HANOI (AFP) — Hundreds of Vietnamese farmers have protested as bulldozers under police guard started clearing their land for a new township and golf course near Hanoi, officials and residents said Thursday.
Riot police protected workers at the site of the planned 500 hectare (1,200 acre) Van Giang Tourism and Commerce Township, also called the Eco Park, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) southeast of the capital, they said.
Several residents told AFP that as many as 1,000 residents, some carrying farming tools, angrily demonstrated Wednesday after bulldozers and excavators started levelling their fields and plots before dawn.
"They have taken all our agricultural land," a woman from Cuu Cao commune, Hung Yen province, told AFP by phone, asking not to be named.
"From now on, how can we live? They said they would give us money and some land near the site but we haven't seen the land yet."
The woman said, from her village of 5,000, "many of us went to the site yesterday, probably more than 1,000 people. We have to protect our land."
Foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung, in a regular press briefing Thursday, said the conflict centred on road building and that on Wednesday local authorities had "confiscated land of some communes to finish the road".
Dung said about 100 to 200 residents came to demonstrate and to stop the land clearance, "mostly because they did not agree with the compensation rate", but then peacefully dispersed after talks with local authorities.
An official at Phung Cong commune, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Thursday: "At present, there are about 400 to 500 people at the site. There is no conflict but some people have become a bit agitated."
Land disputes -- and residents' claims that they have been cheated out of fair compensation -- have in recent years become the most common cause of protests in Vietnam, a rural country that is rapidly industrialising.
The local official said about 70 percent of residents had accepted compensation money but that "about 30 percent are still not satisfied with the amount. They want more but it's impossible and illogical.
"We have negotiated with them several times but they are still not happy, so local authorities had to start clearing the land. A lot of forces are there today, police and district and provincial level leaders."
The Eco Park, planned since 2004, sparked a rally in Hanoi in August 2006 when hundreds of farmers peacefully faced off with police outside the downtown National Assembly office.
Last December, local village leaders Le Thanh Hau and Nguyen Van Trieu were jailed for one year each for "causing public disorder", residents said.
The Eco Park township is being developed by the Viet Hung Urban Development and Investment Joint Stock Company (Vihajico), according to its website.
It is set to boast golf course villas and high rise apartment buildings as well as a kindergarten, school, hospital, cinema, sports centre and an 18-hole golf course, the website says.
The Cuu Cao woman said farmers were offered 19 million dong, or about 1,120 dollars, per 360 square metre (3,875 square feet) in 2004.
"We came to ask for more and we even went to the government and national assembly offices in Hanoi," she said. "Now, they have accepted raising the amount to 48 million dong (2,820 dollars) per 360 square metres.
"Only some families in real financial difficulties, or families of party cadres, have accepted and taken the money. We still want to talk with the authorities and investors before accepting the compensation."
(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hNBegz_z0ZIwCmDgtcqHZkQ5qCDw)
Riot police protected workers at the site of the planned 500 hectare (1,200 acre) Van Giang Tourism and Commerce Township, also called the Eco Park, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) southeast of the capital, they said.
Several residents told AFP that as many as 1,000 residents, some carrying farming tools, angrily demonstrated Wednesday after bulldozers and excavators started levelling their fields and plots before dawn.
"They have taken all our agricultural land," a woman from Cuu Cao commune, Hung Yen province, told AFP by phone, asking not to be named.
"From now on, how can we live? They said they would give us money and some land near the site but we haven't seen the land yet."
The woman said, from her village of 5,000, "many of us went to the site yesterday, probably more than 1,000 people. We have to protect our land."
Foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung, in a regular press briefing Thursday, said the conflict centred on road building and that on Wednesday local authorities had "confiscated land of some communes to finish the road".
Dung said about 100 to 200 residents came to demonstrate and to stop the land clearance, "mostly because they did not agree with the compensation rate", but then peacefully dispersed after talks with local authorities.
An official at Phung Cong commune, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Thursday: "At present, there are about 400 to 500 people at the site. There is no conflict but some people have become a bit agitated."
Land disputes -- and residents' claims that they have been cheated out of fair compensation -- have in recent years become the most common cause of protests in Vietnam, a rural country that is rapidly industrialising.
The local official said about 70 percent of residents had accepted compensation money but that "about 30 percent are still not satisfied with the amount. They want more but it's impossible and illogical.
"We have negotiated with them several times but they are still not happy, so local authorities had to start clearing the land. A lot of forces are there today, police and district and provincial level leaders."
The Eco Park, planned since 2004, sparked a rally in Hanoi in August 2006 when hundreds of farmers peacefully faced off with police outside the downtown National Assembly office.
Last December, local village leaders Le Thanh Hau and Nguyen Van Trieu were jailed for one year each for "causing public disorder", residents said.
The Eco Park township is being developed by the Viet Hung Urban Development and Investment Joint Stock Company (Vihajico), according to its website.
It is set to boast golf course villas and high rise apartment buildings as well as a kindergarten, school, hospital, cinema, sports centre and an 18-hole golf course, the website says.
The Cuu Cao woman said farmers were offered 19 million dong, or about 1,120 dollars, per 360 square metre (3,875 square feet) in 2004.
"We came to ask for more and we even went to the government and national assembly offices in Hanoi," she said. "Now, they have accepted raising the amount to 48 million dong (2,820 dollars) per 360 square metres.
"Only some families in real financial difficulties, or families of party cadres, have accepted and taken the money. We still want to talk with the authorities and investors before accepting the compensation."
(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hNBegz_z0ZIwCmDgtcqHZkQ5qCDw)