On August 9, Cheng Weigao, former governor and Party chief of Hebei
Province, was expelled from the ruling Communist Party of China for
his alleged involvement in corruption scandals. The press release
issued by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI)
of the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced the decision. It
also named Guo Guangyun who reported the corruption scandals and
therefore suffered from revenge.
Cheng served two terms on the Party's elite Central Committee
from 1987 to 1997, was the governor and top Party official of
northern Hebei Province from 1991-1998, and was the head of the
province's legislature from 1998 until earlier this year.
Justice eight years in waiting
Guo Guangyun is 61 years old and a retiree from the Construction
Committee of Shijiazhuang City, capital of Hebei Province. From 4
pm on August 9, the telephone in Guo’s home rang continuously with
congratulations: Congrats, Lao Guo, they said, you won
eventually.
Guo was born in Dabaichi village, Lixian County of Hebei’s
Baoding City. The villagers shot off fireworks to show their
congratulations for Guo. “We drink a toast to you!” the village
head told Guo on the phone.
Hearing this, Guo cried. He had waited eight years for
justice.
The Party authority has considered the revenge taking by Cheng
on Guo was one of five serious violations and accusations made
against Cheng.
Before this, Guo was accused of “slander on a provincial
leader”, and the allegation remained with Guo for eight years until
now.
Guo visits Shijiazhuang Herbalist Hospital frequently for his
cardiopathy, high blood pressure and diabetes. “I have quite a few
things wrong with me and I am in a lot of pain. I got Diabetes
while I was in the detention house,” said Guo.
“His life is full of frustrations,” Guo’s wife said.
Guo Guangyun was born in 1942 of a poor family and enrolled in
the Construction Engineering Department of Shanghai Tongji
University in 1961, graduating in 1966. Only several months after
graduation, Guo was transferred to do manual work in the
countryside as he was affirmed as a man opposed to the “the Great
Cultural Revolution”. He spent four years and eleven months in the
countryside.
Thanks to his poor origins, and owing to the policy during the
Cultural Revolution to promote the poor rather than the rich to
positions with good career prospects, he was dispatched to the
Construction Bureau at Jingzhou, Hubei Province and thereafter
moved to the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee in 1973. With
excellent ability, he was promoted as section chief of the project
department and head of the cost ration station. In 1988, Guo began
to report the corrupt behavior of Li Shanlin, director of the
Shijiazhuang Construction Committee. In 1995 he wrote his first
anonymous letter to report Cheng’s problem.
“I am not a man seeking connection with person in
power.”
In 1990, Cheng Weigao was appointed as governor of Hebei
government from Henan. Nanjing No.2 Construction Company decorated
Cheng’s house for two months. Cheng was once the top Party official
of Nanjing City from 1984-1987.
Guo worked as section chief of the project department of the
Shijiazhuang Construction Committee at that time. The manager of
Nanjing No. 2 Construction Company came to visit Guo and found that
they were schoolfellows from Shanghai Tongji University. Based on
that, the manager suggested introducing Guo to Cheng. If things
went his way, he said, Guo might face great changes in his official
career.
However, Guo had not consented to meet with Cheng. Thereafter,
his old school friend and manager of the company turned to Li
Shanlin, director of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee. Li
introduced himself to Cheng.
At that time, all construction companies had to pay fees for
subsidiary infrastructure, like schools and roads. Only the
national scientific and research institutions were exempt from such
fees. Guo said that Li Shanlin approved many illegal exemptions
which caused a huge deficit of tens of millions of yuan. And of
course Li benefited from it.
“Why was Li so aggressive?” Because he felt safe with Cheng’s
supporting him from behind. Cheng once praised Li Shanlin in
public, saying he was open-minded.
Guo reported Li Shanlin’s corruption scandal in various ways,
but nobody really thought much of it at that time.
Campaigning without help
Thereafter, Li was continuously promoted instead of being
investigated, which made Guo recognize that the problem was more
complicated.
In 1994, Guo wrote a letter to Cheng Weigao, reporting Li
Shanlin’s wrong doings and asking why Li had been promoted. At that
time, he thought it was Li who cheated Cheng. He tried to persuade
Cheng not to trust or promote Li. But this obviously didn’t
work.
By 1995, the corruption phenomenon in Shijiazhuang’s
construction market was more and more serious. Najing No.2
Construction Company obtained a large number of projects under the
support of Li Shanlin.
Informing letter enraged Chen Weigao
On August 17, 1995, after careful investigation, Guo Guangyun
prepared to write a letter directly to the central government. The
letter concluded that Cheng and Li were chief criminals in
Shijiazhuang’s disordered construction market and provided a list
of construction projects and relevant information that involved
corruption.
Being an official at grass roots level, it was impossible for
Guo to have much insider knowledge about Cheng. In his letter, Guo
didn’t mention any of Cheng’s economic problems. After he had the
letter printed, Guo sent five letters anonymously to the central
government and sent one to the provincial procuratorate, with one
letter falling eventually into Cheng’s hands.
Cheng was very annoyed since he now knew someone was trying to
bring an action against him. Cheng was known to have said that he
would punish the person who was against him. Guo then became the
key object of suspicion.
“The Anti-Cheng Weigao gang”
In September 1995, Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the CPC ordered Guo to talk with them and investigate
his anonymous letter. Guo denied that he was the author of the
letter. Suddenly, two months later, unimaginable things began
happening to him even though Guo had not been required to
confess.
“It was at 5 pm on November 21, 1995.” He remembers clearly the
exact time he was forcibly detained.
