Vietnamese police break up land protest after 27 days

Author : DPA

Hanoi - Vietnamese police in riot gear broke up a demonstration of hundreds of people in Ho Chi Minh City who were demanding compensation for their seized land, witnesses said Thursday. After tolerating the long-running protest for 27 days, armed police moved in late Wednesday night to the tented camp outside the National Assembly offices, forcing the protesters onto buses bound for their home provinces. One of the protesters said the dispersing was peaceful.

"Police yanked down all the tents, banners and signs. They ushered groups of protesters onto one bus until it was full and then they started filling the second bus," a protester named Sinh told New Horizon radio.

"They did not have to beat anyone because no one had the strength to resist," Sinh added.

The crackdown came on eve of the National Assembly's scheduled session and a day after prominent dissident monk Thich Quang Do visited the protest and called for an end to the Communist Party's sole rule.

The demonstration of more than 500 people was the longest-running protest in Vietnam for years and had been publicized by overseas opposition groups as a sign of discontent with communist rule.

The protesters - from several Mekong Delta provinces - were demanding compensation for land that had been confiscated by local officials for development projects.

Signs and banners at the demonstrations accused local officials of "betraying the [Communist] Party and cheating the people." Other banners appealed directly to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to "save the people."

Land protests have become more common in Vietnam , with state media saying property disputes account for 85 per cent of complaints against the government.

On Tuesday, dissident Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do made a rare public appearance to support the demonstration and urged the protesters to also demand multi-party democracy.

Thich Quang Do, the deputy leader of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), delivered 300 million Vietnamese dong (about 20,000 dollars) to the demonstrators on Tuesday for food.

Vietnam hit by mass land protests

A mass protest over the Vietnamese government's land policies is gathering force, ahead of the opening session of the newly-elected National Assembly.

Witnesses say hundreds of peasants from the Mekong River Delta are surrounding the offices of the National Assembly in Ho Chi Minh City.

A smaller protest is also reportedly being held in the capital, Hanoi.

The protesters are demanding the return of their land, and for any wrongdoing by local officials to be punished.

Both protests have been going on relatively peacefully for several weeks, and received little coverage in the local media.

However, as the protest in Ho Chi Minh - Vietnam's second city and the main economic hub - has hotted up in the last few days, residents have started complaining about traffic disruption.

Land protests are not unseen in Vietnam, but correspondents say a demonstration of this scale and intensity is rare.

Frequent complaints

Security forces have begun to get involved to make sure the protest does not get out of control.

Local officials in the Mekong Delta provinces have been urged to come to Ho Chi Minh City to "persuade their people to go home", with promises that their complaints will be dealt with appropriately.

Meanwhile, a deputy minister of security was quoted by state media as saying that there had been a certain involvement of "reactionary forces overseas".

Last Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Vinh Trong called an urgent meeting with provincial leaders.

He asked for a prompt investigation into the case and warned that the Communist Party would not tolerate inappropriate measures.

Land seizures in the name of economic development have been a much-debated topic in Vietnam, where the state maintains the sole ownership of land.

Peasants frequently complain about unfair compensation and criticise the laws on land use, which in their opinion have too many loopholes and are easily abused by corrupt local government officials.

The new 500-strong Vietnam National Assembly, elected last May, is to begin its first session on Thursday in Hanoi.

With the mass protest intensifying outside, the deputies will no doubt have many things to debate.

Vietnamese peasants protest over land policy,graft

HO CHI MINH CITY, July 11 (Reuters) Scores of peasant farmers have protested for three weeks outside a Vietnamese government building over land appropriation for development, one of the longest-running demonstrations of its kind in Vietnam.

Some protesters accuse provincial officials of corruptly taking money from developers riding a boom in an economy that is one of the world's fastest-growing after China, but which is also showing signs of widening the gap between rich and poor.

For the past decade, small landowners from the provinces have gone to the main urban centres of Ho Chi Minh City and the capital, Hanoi, complaining that the communist-run government had failed to pay them adequate compensation for their land.

A report by the Mekong Economics consultancy said a ''concern is that a significant elite class in urban and some rural areas has emerged.

''Most Vietnamese want to be wealthy, and this is certainly not a crime,'' it said. ''But if wealth often comes or is perceived to often come from networks of patronage and corruption, that can lead to social instability.'' Demonstrations take place under police scrutiny and have been mostly peaceful, although there was one reported case of self-immolation by an elderly woman in Hanoi in 2005.

