Fri, 06 Mar 2009
DPA
Hanoi - Some 100 war invalids faced off against police and soldiers Friday in central Hanoi to prevent their collective's land from being seized by a state-owned parking lot company. Members of the July 27 Invalids Collective said they had been granted use of the 300-square-metre plot in 1996 to park the three-wheeled vehicles invalids in Vietnam typically drive, and to earn money washing and repairing motorbikes.
The Hanoi Parking Exploitation Company, which runs a parking lot next to the lot, was awarded the plot in 2005. An appeal by the invalid group was rejected by district authorities in January, and scores of police and soldiers arrived Friday to enforce the order.
Nguyen Nhu Khoa, 62, who sustained brain, spine and leg injuries from shelling during the Battle of Hue in 1972, said the invalids needed the land to support themselves and their families. Khoa said group members earned an average of about 1 million dong (60 dollars) a month.
"We use this land to make a little money, but they want to seize it," Khoa said. "They should support us, because we are the ones who sacrificed our bodies to protect them, to protect this regime."
Organized protests are rare in Vietnam's Communist system. Protests over land disputes, however, occur periodically, particularly as urban land values have skyrocketed in recent years.
The price of land in downtown Hanoi has risen to thousands of dollars per square metre.
Police and soldiers at the protest site declined to comment on the situation.
The invalids' group does not have an official land use certificate for the plot. In a January 8 letter, the head of the district People's Committee, the local governing body, said that the plot belonged to the Hanoi city Transportation Department and the district had no authority over it.
Officials in the People's Committee and the Transportation Department could not be reached for a response.
Regardless of the legal merits, members of the invalid group were bitter.
"The authorities want to push us off this land because we do not have the money to bribe them," said Nguyen Xuan Hung, 50, wounded during Vietnam's 1978-9 war against Cambodia.
The Hanoi Parking Exploitation Company, which runs a parking lot next to the lot, was awarded the plot in 2005. An appeal by the invalid group was rejected by district authorities in January, and scores of police and soldiers arrived Friday to enforce the order.
Nguyen Nhu Khoa, 62, who sustained brain, spine and leg injuries from shelling during the Battle of Hue in 1972, said the invalids needed the land to support themselves and their families. Khoa said group members earned an average of about 1 million dong (60 dollars) a month.
"We use this land to make a little money, but they want to seize it," Khoa said. "They should support us, because we are the ones who sacrificed our bodies to protect them, to protect this regime."
Organized protests are rare in Vietnam's Communist system. Protests over land disputes, however, occur periodically, particularly as urban land values have skyrocketed in recent years.
The price of land in downtown Hanoi has risen to thousands of dollars per square metre.
Police and soldiers at the protest site declined to comment on the situation.
The invalids' group does not have an official land use certificate for the plot. In a January 8 letter, the head of the district People's Committee, the local governing body, said that the plot belonged to the Hanoi city Transportation Department and the district had no authority over it.
Officials in the People's Committee and the Transportation Department could not be reached for a response.
Regardless of the legal merits, members of the invalid group were bitter.
"The authorities want to push us off this land because we do not have the money to bribe them," said Nguyen Xuan Hung, 50, wounded during Vietnam's 1978-9 war against Cambodia.
1 comment:
commies have no concept to treat those who served fairly and humanely!
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