Hong Kong Standard 10.11.99
Factory boss slain in wake of reforms on
corruption
STORY: A CHIEF executive of a state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the
northwest province of Shaanxi is thought to have been murdered
because of his bold moves to restructure the loss-making firm,
according to an official newspaper.
Hu Dan, former general manager of the Shaanxi provincial livestock
products import and export company, was stabbed 19 times at his
home in Xian on 30 August, the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Weekend
News reported.
Mr Hu was killed after he battled the corrupt influences in the ``SOE for
five years'', the weekly said, indicating Mr Hu could have been murdered
by people with vested interests whose benefits were damaged by
reform.
Mr Hu took over the company in 1994 and discovered some staff had
purchased poor-quality wood at very high price and then sold it at very
low price, which made the firm suffer heavy losses.
Targeting the corrupt personnel and departments, Mr Hu launched bold
moves reforming the debt-ridden firm, which meant some people lost
their positions while some others lost their power, the report said.
``Since the personnel reform in the company, we often received
threatening telephone calls,'' Mr Hu's wife, Xiong Yuanying, said, adding
some people even warned that her husband ``is digging his grave''.
According to the newspaper, Mr Hu was killed three months after he
filed an appeal to the Supreme People's Court against a ruling by a
court in Hebei province over a controversial deal for wood, the
company's major export product.
The murder came about two weeks before the ruling Communist Party
convened its annual plenum focusing the reform of the ailing SOE. The
Nanfang Weekend News, run by the southern Guangdong provincial
authorities, revealed the murder after the sensitive period of the 50th
anniversary of the People's Republic.