For the past week, groups of demonstrators have camped out in a park in Hanoi as the Communist Party Central Committee held a plenary session on administrative reforms. Next week, the newly elected National Assembly opens an inaugural session.

One woman demonstrator, Huynh Thi Trong from the far southern province of Ben Tre, said her dispute was with local council officials she accused of taking her 15,000 square metres of land.

NO SETTLEMENT ''I have sent petitions but there have been no invitations to settle this matter, so I came to Hanoi,'' Trong wrote in documents to officials, copies of which she handed out in the park.

In Ho Chi Minh City, farmers sat or lay in 32 degree Celsius (90 F) heat and humidity under red, white and blue tarpaulin sheets strung up at the door of a National Assembly office.

The protesters, from seven provinces, have tied a row of red and gold-starred Vietnamese flags, red and white banners and a portrait of independence leader Ho Chi Minh along a fence in front of the building. They began their protest three weeks ago on June 22, a spokeswoman for Viet Tan, an overseas Vietnamese organisation backing them said.

Usually such protests last only a few days days.

The demonstration northwest of central Saigon was closely monitored by uniformed and plainclothes police on a busy street that has a church and shops repairing motorbikes and selling floor tiles and other goods.

Police politely asked a Reuters reporter to leave the scene.

''The government says what these people are doing is not good and you should leave,'' a uniformed policeman said in English.

The issue of re-appropriation of land and the demonstrations is sensitive enough that it is not routinely reported in Vietnamese media, which are all state-run.

But a front-page article yesterday in the Ho Chi Minh City Police newspaper said the Government Inspectorate had sent notices to officials in the north-eastern city of Haiphong and 10 provinces ''on settling with the situation of people gathered in large groups in Hanoi'' and to prevent such gatherings.

It said the provincial officials ''needed to be proactive in sending authorised officials to coordinate with central-level organs to receive and ask people to come back to their locality for settlement.'' The spokeswoman for Viet Tan, the US-based party that is outlawed in Vietnam, wrote in an e-mail that the group had given support to peasant demonstrators in the past.

''We help them on the logistics, they are basically homeless when they go to Hanoi and Saigon because they have no money,'' she said. ''Many of these farmers are illiterate so we help them with procedures as well.'' She said between 800 and 1,000 people had taken part in the Ho Chi Minh City demonstration and some had been arrested.

Vietnam orders provinces to prevent protests by hearing complaints

Hanoi - Vietnam 's government has ordered officials in 11 northern provinces to stop a growing trend of public protests by deploying inspectors and meeting with citizens about their grievances. A directive sent by telegraph was aimed at preventing demonstrations from disrupting the ongoing Communist Party Central Committee meeting and next week's opening of the National Assembly session in Hanoi .

"Quite a few large groups of people, well organized, have converged to and gathered at the state and government offices, and private residences of party and state leaders, causing social disorder in Hanoi," reads the directive, signed by General Chief Inspector Tran Van Truyen.

The order sent out Saturday directs provincial leaders to monitor dissatisfaction among the populace to prevent disgruntled farmers and others with grievances from taking their complaints to the central government.

"Do not let people to gather in huge crowds in Hanoi ," Truyen said in the message, published on the official government website, which specifically mentions the Central Committee and National Assembly meetings as potential targets for demonstrations.

"Be active in finding the real situation of what's happening, checking all of the unsolved cases so as to deal with it in compliance with the law and regulation," the message read.

Once rare in the one-party state, small public protests over land rights and allegations of corruption have become more common in Vietnam in recent years.

In Ho Chi Minh City , hundreds of people protesting the seizure of their lands for development projects have been camping out in front of the local National Assembly office since June 22.

The demonstrations have been heavily covered by New Horizon radio, a broadcaster linked to overseas Vietnamese groups that call for the Communist Party to give up its monopoly on power. New Horizon also reported at least 100 people protesting land seizures in the southern Mekong Delta province of Can Tho .

Unauthorized public demonstrations are officially banned in Vietnam and police in the past have broken up demonstrations in Hanoi and elsewhere.

The recent government directive made no mention of a coming crackdown, instead urging provincial officials to "persuade" demonstrators to go home.

"Any provinces that have people gathering to file complaints and petition to the central level, the provincial People's Committee must send authorized officials with full responsibility ... to meet and persuade their people to go back to the province for resolution," the directive read.

