Local Deyang communist cadre in Sichuan Province used bribery to lure earthquake parents to withdraw their request to investigate school construction quality issue, which caused the deaths of many students.

The Deyang municipal government proposed a compensation plan on July 15. In order to receive compensation, earthquake parents are required to sign a 60,000 yuan  (approximately US$ 8,571) government relief and social welfare application, which indicates that their children did not die because of the inferior quality of the school buildings, but from a natural disaster.

The proposal has been rejected widely, over 1,000 parents protested in front of the government building that day.  Later the local government promised more benefits such as 100 yuan (approximately US$ 14) life time compensation to the earthquake parents, and medical and schooling subsidies, should those parents have a second child in the future.

According to one parent surnamed Lie, “Most of the parents from a local elementary school have signed the document.”

But, while increasing the compensation, the government also threatened those families who are not willing to sign with no government compensation in the future. Officials even visited those families at night to request signatures. Mr. Zhang, a parent of Mianzhu Fuxin Second Elementary School, told RFA that two-thirds of the families of that school have signed. The remaining 40 families insisted on not signing, but said that “the Chinese Communist Party is reckless, they came to every household before 2 am on July 18 to ask for signatures. If we did not sign, not only will we not get any sleep, but we were threatened with no compensation in the future. People are very poor here, many signed under the duress. However, there are still 40 families that did not sign.”

According to those abstaining parents, under the repeated requests from the parents, Zhang Jinming, the executive vice-major of Deyang City, publicly read the safety inspection report on the collapsed school building on July 16. The report claimed the collapse was caused by the earthquake, and mentioned no other causes. “They just read out this report to us, but did not allow us to see it, we don’t even know whether it was a real report,” said one parent surnamed Zhang, adding that dozens of parents have already engaged a lawyer from Beijing to file a case.

In addition to legal means, some families continued to protest. On July 15, over ten parents were arrested when making appeals. A mother who had been beaten by police was admitted to the hospital. On July 16, five to six hundred parents of children who died in the Dongqi High School and the Wudu High School went to the Deyang City government to protest, but they were not received by the officials.

Some parents who had signed the document said that accepting compensation did not indicate giving up their request for the investigation. Mr Lei said, “When we signed on July 17, we told them (officials) that we will remain silent for now, because you helped solve our financial problem, but we will definitely continue to pursue after the Olympics, and we will definitely continue to appeal and pursue those corrupt officials to prevent these things from happening again.”

Deyang City had the most serious collapse of school buildings in the Sichuan earthquake. According to a city eport, 3,000 students died. Almost all of the school buildings that were under the jurisdiction of Deyang collapsed.