Family grief hardly eased by demolition compensation

92-year-old Tao Xingyao lies on the bed in hospital after he and his son set themselves on fire Saturday morning in Huangchuan township, Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province to protest a forced demolition.
Severely burned and lying unconscious in the intensive-care unit of the hospital, 92-year-old Tao Xingyao does not know his house was bulldozed to the ground and his son died after setting himself on fire to protest a forced demolition to make way for a national highway.
The local government in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province reached an agreement Thursday with Tao's family with compensation worth 900,000 yuan ($131,838) for the demolition and Tao Huixi's death.
"It is not worth it. The money won't buy my father back. It is just not worth it," said Tao Qiuyu, son of Tao Huixi.
The younger Tao returned to the demolition site, trying to look for anything related to his father, but all he could find was some bits of cloth in the debris.
His life has changed forever and now he hopes his father can rest in peace.
However, Tao's grandfather is still struggling on the edge of death. The retired veteran, who went through the Huaihai Campaign in 1948 and crossed the Yangtze River with the People's Liberation Army in 1949, now lies hospitalized, periodically moaning, "I'm in pain…"
Always wearing his old army uniform, the grandfather telling Tao Qiuyu his old war stories, and at one point the older Tao  almost died in the Battle of Kuningtou. Therefore, he often said, "It is good to be alive."
Now his peaceful retirement has been disturbed with medical tubes inserted in various parts of his body.
"Dad brought the petrol," Tao Qiuyu said. "He said as long as we splashed it around the house, the demolition crew dare not intrude." He remembers what his father and grandfather always told him – as a man, you should safeguard your own property.
Defying local officials' attempts to tear down the Tao family's pig farm and house to make way for National Highway 310, Tao Huixi, along with Tao Xingyao, set themselves on fire Saturday morning in Huangchuan township, Lianyungang.
Witnesses said no one attempted to save the father's and son's lives after they committed self-immolation and that the pig farm was demolished afterwards.
In 1995 Tao's family had invested 200,000 yuan ($29,297) on the 0.13 hectares of land to build a pig farm and settle down. But the local government only offered to pay 75,000 yuan for the land, which Tao Huixi found unacceptable and insisted that just the house alone was worth more than 150,000 yuan.
The family agreed that if the offer was based on the rule of law, they would accept whatever the price was, but the government never referred to the law, Tao Qiuyu said.
The Huangchuan township had attempted to demolish the Taos' property and five other households nearby, claiming that their constructions were not approved. However, the county government later denied such claim.

On Tuesday, the township government admitted it was not authorized to tear down the property, which made the demolition act illegal.