Viet Tan Open Letter On Exploiting Bauxite in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

Viet Tan (Vietnam Reform Party)

March 20, 2009                                                                               
Contact: Duy Hoang +1 (202) 470-1678 - www.viettan.org

In recent decades, many countries have to come to regret economic development projects that ignored consequences to the environment. Various adverse health effects to humans, destruction of natural habitats and plant life, have necessitated a new definition of development. Today, there is a widespread consensus around sustainable development, to address the needs of the present while ensuring a productive tomorrow and without creating burdens for future generations.

The communist regime of Vietnam is bucking this understanding by its disregard for a serious threat to the country’s present and future generations.

For over three years, the politburo of the Communist Party has been quietly cooperating with China to exploit bauxite in Dak Nong and Lam Dong provinces in Vietnam’s central highlands. Only when this situation came to light did prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung acknowledge that the bauxite plans were a major policy of the party and state. In a press conference on February 4, 2009, he announced that a conference would be held to explore the consequences of bauxite mining. 

These events demonstrate how the Hanoi leadership took a decision with major impact on the lives of millions of citizens in the central highlands and along the Dong Nai river basin without a proper scientific study or consideration to the lessons learned from other countries.

 

Head offices for the bauxite ventures in Dak Nong and Lam Dong provinces

As a result, many Vietnamese researchers have spoken out, raising the following issues:

• Low economic benefit from an overall national standpoint. The central highlands currently lack electricity, water and transportation infrastructure. Thus, the costs of mining and processing bauxite in Vietnam would not be competitive with operations in Australia or India, and would only make Vietnam dependent on China which is the intended export market.
• Significant environmental risk. The sheer amount of red sludge, the toxic waste from processing bauxite, would wipe out significant animal and plant life in the affected areas. Furthermore, rainwater would wash the toxic sludge into waterways throughout the central highlands and down into Vietnam’s southern region.
• Lack of a cleanup solution. Currently there is no cost effective way to clean up red sludge. Because of this, many countries no longer allow bauxite processing. Australia stores the red sludge in the desert where there is little rainfall and no inhabitants. Even China has accepted the need to close many bauxite mines and to look elsewhere for its needs.
• Negative economic impact. Pollution of rivers from red sludge would impact forestry and cultivation of coffee, rubber, tea, pepper, cashew and other crops. Once these costs are factored in, the bauxite scheme brings no benefit to the people of Vietnam overall, but only serves to enrich a small group of officials directly associated with the project.
• Heavy burden on many people. Millions of residents in the central highlands, especially ethnic minorities, will lose lands that sustain their livelihoods and unique cultures and/or face health problems for many years to come. Tens of millions people along the Dong Nai river and Tri An lake are potential victims as well.

The environmental destruction from bauxite mining does not differentiate among ethnic groups, poor and rich, religious affiliation or political viewpoints. This danger affects the whole country and could be passed onto future generations. This is a peril for the entire Vietnamese people.

Responsibility for creating this peril lays with each member of the communist leadership.

If it really believes the decision to mine and process bauxite in the central highlands is justified, the Politburo ought to suspend the project until the country has an opportunity to fully hear and read about the costs and benefits of the project, as well as learn from the experiences of other nations.

Given this situation, we in Viet Tan intend to:

• Contribute to bringing maximum information to light on the shadowy bauxite cooperation in the central highlands between the Hanoi government and China. We call on residents and workers in Nhan Co, Bao Lam and other areas with bauxite operations to pass along details regarding the affects on the environment and the names of the responsible government officials.
• Support Vietnamese scientists in their research and efforts to raise public awareness on the risk of bauxite processing. We especially urge and support medical professionals to prepare public education materials to mitigate the health risks.
• Urge international environmental organizations and human rights groups to pressure the Hanoi government to cease the bauxite projects. We encourage the legal community to consider possible actions against those responsible for wrecking the enviromental damage.

CSVN phải hủy bỏ công hàm bán nước Phạm Văn &

Writer detained at airport, prevented from traveling to Norway to meet with human rights groups

Country/Topic: Vietnam
Date: 05 September 2008
Source: International Publishers' Association (IPA) , Writers in Prison Committee, International PEN , Norwegian PEN
Person(s): Le Quoc Quan
Target(s): human rights worker(s) , writer(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): detained , harassed
Urgency: Flash

Oslo, 4 September 2008

Mr. Ha Hung Cuong
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
24 A Cat Linh Street
Hanoi
Vietnam
Fax: 0084 843 1431

Your Excellency

Norwegian PEN, International PEN and the International Publishers Association hereby strongly protest the unwarranted detention of writer, poet and human rights lawyer Le Quoc Quan at the Hanoi Noi Bai airport at 10:30pm on September 1st, 2008 by security police. Le Quoc Quan was on his way to Norway to meet with Norwegian PEN and other human rights groups when he was detained in Hanoi.

According to eyewitnesses, Le Quoc Quan protested the detainment, citing that it violates the Vietnamese constitution, which states in Article 68 that: "The citizen shall enjoy freedom of movement and of residence within the country; he can freely travel abroad and return home from abroad in accordance with the provisions of the law." Finally, the security police tried to make him sign an agreement, stating that he was being stopped from leaving the country because he was needed for a police investigation. According to Norwegian PEN sources, Le Quoc Quan and others had been assaulted by secret police while present at a sit-in for religious freedom in Hanoi a few months ago.

