Students' military drill needs a rethink

Public misgivings about the recent incident at a military training program in Longshan county, Hunan province, have not been mitigated even after local authorities made the investigation result public. Conflicting official and non-official versions of the incident have confused people, reflecting the failure of local authorities to respond to public queries.

On Tuesday, the local publicity department described the incident as a physical clash between some students and a teacher of Huangcang Middle School and drill instructors after a female student is said to have passed a comment against an instructor. The wordings of the statement were slightly different from the official version a day earlier that there was a "skirmish between drill instructors and students and teachers and the implicated instructors are all members of the reserve force", which thus put the blame on the instructors. After initial investigation, police too said "the incident was sparked by an unpleasant interaction between students and drillmasters and no tools such as knives ... were used".

These explanations are far from enough to answer why 40 students, one teacher and one drill instructor were injured in the incident. According to official statements, students' injuries were self-inflicted because they went on a rampage smashing doors, windows and glasses to protest against drillmasters' instruction to do "push-ups" after some of their classmates had passed a "jocular" remark against an instructor.