Pan Haiwen has made more than 50 million yuan by illegally encroaching on public and private property, forcibly taking over projects, and forcibly occupying villagers' land. At the end of 2020, the Haikou Intermediate People's Court pronounced a verdict in the first-instance trial of the mafia-related case of Pan Haiwen and 42 other people, and the main offender, Pan Haiwen, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and the case is currently under further investigation.
It is understood that Pan Haiwen is very domineering in the village, and those who have dissent will be suppressed at best, and those who will be violently retaliated against. Years ago, he had a debt dispute with a pair of brothers in the village. He took his brother and uncle with him, and rushed directly to the other party's house with a knife to beat people, forcing the brothers to move, and did not dare to return to the village for more than ten years.
On May 3, 2019, the Hainan Provincial Public Security Department designated the Longhua Branch of the Haikou Municipal Public Security Bureau to arrest Pan Haiwen in a different place, seized 4 cars involved in the case, remodeled a gun, 650,000 yuan in cash, and frozen more than 43 million yuan of assets involved in the case. Among the seized items, in addition to high-end cars and large amounts of cash, police found about 180 cases of famous liquor in his home, the largest of which was Moutai and the production dates ranged from 1995 to 2018. In addition, the case-handling personnel also seized 11 agarwood pear products, more than 40 pieces of gold and silver jewelry, 3 ivory sticks, and 5 specimens of endangered wild animal hawksbill turtles in Pan Haiwen's home.
200 yuan a ballot was elected deputy director of the village committee
Some "village tyrant cadres" rely on their power to control grass-roots political power, while other "village tyrants" are keen to buy "officials" with money. In the case of Wang Shaozhang's gang of criminal syndicates and evil forces in Haikou, Wang Shaozhang was originally a businessman, and in 2010, he saw the business opportunities of Haikou City's large-scale development of his hometown villages, and he started the idea of returning to his hometown to "fish for officials" and get rich. He returned to Guoyang Village, Longhua District, Haikou City, to participate in the election of the "two committees" of the village, bribing villagers with a "price" ranging from 200 yuan to 300 yuan per vote, and became the deputy director of the village committee of Shangguoyang Village. When the village changed in 2016, Wang Shaozhang still used bribes to buy votes, and gathered dozens of hooligans to the scene on election day to "maintain order." Seeing that the villagers' ballots were filled in with the name of "Wang Shaozhang", they were released. Through this means, he was re-elected as the deputy director of the village committee. In 2020, the Haikou Intermediate People's Court sentenced Wang Shaozhang to 25 years in prison.
The scene of The Trial of Wang Shaozhang's case
With the connivance of a small number of party members and cadres, the "village tyrant cadres" have no fear of manipulating the election. In March 2018, the Discipline Inspection Commission of Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, received a clue from the 15th Inspection Group of the Central Committee reflecting that Li Wenhua, secretary of the party branch of Beiqinghe Village in Zanhuang County, was involved in crimes such as organized crime, guns, drugs, gambling and other illegal crimes. A joint investigation by the local Discipline Inspection Commission Supervision Commission and the public security organs found that the relevant party members and cadres of the Zanhuang County Direct Work Committee, the County People's Congress, the Organization Department of the County CPC Committee, and the Nanqinghe Township Party Committee not only helped Li Wenhua defraud party membership, obtain the post of people's congress deputy, and win the title of "Top Ten Outstanding Party Branch Secretaries," but also connived at Li Wenhua's manipulation of the election of the "two committees" in the village and controlled the political power at the grass-roots level. After the court trial, Li Wenhua was sentenced to 21 years in prison. The "protective umbrella" behind Li Wenhua's mafia-type organization and the problem of mafia-related corruption have been thoroughly investigated.
Why "Village Tyrants" "Can't Fall, Can't Fight"
Why can't some "village tyrant cadres" who have been occupying one side for a long time not be overthrown or defeated?
This may be related to the weakness and fragmentation of grass-roots organizations in some rural areas. Some local organization departments have not strictly controlled the selection and removal of cadres of the "two committees" in villages, and clan forces and criminal syndicates and evil forces have taken advantage of the situation to enter. Liu Cheng, deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Hainan Provincial CPC Committee, believes that when some areas investigate and straighten out weak and sluggish grass-roots organizations, they generally dismiss cadres who are old, have a low level of education, and are weak in ability, and do not identify the spokesmen of big families and criminal syndicates and evil forces.
At the same time, some township and town party committees and governments have insufficient supervision and guidance over the election and daily work of the village "two committees." In recent years, due to the serious "hollowing-out" of some villages, most of the young and middle-aged people with knowledge and ability have gone to the cities to work, and the old, weak, and old women and children left behind do not have enough security capabilities and the ability to participate in politics, which has also given the criminal syndicates and evil forces an opportunity to take advantage of them.
In addition, in some localities, the police force and social governance strength in the rural areas are relatively insufficient, and they are unable to take effective measures to punish the village bullies; there are also some local grass-roots governments that do not act, and even act as an umbrella for the criminal syndicates and evil forces.
The countryside is the "nerve endings" of national governance, and the "village bully" and the "protective umbrella" behind it often disturb the "nerve endings" and poke at the pain points of the people. Only by making a fierce hand and making practical moves, truly opening up the "last kilometer" of comprehensively and strictly administering the party, and uprooting the "protective umbrella" can we completely eradicate the breeding soil for "village tyrants."
Source: CCTV News, China News Network, Legal Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, Nanguo Metropolis Daily, Lookout News Weekly
Column Editor-in-Chief: Liu Lu Text Editor: Lu Xiaochuan
Source: Author: Shangguan He