Peasent Uprising in Vietnam

[madd0ct0r]

This time up North, embarrasingly close to Hanoi.

Usual deal - land being confiscated from farmers to build a big resort (called Ecopark, amusingly)

Pertinent details:

the land is not classified as good farming land, which is why the locals are using it for shrimp ponds. Thus the compensation money offered is about 50 times below market value.

the law the government is using to do this is purely for reclaiming land for national defense.

the owner / cheif investor of the resort would be one of the major banks who is currently headed by the Prime Minister's 24 yr old daughter

about a thousand strong protest.
so they sent the military in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OOK-a1C ... =autoshare

[Sea Skimmer]

Does Vietnam even have riot police, or is basically a matter of you have regular cops in small numbers, or the only other option ins the army?

[PoisonSymic]

This time up North, embarrasingly close to Hanoi.

Usual deal - land being confiscated from farmers to build a big resort (called Ecopark, amusingly)

Pertinent details:

the land is not classified as good farming land, which is why the locals are using it for shrimp ponds. Thus the compensation money offered is about 50 times below market value.

the law the government is using to do this is purely for reclaiming land for national defense.

the owner / cheif investor of the resort would be one of the major banks who is currently headed by the Prime Minister's 24 yr old daughter

about a thousand strong protest.
so they sent the military in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OOK-a1C ... =autoshare

You're leaving out the very important detail that there is no actual private land ownership in Vietnam. Individuals own improvements they make to the land, but the land rights are transferable leases rather than ownership.

[mr friendly guy]

Any links to it, rather than just a youtube video.

[madd0ct0r]

This time up North, embarrasingly close to Hanoi.

Usual deal - land being confiscated from farmers to build a big resort (called Ecopark, amusingly)

Pertinent details:

the land is not classified as good farming land, which is why the locals are using it for shrimp ponds. Thus the compensation money offered is about 50 times below market value.

the law the government is using to do this is purely for reclaiming land for national defense.

the owner / cheif investor of the resort would be one of the major banks who is currently headed by the Prime Minister's 24 yr old daughter

about a thousand strong protest.
so they sent the military in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OOK-a1C ... =autoshare

You're leaving out the very important detail that there is no actual private land ownership in Vietnam. Individuals own improvements they make to the land, but the land rights are transferable leases rather than ownership.

see the 2nd pertient detail - the land rights ARE currently leased to the villagers, and there's no legal basis for the gov to reclaim them early, outside of national defense.

@mr friendly guy :non-youtube links:
ummm - forgien journalists are banned from the area. lonely planet has this: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs ... tId=357846

that link leads to this English language blog: http://fisheggtree.blogspot.com/

@seaskimmer: in all fairness, i was mildly impressed by the methods used there. It could have been much worse.

There's quite a few types of cops out here so I'll name the ones I know:
Standard: light green uniform.
Traffic: tan uniform
Special Circumstances: black uniform - Not really sure what these guys do, but everyone including the other police are nervous around them.
Army: dark green uniform.

(army aren't actually police, but because of conscription there's huge numbers of grunt level guys hanging around in major population areas. They tend to get deployed for stuff like holding the line and supplementing firepower.)

Any and all can carry weaponry from a club up to an AK47 or rifle. not exactly sure on the allocation procedures.

At least some of the Fire engines here are the same model as UK water cannon vans, just painted red. they're quite effective in the fire service. never seen or heard of them used on crowds.