NO DELIVERANCE IN SIGHT:

China water resettlement: 'Honest folk have lost out': State media is hailing the success of a huge project to relocate 345,000 people from the path of diversion channels that will carry water from the south to the arid north. But those who have lost their homes tell a different tale of corruption, shoddy housing and friction in their new communities (Jonathan Watts, 9/09/11, guardian.co.uk)

But when the Guardian talked to 30 relocated people in three villages in Nanyang, Henan province, only one was glad to have moved. Eight reluctantly accepted the patriotic sacrifice they had to make for the "national project." The remaining 21 were furious.

Without exception, the longer they ha[d] been at their new homes the less they liked them.

The adjustment is already proving difficult for some. Zhang Jianchao was furious that local hospitals would not deliver the baby of his daughter-in-law. In a panic at her labour pains, he hired a car and drove his son and wife 160km back to their old town for the birth.

"I'm angry. It was very worrying and expensive," said the former silkworm farmer, who is now without land or work and living with his large family on a government allowance of 100 yuan (£10) per person per month. He says their new home is half the size of his old place because local officials cheated him of fair compensation.

The most commonly heard complaint is of official corruption. Villager after villager said their compensation was skimmed by cadres, usually by undervaluing the farmers' plots of land and over-estimating their own holdings.

"I can accept that it will take time for us to make a living in our new homes but it is not fair that the officials have profited from this move. We were told that the sacrifice for this project would be shared," said Chen Xinfeng [name changed], who runs a small restaurant. "President Hu Jintao said honest folk shouldn't lose out, but that is what has happened."

Propaganda slogans on walls and banners strung across the road urge residents to play a patriotic role to the "key state-level project". Many urge existing communities in the area to welcome the newcomers. "The waters of Danjiangkou are fresh and sweet. My heart is linked to the new migrant's heart," proclaims one of the most poetic exhortations.

But friction between the old and new communities seems to be getting worse. At Liangzhuandong new village - which migrants moved into a year ago - a crowd of residents gathered to expressed a long list of grievances, including inadequate compensation, unfulfilled promises of new land, poor water quality and fights with locals.

The migrants are unhappy they have not been given a share of the local farmland as they were promised. The old residents complain their new neighbours are "uneducated people from the mountains."

Both accuse the other of theft. This summer, the tension erupted into violence. According to several accounts, a fight between two individuals escalated rapidly into a melee involving several hundred people.

Elsewhere, there have been reports of demonstrations. Last November, police clashed with thousands of migrants in Qianjiang city to protest shoddy

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