Police tried to arrest demonstrators, who stopped them by hurling bricks, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported.
Eventually, to bring the situation under control, the authorities sent in an armoured vehicle, forcing protesters to retreat.
Local sources said that the protest began on 25 March, when protesters gathered at a bridge and blocked the road at noon the next day.
Locals complain that to build the Xiangjiaba Dam on the upper Yangtze River, homes have been destroyed and land flooded. Altogether, 40,000 Suijiang residents were forced to move out, together with another 60,000 in Yunnan's Pingshan County and in Sichuan.
People were angered when they learnt that residents on the other side of the river, who also had their land flooded, were given a special allowance of four yuan per square metre for their homes, and 28,000 yuan of compensation for mu (667 m2) of farmland, against only 17,000 yuan for their farmland. ''The only difference between us is that we are Yunnan residents but they are governed by Sichuan,” said Lu Guangfu, a local resident.
The government has pledged new housing, but at a cost of 2,000 yuan per square metre. Many residents are convinced that the low compensation is the result of widespread corruption among local officials. They hoped the latter would come to negotiate with them, but instead, police arrived.
After the incident, Suijiang authorities simply said, “the roads were unblocked and normal order was restored to the county”.