According to eyewitnesses who were with Quan at the airport, the police took away Quan's visa, which was issued by the Norwegian embassy in Hanoi. According to Norwegian PEN sources, the Vietnamese government would not allow Le Quoc Quan to go to Norway. Also, Quan's passport was only valid for 3 more months, and would expire on December 26/2008. However, according to our sources, who spoke briefly with Quan on a cell phone, police also invalidated his passport and he may no longer travel abroad.

Norwegian PEN and International PEN protest the Vietnamese government's policy of preventing its citizens from speaking out, from voicing their human rights concerns and from telling the world about the human rights violations of the Vietnamese authorities. We also protest the interference of the security police by destroying a valid travel document issued by another country and call for an end to the harassment and intimidation of Le Quoc Quan and that he is issued a new and valid passport.

We trust, your Excellency, that you will give this matter your fullest attention.

Sincerely,

Anders Heger
President, Norwegian PEN

Carl Morten Iversen
Secretary General, Norwegian PEN

Eugene Schoulgin
International Secretary, International PEN

Bjørn Smith-Simonsen
Chair, Freedom to Publish Committee, International Publishers Association

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Send appeals to the justice minister:
- protesting the government's policy of preventing its citizens from speaking out, from voicing their human rights concerns and from telling the world about the human rights violations of the Vietnamese authorities
- protesting the interferrence of the security police by destroying a valid travel document issued by another country
- calling for an end to the harassment and intimidation of Le Quoc Quan
- asking that he be issued a new and valid passport

APPEALS TO:

Ha Hung Cuong
Minister of Justice
Ministry of Justice
24 A Cat Linh Street
Hanoi, Vietnam
Fax: +84 843 1431

Please copy appeals to the source if possible.

For further information, contact Secretary General Carl Morten Iversen, Norwegian PEN, Wergelandsveien 29, 0167 Oslo, Norway, tel: +47 22 60 74 50, mobile: +47 926 88 023, fax: +47 22 60 74 51, e-mail: pen@norkspen.no, Internet: http://www.norskpen.no

Catholics rally at Vietnam police station, three detained

HANOI (AFP) — Vietnamese Catholics have rallied outside a Hanoi police station in an escalating row over disputed church land taken over by the communist state half a century ago, police and a priest said Friday.

Police detained three parishioners after at least 100 Catholics gathered outside a police station Thursday night to call for the release of several other followers who had been arrested earlier in the day, they said.

Hanoi's police chief, in a rare press conference Friday, dismissed claims by the Thai Ha Redemptorist parish that riot police had charged the peaceful crowd and beaten them using electric batons, wounding at least three.

The disturbance came amid a long-simmering dispute in which Catholics have sought to reclaim an inner-city property that came under communist state control in the years after North Vietnam's 1954 victory against the French.

Authorities this week started legal proceedings against the Dong Da district parish, where priest Father Vu Khoi Phung has led hundreds of Catholics in prayer vigils on a disputed plot of land and erected an altar.

Tensions rose Thursday after police arrested three parishioners for damaging property and disturbing public order and took them back to the local police headquarters, said Hanoi police chief General Nguyen Duc Nhanh.

"Yesterday evening around 100 parishioners, including five to six priests, from Thai Ha parish gathered before the headquarters of Dong Da district police, creating pressure, demanding the release of the accused," he said.

"At 9:30pm last night the crowd dissolved itself," General Nhanh added. "Certainly before that there was some over-reactions, like abusing the policemen in charge. And as such we had to temporarily detain three persons."

One of the priests, Father Nguyen Van Peter Khai -- who put the total number of Catholics arrested since Thursday at eight -- told AFP that police had attacked the Catholics as they sat on the street for a peaceful vigil.

"We were in the street on Thai Ha street and the police repressed the Christians using electric shocks," said Khai. "A lot of people were beaten by police, they were beaten very hard."

He showed AFP digital photographs showing two women bleeding from head wounds who he said were victims of the police baton-charge.

When asked about the claim, police chief Nhanh only said: "We never use supporting instruments to beat those who do not violate the law. These instruments are only used when police are attacked."

Nhan said police had received no complaints alleging beatings on Thursday.

He also stressed that the police investigation was ongoing, saying "all violators should be investigated and punished."

Vietnam, a unified communist country since the war ended in 1975, has Southeast Asia's largest Catholic community after the Philippines -- at least six million out of a population of 86 million.

All religion remains under state control, but Hanoi's relations with the Catholic church had improved for years, leading to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung making a landmark visit to the Vatican in 2007.

However, around Christmas last year Catholics started months of mass rallies at several churches, including Hanoi's main St Joseph's Cathedral, demanding the return of church land confiscated during the 1950s land reform era.

The Hanoi People's Committee at Friday's press conference laid out their case, backed by video recordings that showed Catholics breaking a wall to the dispute site, holding mass and erecting religious icons.

Officials called the acts illegal and said Vietnam no longer entertained land claims related to seizures made in the early years of North Vietnam.

They also said Thai Ha parish had donated the land to the state in 1961.

The Catholics say the land was stolen and have vowed more prayer vigils.