China: Clearer answers and investigation into quake response needed · Global Voices
John Kennedy

Last month the Chinese government said that the process of obtaining complete information as to why so many school buildings collapsed in last month's earthquake is underway. This week it began reigning in media which have been asking too many questions, even barring grieving parents from protesting. The first attempt at providing answers came this week from the Sichuan Ministry of Education in the form of five key reasons for the number of school-related deaths, which haven't gone over well with many [zh] bloggers.
Well-known blogger-journalist and author Ran Yunfei, who lives in Chendgu, had this to say about these five points in his May 29 post, ‘How are the children wrongfully dead to be allowed to rest in peace?‘
当初地震部门将地震震级从7．８级修正为8级后，有位朋友说政府正在向实事求是的方向挺进。我对朋友说，你未免太轻看这个政府集体为恶的智商了，也许他们正在“科学”而有效地利用灾难找脱辞呢。我并不是个怀疑一切的人，我对活在中国的个体有相当同情之理解，但对政府却很少放弃怀疑的态度，这是几十年来频发的人祸加诸于身的惨痛教训。不轻易相信乃至质疑政府是一个现代公民的基本素质，何况一个权力大到令人惊骇的地步，视人命如草芥，根本没有真正监督的政府？你要是轻信这样的政府，那你所遭遇的一切悲惨生活，就是它对你活生生的恩赐。它这样置你于死地的“恩赐”，你不仅只有接受，你用血汗钱养活了它，反而还要你对着镜头说“感谢党，感谢政府”，它进而戴上“伟光正”的光环，使一切恶政变得不仅自然而且高尚。六十年无一例外，这次发生地震灾难后，政府不少部门的表现就是他们一惯嗜血本能的展现，其中最不能容忍就是中国教育部和四川省教育厅为他们错误的无耻辩解。
许多人看到了昨天四川省教育厅五点所谓对灾区学校倒塌的查处意见，至为愤慨。其实前天教育部新闻发言人王旭明就公开提前定下了四川省教育厅查处学校倒塌的基调。对这个政府运作方式不陌生的人，都应该从逻辑上揣度到，即四川省教育厅这样的查处基调，在震后很短时间内他们早就在内部达成了共识。而且这共识还不只是来源于教育部，应该来源于更高层对去人祸而认天灾的政治把戏。
我认为中央政府应该重建教育部，令部长周济辞职以谢国人；整顿四川省教育厅相关的官员，并对直接责任人绳之以法。不然，恐怕中央政府的公信力，将会越来越低。
Here are the Sichuan Education Ministry's five concluding points as they've been getting spread around online and as posted by Ran Yunfei, slightly shorter than the official version as they've stripped of bureaucratese and rephrased clearly:
一、这次地震首先是超过了预计强度,学校校舍抗震难以抵御如此强烈的地震。
二、灾情发生在上课期间,集体伤亡人数比较多。
三、学生上课时集中在教室,楼面负荷大,疏散时又集中在楼梯间,这些走廊、楼梯相对来说是建筑比较薄弱的,所以造成了一定的损害。
四、根据四川省教育行政部门提交的材料,四川省倒塌的相当多的校舍建筑时间比较长,校舍陈旧落后,这也是导致部分校舍垮塌的重要原因。
五、学校的建筑在抗震方面本身就存在着设计方面的先天性缺陷。
2. The disaster struck during class time, so the numbers of collective casualties was quite high.
3. During class time, students were gathered inside classrooms, so there was a large burden on the floors, and during evacuation again they were gathered within the stairwell, and these corridors and stairwells were relatively weak parts of the buildings, so this created definite harm.
4. According to information supplied by Sichuan Education Ministry administrators, quite a few of the school buildings which collapsed in Sichuan province were built quite a long time ago, so the schools were old and unmaintained, and this is a major factor leading to the collapse of some schools.
5. Inherent defects existed in the designs of the school buildings themselves with respect to earthquake resistance.
The transcript of a talk given on May 31st by legal scholar and active blogger He Weifang has been posted to message board website Paowang. In it He focuses on the role of the Procuratorate, the Chinese version of the American Attorney General's Office, should be playing in the legal and administrative aftermath of the earthquake, seeing it as the most suitable body to provide that degree of oversight.
He makes several points to that effect, starting off with calling for the need for the Procuratorate to be ensured independence as it carries out its work in, among many things, overseeing compensation given to parents to children lost in the earthquake, transparency as those responsible for things like the ‘tofu dregs’ construction of school buildings are sought out, seeing that the practice doesn't continue as new houses and buildings are constructed, and at the same time, ensuring those eventually brought to trial are guaranteed a fair trial and not one aimed at placating an angry public.
The key suggestion He makes however, is the activation now of article 71 of China's constitution, which he says has never been put into effect:
第四点，我回应一下，我觉得目前是不是也应该启动一下特别调查制度。我们国家没有一个超然的、中立的、公开的机构，来对这样一个大事进行调查，我觉得四川的大地震应当马上由全国人大设立特别调查委员会，宪法第71条明确规定人大可以设立这样的委员会，因为它是一个非常综合性的问题，包括地震预报，到底预报没预报，如果已经有了这样一个确定的结论，最后不公开，谁的责任？包括房子的质量问题，包括其他的赈灾过程中出现的问题，我觉得需要有一个委员会来进行一种非常公开、透明、权威、超然的调查。但是我们的宪法第71条存在20多年了，到现在一次都没有启动过。2003年孙志刚事件的时候，许志永他们提出违宪审查制度，但到现在26年时间过去了，我们这个特别调查委员会从来就没有启动过，所以我们说它是一个“睡美人”。