Today's Dissidents are Tomorrow's Democratic Leaders

Here's a very moving slideshow by Viet Tan:

http://www.viettan.org/article.php3?id_article=3662

Vietnam: Hundreds Protest Over Land Disputes, Corruption In Southern Vietnam

HANOI, VIETNAM: Hundreds of people are camping out near a government building in southern Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to protest alleged corruption and unfair compensation for their land, taken for infrastructure projects, police said Saturday (July 7th).

Protesters from nine southern provinces have converged since June 22th in front of the representative office of the lawmaking National Assembly, said a police officer in Phu Nhuan District. He declined to give his name, citing policy.

"They have set up tents on the pavements, hung up banners and placards demanding fair compensation for their land and denouncing local corruption," the officer said.

He said police were deployed to help keep order and control traffic.

The officer said that leaders of some provinces where the protesters came from had tried to persuade them to go home, but that most of them did not back down.

Saturday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper quoted deputy government inspector Le Tien Hao as saying senior government inspectors have been sent to the provinces to urge the provincial leaders to resolve the disputes.

Scenes of people gathering at government buildings to demand better compensation for confiscated land have become common in Vietnam.

Hundreds of hectares (acres) of land are being taken each year for industrial parks and other infrastructure projects.

Several people have been brought to court for attacking authorities in land disputes in recent years. (AP)

Land protest in Vietnam set to enter second week

Hanoi - Hundreds of Vietnamese demonstrators are entering their second week of land protests in Ho Chi Minh City, supporters and a government official said Friday. The farmers from seven southern provinces are protesting a decision by their local officials to appropriate land they were living and working on for development.

Supporters in the overseas Vietnamese community said the protests have grown to 1,000 people.

However, Pham Thi Phuong Lien, chief administrator of the National Assembly office where the demonstrations have been held, estimated the number at just more than 200.

"The protestors want to use their demonstration as pressure on the provincial and local authorities to solve their land rights issues that were not properly handled by the authorities," Lien said.

Lien said the government has sent inspectors headed by Mai Quoc Binh, deputy chief of the Government Inspectorate, to hear the people's petitions.

Radio New Horizon, a station run by the overseas Vietnamese group Viet Tan, has reported demonstrators being followed and harassed by plainclothes police. Lien, however, insisted police were only there to ensure security for the demonstrators.

Small protests complaining of unjust land seizures have become commonplace in Vietnam with many demonstrators alleging corrupt officials are pocketing money from developers but underpaying farmers for the land they lost.

It is unusual for protests to last longer than a few days.

Protest in Sai Gon continues to its 13th day, state’s media ignore protesters

July 4, a day most know as the American Independence Day, but in Vietnam, the protest against corrupt officials continues to its 13th day. The protesters from the various provinces have gathered in Saigon again early in the morning with banners and signs as they chanted slogans against corrupt Government officials while aiming amplifiers at the National Assembly Office II determined to be heard.

At 7:00 AM, banners and signs ran along Hoang Van Thu Street, saying: “Aggrieved citizens demand justice, demand our homes back”, “Clearing houses to build highway 1A, but the government does not provide land for resettlement”, “the government lies and betrays the people”.

Currently, more than ten groups of protesters coming from Tien Giang, Kien Giang, Binh Duong, An Giang, Ben Tre, Dong Thap, Long An, Binh Thuan, Binh Phuoc, District 4 – Ho Chi Minh City. At one point, the numbers of protesters peaked to be over 800 people. Despite the pouring rain, over one hundred people stood holding up their signs and banners while the rest retreated to seek shelter.

The police confiscated and wiped out memory of the mobile phone and cameras used by the protesters while they were inside the National Assembly Office. No one was permitted to take pictures or record the protesters.

The protests have been occurring for almost two week and despite the international interest, the 600 Government owned and operated newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations in Viet Nam have completely ignore the protest.

The Government Inspectors were absent today, but instead, have invited the protesters to Central Public Reception Office II located at 210 Vo Thi Sau Street at 8:00 AM each day to resolve their grievances. The protesters have declined the invitation based on past experiences of the invitation being used by Officials as a ruse to disperse the protesters. The protestors claim that the officials have often used this ploy in the past but have never shown a real commitment to resolving the issues raised by the protesters

Warnings have been issued by the Police but more aggrieved citizens from Can Tho, Co Do, An Giang and Dong Thap are determined to converge to Saigon to join the protest and have their voices heard. They have promised that more participants will be joining the protest.