“On that day, the secretary of the Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the Shijiazhuang Construction Committee asked me to
go and see them, saying they would give me a rise in my wages as I
was an senior engineer. As I stepped into the building, several
strangers grabbed me and brought me downstairs and pushed me into
their vehicle. Then I was put into a lockup.”
Guo’s family received notice the following day that he had been
detained.
The staff that handled his case and all the guards said Guo was
a political criminal. His treatment was different, and he was
locked up in room 256 with six men with light misdemeanors keeping
an eye on him, while other prisoners were locked in rooms with as
many as 30 people. Others could listen to the TV, but Guo was kept
away from all information and not even a piece of paper was found
in his room.
He was questioned everyday and the most frequently asked
questions were: did he write this anonymous letter? and Does the
“Anti-Cheng Weigao Group” have anyone behind them or have
accomplices?
“I was not in despair but very optimistic at first, for I was
innocent. I wrote the letter very carefully without any rumor or
slander and felt I could get over all this soon.”?
One month later, when Guo could no longer stand the relentless
daily questioning and had a fever and felt he was dying, he
admitted he wrote the letter. Remember that, Guo had sniffled and
then was unable to speak further.
At that time, Guo was not the only one being investigated for
reporting Cheng’s corruption, or disagreeing with Cheng’s
activities. Guo’s family had been frequently investigated and many
of their friends no longer spoke to
them.??
Before the Spring Festival of 1996, after more than two months
of detention, Guo Guangyun was sentenced to two years of
“reeducation-through-labor” for “sending an anonymous letter and
slandering a provincial leader.” But the judgment never reached his
family.
“Later, I discovered that Cheng had hinted to the local court to
sentence me for several years in prison. But the court thought my
case was not a crime and so resisted and gave me labor detention
instead.”
After being transmitted to the labor farm, he was then told that
he had been expelled from the Party.
Once there, Guo was asked to copy the news on the blackboard and
grow flowers as he was old and no longer so fit. After three months
on the labor farm, Guo was allowed to see his spouse and
daughter-in-law for the first time. They found he hadn’t showered
or washed in three months. Guo’s socks were stuck to his feet. In
the afternoon of that day, his wife brought some warm water
secretly into the farm and washed his feet with tears in her eyes.
The socks were torn to pieces and he had many blisters.
The ups and downs of redress
During the time Guo was detained, his family and many upright
people called for justness.
Although Guo’s wife felt distressed with his ordeal, she never
complained on his behalf. She thought it best as he was a just and
upright man.
After nine months being locked up in the labor farm, Guo
Guangyun received medical treatment while on bail. But Guo
continually reported Cheng’s misdoings using his real name while
with his wife. “It cost us thousands of yuan sending letters by
EMS,” Gou said.
Guo also visited Beijing many times to appeal to the leadership
for intervention. “My appeal might at least have held back their
greed,” he said.
Guo’s suffering aroused some leaders and retired cadres’
attention and intervention. In 1999, an inspection team from the
central government came to Hebei Province. “Liu Shanxiang, previous
leader of Hebei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection
mentioned Guo’s case at a discussion and thought it was related to
Cheng Weigao directly, which attracted our attention. But Cheng
heard about this soon after; then he told our team the case was not
included in this inspection tour,” Yin Fatang, head of the team
said in memory. Cheng’s highhanded style gave the team members a
bad impression. “Our members knew little about Cheng before, but
felt he was related to the problematic conditions in Hebei. During
the tour, we didn’t find severe problems on Cheng, but the revenge
on Guo Guangyun was gradually later discovered,” Yin said.
Yin also told the reason why Guo’s injustice hadn’t been
redressed was mainly because of Cheng’s resistance to the
instructions made by the Central Commission for Discipline
Inspection of the CPC.
In April 2000, the staff from the CCDI spent five and a half
days listening to Guo’s report.
Under the interference of and appeals by some retired cadres and
the higher Party organization, in 2000 the local Party organization
announced the decision that Guo’s reeducation-through-labor was
removed and his Party membership was reconverted. However, instead,
a warning punishment within the Party was still given to him. Guo
did not accept this as final and continued his appeal.
Afterwards, a series of serious corruption cases were revealed
in Hebei. Cheng’s two former secretaries were each given the
following penalties: Wu Qingwu (a number of years probation) and Li
Zhen (sentenced to death), while deputy head of the Hebei
Provincial Construction Committee, Li Shanlin, was given14 years in
prison and former mayor of Shijiazhuang City, Zhang Erchen 10
years.
Guo felt his injustice would soon be redressed.
“I am not a hero.”
On February 13, 2003 Guo met two officials from the Shijiazhuang
Party Committee. On behalf of the Party organization, they
apologized to Guo for their mishandling of his case.
Half a year later, on August 9 this year, the CCDI announced
that Cheng violated Party discipline, and Guo’s name was especially
mentioned. “Cheng took revenge on the official Guo Guangyun who
tried to faithfully report his corrupt behavior,” was one of the
five claims reported against Cheng.
Yin Fatang praised Guo highly. “It’s not usual for one who dares
report top grade officials like Cheng and it needs great courage.
Especially for his perseverance after suffering such revenge, Guo
is the very quintessence of anti-corruption,” Yin said.
“Someone called me an anti-corruption hero, but I am not. I have
just fulfilled my duty in fighting against corruption. I cost me
too much within the past eight years. I had to make a choice
between associating with those corrupt officials or fighting
against them. I had no choice!” Guo said.
(Nanfang Weekend, translated by Wang Zhiyong for China.org.cn,
September 8, 2003)