China police free hostages in standoff - residents

BEIJING, Nov 18 (Reuters) A hostage standoff in a Chinese village that suffered a bloody crackdown last year ended in the early today morning when police freed eight officials held by angry villagers for over a week, several residents said.

Five residents of Dongzhou in far southern China's Guangdong province told Reuters that police stormed a small temple where some villagers had locked the officials to demand the release of a detained local activist.

''They came in after midnight and broke through the locked gate,'' said one young man who asked not to be identified. ''There are still many police around, so we don't know what will happen next.'' He said he did not know if there was any violence or arrests at the time of the release.

Major elements of Dongzhou's latest drama remained murky, with many residents professing ignorance or unwilling to speak, unsure if the kidnapped officials were gone.

The kidnappers were demanding the release of a local resident detained on November 9 after having hung anti-corruption slogans outside his house, said villagers. The standoff had escalated as police and anti-riot troops gathered on the edge of the settlement.

Today, police and armed anti-riot troops were still gathered on the edge of Dongzhou, but their numbers were unclear, said residents. ''I saw 20, maybe 30, troop trucks,'' said one villager.

Dongzhou gained notoriety in December 2005 after police and troops fired on locals in a violent standoff over construction of a coal-fired power station. Residents said they had received inadequate compensation for land lost to the station and other developments around their small settlement near the coast.

One villager said residents remained angry at their loss of land and more confrontation was not out of the question. ''The government took out land and said the farmers were paid. But we weren't. How can we accept that?'' The shootings galvanised domestic and international concern about rising discontent in China's countryside after a string of violent confrontations.

Reports at the time said dozens of protesters and bystanders might have died, but the government said only three were killed -- a number backed by some residents, including relatives of the dead.

The trouble in Dongzhou is just the latest of thousands of protests and confrontations that the government says erupt across China every year, even as the Communist Party leadership seeks to ease strains over corruption, land grabs and inequality.

The number of protests and riots throughout the country fell by over a fifth in the first nine months of 2006, a senior police official said this month. Police dealt with 17,900 ''mass incidents'' from January to September -- a fall of 22.1 per cent on the same period in 2005.

Shops and businesses in the small settlement surrounded by paddy fields were closed yesterday at the behest of angry locals, but reopened today, said a shopkeeper.

Dongzhou police and officials in the nearby city of Shanwei, the local administrative seat, did not answer phone calls today.

Reuters DKA RS1253