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Warnings: Anti-Vietnam opportunists have caused social instabilities by abusing the Dong Tam case

14/9/17

Nearly 5 months from the standoff in Hoanh village of Dong Tam commune in Hanoi, dsepite of Hanoi authority’s efforts of securing stability, the situation in Dong Tam is still wavering because of incitement activities of some self-claimed activists.
At the end of March, the municipal police began legal proceedings for the case of causing public disorder in Dong Tam commune. During working sessions with competent agencies, a number of local residents illegaly captured and kept 38 people at the cultural house of Hoanh village, including officials of My Duc district and officers of the Hanoi mobile police force. Some extremists even threatened to kill them if security personnel attacked them a second time. Everyone, especially relatives of those detainees, was nervous about how the hostage crisis might end. Fortunately, on April 18, 15 of them were transferred to the authorities while three escaped by themselves. Only after Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung visited and talked with local people, the remaining officials and soldiers were freed.
As a result, the case attracted a substantial amount of public attention, leading to broad public sentiment towards the Dong Tam people. Media and people tend to sympathise with Dong Tam’s villagers arguing that they did due to the local authority’s wrongdoings of land management. But there are laws to settle violations, people can just do what they think right or wrong. In this case, we can see that people spontaneously did what they thought in spite of laws.
It’s normal that Hanoi investigation police have launched criminal proceedings against the illegal arrest of people in Dong Tam commune in Hanoi’s outlying district of My Duc.  The prosecution aims to serve investigations into the charges of “illegal arrest, custody or detention of people” in accordance to Article 123 of the Penal Code and “destroying or deliberately damaging property” as prescribed in Article 143 of the Penal Code.
Of course, those wrongdoings and officials who made mistakes of land management in Dong Tam have been investigated in accordance with the laws. The Hanoi Inspectorate announced that after conducting a “comprehensive inspection on the management, use, and handling of the land area,” it had determined that the military administers all airport land, which it said encompasses 236.7 hectares (584.9 acres).
The Inspectorate said it had based its findings on decisions issued by then-Prime Minister Pham Van Dong on April 14, 1980, the People’s Committee of Ha Son Binh province on Nov. 10, 1981, and the Hanoi Municipal People’s Committee on Oct. 20, 2014.

It acknowledged that the military had “made several mistakes in management” of the land, including allowing area residents to use it after a rental contract expired in 2012 and failing to relocate certain households before 1980, leading to illegal encroachment and construction.
Referring to the residents’ request to give back to the Đồng Tâm people the money used to compensate the 14 households, the inspectors said it was baseless as the authorities were found to not have used the public budget for such a purpose.
According to the inspection report, 47 complaints were filed against Đồng Tâm officials from December 2013 to the end of 2016, accusing them of wrongdoings in land management. Those complaints were resolved by Mỹ Đức and the city authorities, followed by the Party’s disciplinary action against 19 individuals, eight of whom were expelled from the Party, while one was fired and 14 were disciplined at their workplaces.
The Mỹ Đức police also detained two former officials of Đồng Tâm Commune after initiating an investigation against 14 ex-officials of Mỹ Đức and Đồng Tâm for alleged power abuse in land management.
The Hà Nội Inspectorate asked the Mỹ Đức and Đồng Tâm authorities to ensure they had firm solutions to force households who were illegally occupying military land to return the land to Viettel.
It also asked the defence ministry and the police to look into the responsibilities of those tasked with managing Miếu Môn airport’s land who had committed wrongdoings during the time.
On August 8th the People’s Court of outlying My Duc district of Hanoi pronounced sentences at the first instance trial on law violations regarding land management in the district’s Dong Tam commune. Accordingly, 10 faced the charge of abusing position and power while on duty in pursuant to Article 281 of the Penal Code. They included three former chairmen of the Dong Tam communal People’s Committee Nguyen Van Son, Le Dinh Thuan and Nguyen Van Bot who received 36-month and 42-month sentences and a 18-month suspended sentence, respectively. Others were sentenced to 24 months – 78 months in jail.
We can see that the authorities have well done their jobs to handle the case and those behind the legal violations of a number of residents in the commune since the beginning of 2017 shall be punished strictly in line with law. Measures are being deployed to guarantee security and social order in Dong Tam commune. Unfortunately, there are some so-called activists and vulture lawyers have jumped into the case for their own purposes, in a way of opposing the government like lawyer Trần Vũ Hải and some reactionary elements from outside. They have sought to incite people to protest against the government’s decisions.
For example, one Dong Tam farmer told RFA’s Vietnamese Service that he and other residents disagree with the investigation’s conclusions. Even an old respectable man Le Dinh Kinh, an 82-year-old farmer told Dan Viet News that he was frustrated about the Inspectorate’s conclusion.
Review this unexpected incident, it is worrying that people seem easily to be incited and tend to oppose the authorities in many cases. People should be alert to understand the real situation and keep calm to not to be seduced by outsiders to violate the laws./.


Chia sẻ bài viết ^^
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