BEIJING: Over 500 retired Chinese army personnel held a rare demonstration in the Chinese capital, the second in about three months demanding pensions, social security, jobs and other welfare measures taking the ruling Communist Party by surprise. Veterans of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) staged the protest in Beijing on December 28 over unpaid benefits, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported today.
The protest followed after October's demonstration, the first in which thousands of veterans besieged the military headquarters in the heart of Beijing triggering the alarm in the top leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as it was first such show of strength by retired personnel. A veteran from Hebei who attended the October protest confirmed the latest protest, which was held outside the state petition office, the report said.
He also said while top officials held lengthy negotiations and promised to address all the problems by November last, nothing happened as a result, a second demonstration has taken place. He also alleged several veterans who took part in the October demonstration were taken away by the authorities, with their whereabouts unknown.
He said during the October demonstration, thousands of veterans, mostly in their 40s to 60s, gathered outside the headquarters of the Central Military Commission, (CMC) PLA's top decision-making body headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
They gathered to petition the central authorities for benefits they say they were promised in lieu of jobs, such as pension payments and social security. There have been previous protests and petitions by veterans from China's brief 1979 border war with Vietnam and the Korean war (1950-1953) to demand pensions, social security, jobs and other welfare promised when they enlisted. But October's protest was the first time such a large number of former servicemen and women had converged to put pressure on the Communist regime, the report said.
It was the biggest protest by former military personnel since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 and the biggest protest at a sensitive location in Beijing since thousands of Falun Gong practitioners besieged the party leadership's Zhongnanhai compound in 1999.
The central government banned the sect soon afterwards, branding it an "evil cult", it said. "Thousands of retired soldiers from across the country were there to beleaguer the PLA headquarters that afternoon, with 37 coming from my home county of Qinghe (in Xingtai, Hebei province)," Huang Huagui, a former PLA officer who retired 18 years ago told the Post.
"A source from the northwestern province of Shaanxi who helped organise it said the line of demonstrators stretched for about 3km and must have incensed an embarrassed party leadership," the report said.