Protest in HCMC
From: Roy Hornsby <royby@royby.com>
Date: Aug 15, 2006 10:13 PM
Subject: [Vsg] protest in HCMC
Yesterday I was driving down Le Thanh Ton St and I noticed that there
was an orderly protest of some kind set up opposite the HCMC Peoples
Committee building.
There were maybe about 100 people with large banners and also some had
microphones and they were standing on the pavement outside the VietNam
airlines office (if they are still there that is) on the corner of
Nguyen Hue and facing over towards the committee building. So it
appeared to me as if the protest was being directed toward the
committee. Police had blocked off part of the road but all in all
things were very calm.
Does anybody know what this protest (if in fact that is what it was)
was about?
cheers - roy hornsby
From: Chuck Searcy <chucksearcy@yahoo.com>
Date: Aug 16, 2006 2:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] protest in HCMC
Roy,
No idea about the HCMC protest, but a couple of Saturdays ago in Hanoi a large group of
mostly women protesters, several dozens at least, assembled across from the Hanoi PPC with
homemade signs and banners, something about land issues I think (or land and taxes), but I
was in a taxi and couldn't tell for sure. They were orderly, and several police were
standing around but doing nothing to stop them.
I think I mentioned sometime ago another protest I saw at the National Assembly building in
Hanoi, again about land and taxes, and the police took the cardboard signs away from the
demonstrators. The women promptly rewrote their messages on their conical hats, and the
police could not bring themselves to confiscate the hats, so the protesters and their
messages prevailed.
It seems that most issues worldwide come down to matters of land ownership and use, the
source of grievous and sometimes tragic problems and conflicts.
Chuck Searcy
From: B Dwyer <anthrobfd@hotmail.com>
Date: Aug 16, 2006 6:07 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] protest in HCMC
I am not there at the moment so I cant say for sure but it is Cach Mang
Thang Tam time again & I remember last year there were a couple of marches
around the place
Brett
From: Chung Nguyen <Chung.Nguyen@umb.edu>
Date: Aug 17, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] protest in HCMC
As I was riding a "xe om" in Tan Binh district a couple hundred yards near Dinh Tien Hoang
Street on Wednesday afternoon (around 5:15 PM), I saw a group of about 60-70 people carrying
banners demanding just compensation or the return of their land in an orderly fashion. They
were walking in the opposite direction, on the street and not on the pavement. There
appeared to be no uniformed police people around. Everything appeared ordinary, no one
stopped to watch or had any unusual reaction. The "xe om" driver told me that the same thing
happened in Hanoi and that it was a well-known issue, esp. in the local provinces. Officials
would, he said, took over large piece of land for some specially designed public projects,
compensating the farmners' loss based upon the value of their "cultivated or uncultivated
farm land", which came out to be a pittance. Then, a year or two later, the project would be
suddenly dropped, and the land sold to private or joint developers for 10 to 30 times the
original price. Unable to find redress locally, people came to Hanoi or HCM city. In the big
cities, the law for compensation is much better known, and applied much more carefully.
I have read reports of similar protests since last year, but usually at major
government's offices. I understand that the government is slowly liberalizing (back and
forth), but it's still a surprise to suddenly see a group of demonstrators walking
unhindered down the street, with no one batting an eye.
Nguyen Ba Chung
From: Jonathan D. London (Asst Prof) <London@ntu.edu.sg>
Date: Aug 23, 2006 2:42 AM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] protest in HCMC
Dear All,
On Monday (21 Aug) on my way to the TPHCM airport I saw a group of about 20 to 30 middle-
aged protesters, some on crutches, at least one in a wheel cheer, walking against the grain
of the traffic protesting (what they claimed was) illegal seizure of land by state officials
in Binh Duong province.
Some of the placards stated that land shouldn’t be taken from those who died for the
revolutionary cause. It was a surprising sight. I forget what street I was on.
In Hanoi in 97, I would regularly pass sit-in demonstrations outside the home of the
President of the NA (on Pham Dinh Phuong)…but this was the first (apparently unofficial)
march I had seen.
I suppose who is protesting what matters a great deal in what types of protests are
tolerated.
In this case, two police officers rode leisurely behind the marchers on a motor bike,
looking relaxed, the one in back sitting side-saddle, both and wearing smiles.
My guess is that nothing like that could happen where I live.
From: rnakamura62@hotmail.com <rnakamura62@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2006 10:02:47 (GMT)
Subject: [Vsg] IPS-VIETNAM: Officials Grab Land, Evict Peasants
This story has been forwarded to you from http://ipsnews.net, Inter Press Service The News
Agency
VIETNAM: Officials Grab Land, Evict Peasants
Tran Dinh Thanh Lam
HANOI, Aug 8 (IPS)
From: Roy Hornsby <royby@royby.com>
Date: Aug 16, 2006 11:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] IPS-VIETNAM: Officials Grab Land, Evict Peasants
I think that this posting and the replies to my question of why there
was protest staged in HCMC may well have supplied the answer.