At least three people have been hospitalized after a clash between police, plainclothes enforcers and protesters at a land development project in Nghe An province.
Demonstrators tried to stop construction workers leveling land around a shrimp pond for the Urban Area and Social Housing, or Eco Central Park Vinh, a project run by the Viet-Laos Economic Cooperation Joint Stock Company.
“When the villagers went out to protect the pond, I don’t know who mobilized hundreds of police, soldiers and gangsters to force them to leave the area,” a resident of Phong Yen neighborhood, who did not want to be identified for safety reasons, told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.
“About 200 people living in Phong Yen had to face around 300 police and about 50 young men wearing red hats, many of whom seemed to be students because they looked very young.”
Videos seen by RFA Vietnamese showed police with shields and batons and plainclothes people wearing red helmets dragging protesters out of the construction area.
Another local resident said the people wearing red hats came by bus and punched and kicked people, while the police only pushed them.
Many people were slightly injured and three seriously injured locals had to seek treatment at Vinh City General Hospital.
Most of the injured were elderly, some over 80 years old, locals said. They named one of the injured as Tran Van Phu, who is in the hospital’s emergency department.
Demonstrators were forced to leave the site, allowing contractors to level the ground.
One resident said the police ordered people to delete social media posts and video clips of the clashes.
RFA called officials in Nghe An province, Vinh city and Hung Hoa commune to ask about the incident but no one answered the phone.
State media did not cover the story.
Unsatisfactory compensation
According to an article in November 2022 in the Ethnicity & Development newspaper, the commercial and social housing project was approved by the People’s Committee of Nghe An Province on October 7, 2010 covering an area of 156 hectares (385 acres).
Two locals said the government gave the site to the people of Phong Yen in 1993 to grow rice and potatoes.
In 2001, Nghe An province encouraged people to dig ponds to raise shrimp for export.
People in Phong Yen want to stop the land being developed, saying they have not received compensation for the pond area of 170 million dong (US$7,000) per 500 square meters, which was offered to people in other hamlets in the commune.
Vinh city officials said people were not compensated because they were not growing crops on the land so the authorities took it back. One local said no land recovery document had been issued.
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.