SUMMARY OF EVENTS AT CON DAU – DA NANG, VIETNAM

Prepared by BPSOS (05-27-10)

GEOGRAPHY:

• Con Dau is a Catholic Parish in the Diocese of Da Nang, Central Vietnam.
• Located 4 km south of the city of Da Nang, on the other side of the Han River, and 5 km southwest of China Beach and Marble Mountain, landmarks that became famous during the Vietnam War.
• Population: 2,000 people, 100 % Catholics, most being farmers.
• This coming August 15^th, 2010 the Parish will be celebrating the 85-year anniversary of the establishment of the Parish and 135 years since the first religious refugees settled on this land.
• The area was originally a swamp with low, uncultivable land due to salt water coming in during the full moon season. The ancestors of the people of Con Dau built a dam to prevent seawater and turned Con Dau into a livable area. Many French and Vietnamese priests led this effort to build a beautiful and prosperous parish as it is today.
• The century-old cemetery of the parish is located about 1km from the church, where generations of parishioners have been buried. The cemetery is a beautiful 10 hectare park with more than 2000 burial plots. In the middle of the cemetery is the concrete area with a chapel for parishioners to gather for evening prayer. It is the property of the parish with valid documents. The cemetery was acknowledged as a national historic heritage in 2008.

 EVENTS:

•  May 2007: The government of Da Nang city announced the plan to sell 430 hectares of land in the Hoa Xuan district area, including the village of Con Dau (110 hectares), to international developers, to make it a high-end villa and green resort area.
• The government planned to compensate for the land and relocate all 10,000 people in the affected area to other unannounced areas. No current residents would be allowed to stay in the affected area.
• The compensation for the land is ridiculously low: 250,000 dong Vietnam ($13 US dollar) per square meter for land with house and 50,000 dong Vietnam ($2.5 US dollar) for rice field land. Nobody in Hoa Xuan is happy about it.  They think that the price is too low  compared to the price the government is selling to the developers (more than one billion US dollars) or the current local market price (around 2 million dong Vietnam or $100 US dollars per square meter). The government refused to increase and said that land belonged to the government, the people only have the right of use.
• March 2008: The government began to hold meetings with the Hoa Xuan residents, starting with the villages of Trung Luong, Cam Chanh, Lo Giang, and Tung Lam, which are next to Con Dau. They explained the reasons and benefits of this project and persuaded people to sign the agreement to sell their land and move.
• The people of those villages were at first fighting vigorously against the move but later some had to sign because they were threatened to be kicked out of government or factory jobs if they did not comply (many of these villagers are government or communist party officials).
• The people of Con Dau are uniformly against the move because this land is intimately tied to their faith—the cemetery and all the farm land of Con Dau are property of the Catholic Parish, created from bare land by priests and followers over the span of 135 years. Its cemetery has buried generations of Catholics and houses a chapel which serves as the place of worship for some 500 to 600 parishioners.
• The government ordered the relocation of the cemetery to a mountainous area, away from any inhabitable place. The government also ordered the people of Con Dau to be relocated, certainly far away from the designated location for the cemetery. The people of Con Dau suggested the option of letting them move closer to their church area and let the government develop the rice fields but the government flatly rejected that option--the only option given by the government was to “empty out”. The people of Con Dau refused to sign anything and the tension built up with the government, especially with the Communist party Chief of Da Nang city, Nguyen Ba Thanh. A member of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s Central Committee, he was personally involved in this project and has held 10 meetings with people of Con Dau to persuade or threaten them.
• January 25, 2010: Mr. Nguyen Ba Thanh led 100 police and government officials to Con Dau and surrounded the village 24/7 for a week to force the parishioners to sign the agreement to sell their land and move out. Armed police officers and government officials went house to house to coerce families to sign the agreement. Many parishioners left home to avoid facing the pressure. Some had to stay away for all week. Mr. Thanh could persuade or force only 10 households to sign out of 400 households in Con Dau.
• January 26, 2010: The people of Con Dau sent an appeal to the central government in Hanoi to complain about the government of Da Nang City regarding the use of threats and force. The letter was signed by 400 heads of household. They requested to be relocated around their church to be able to practice their religion. They also complained about the unjust compensation plan for their land. As farmers, they did not know how to make a living if relocated in the urban area without jobs. As parishioners, they wanted to stay together in the vicinity of the cemetery where their ancestors were buried. There was no response from the central government.
• March 4, 2010: Mr. Thanh again led hundreds of armed polices and government officials to Con Dau to force families to sign the agreement so he could deliver the land to developers. Nobody signed it.
• March 9, 2010: Mr. Thanh met Rev. Nguyen Tan Luc, the parish priest, to ask him to tell parishioners during the mass homily to obey the government order. Rev. Luc refused to do so and stated this was an issue between government and the people; it was not appropriate for him or the church to tell the people to vacate their land.
• April 12, 2010: The government sent out the order to forbid future burials in the cemetery of Con Dau parish. They put a sign stating “Burying NOT ALLOWED” inside the cemetery. There were a dozen of police agents posted to block entrance at all times. A 73 years old parishioner named Le Van Sinh was hit with tear gas in the face and became unconscious when he attempted to remove the sign, which the police placed on his father's grave. Approximately a thousand people from Con Dau came to protest the cruelty of the police. Tell the story of the 12 year old kid and women being beaten.
• May 1, 2010: Mrs. Dang Thi Tan, a 93 years old parishioner, died in Con Dau. The funeral was planned for May 4, 2010. Her wish was being buried next to her husband and ancestors in the parish cemetery. The funeral was expected to draw a thousand parishioners as usually the case. The police prepared for a confrontation with the parishioners at the funeral and more than 300 armed police officers and special anti-riot troops, mobilized from ___, moved in within the perimeter of the cemetery. These anti-riot troops were the same that suppressed the mass demonstration of the Montagnards in the Central Highlands in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2008.
• May 4, 2010: After the funeral mass at the church at 5am, a thousand parishioners and the Dang family members started the funeral procession to the cemetery. The special police force attacked the funeral procession when the cart carrying the casket approached the cemetery entrance. The police attempted but failed to seize the casket. Three hours later, at 1:30pm, the police shot tear gas and rubber bullets at the mourners near the casket. They mercilessly used force against everyone in sight of the funeral procession including the seniors, men, women and children. They tightly surrounded the area and started beating the people escorting the coffin. Some of the villagers threw mud at the police to stop the beating, but to no avail.
• The police captured any young men and women they got hand on. There were more than a hundred people injured and 62 were captured and brought to the county police station in Cam Le. The casket was seized and whisked away in a van by the communist authorities and taken to Hoa Son area where the family was forced to agree to cremation.
• The unrest was reported widely in international news agencies (AFP, AP, VOA, BBC, Radio of Free Asia, SBTN, VHN-TV, etc.) and websites with press releases, video clips and photos.
• The 62 young men and women captured were put in the county jail where the special police took turn to beat the detainees badly one by one for their involvement in the funeral, accusing them of interfering with the police as they carried out their duty and of sending information to the media overseas. Some of the detainees were beaten unconscious. A pregnant woman, Huynh Thi Hai, suffered serious injuries caused by beating that put her life at risk—she suffered miscarriage as the result. The detainees were forced to sign the agreement to sell their land and relocate and most of all to not talk to anybody about their being tortured as condition for their release. They all had to sign a self-incriminating document, admitting to the false allegations of having assaulted the police, as condition for the police to stop the beating. Doan Thi My Hanh (F) was severely beaten and is now very ill. She was released but may not survive her injuries. The detainees, upon release, were all prohibited from seeking medical care at a hospital or with private doctors. The police told them that if any one leaks information about the beating to the outside world, all 62 will be rounded up and subjected to beatings again.
• The police filmed the funeral and searched for people they identified in the video in an attempt to discover the source of the news leak. Many young men and women in Con Dau left the village and went underground, hiding at different locations in and outside the country.
• May 13, 2010: The public security police of Cam Le County initiated prosecution of six detainees: Nguyen Huu Liem (M, born 1963), Phan Thi Nhan (F, 1965), Nguyen Thi The (F, 1960), Doan Cang (M, 1965), Le Thanh Lam (M, 1979), and Tran Thanh Viet (M, 1971) on charges of “opposing law enforcement” and “disturbing public order.” They may also be charged of contacting reactionary forces overseas to oppose the government, a capital crime. Family members may deliver food once a week, on Saturday, but are not allowed a visit. They fear that the detainees have suffered serious injuries and the police therefore do not want any witness.
• There was no news about the seventh detainee: Nguyen Thi Lieu (F). She was severely tortured. She was initially kept with the other six detainees but was then moved to a separate cell. Her whereabouts is unknown and she is not listed among those to be prosecuted.
• The police are still searching for the parishioners suspected of actively opposing the relocation order and leaking the information to the media. On May 27, 2010, the public security police arrested Mr. Nguyen Huu Minh, the Vice Chairman of Con Dau Parish Committee, and issued a search warrant of Nguyen Huu Vinh, a member of the Parish Committee. Their brother, Nguyen Huu Liem, is among the six detainees facing police prosecution.
• The government has recently ordered the people of Con Dau to stop planting crops on their rice fields. The water supply to the rice fields has been cut off. The parish cemetery entrance is locked and parishioners are not allowed to come and pray at the chapel there. Every family in Con Dau is ordered to prepare to relocate their relatives’ tombs to another location 30 miles away.  Every household in Con Dau is forced to sign the agreement for the government to come and assess their property value starting June 1, 2010. The next steps are reportedly to fill the rice fields, bulldoze the houses and force everybody at Con Dau to move out.

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