Hanoi's path to property crosses Catholics
By Andrew Symon
Are hardliners in Vietnam's Communist Party-led government now calling the
tune? That is one interpretation for the recent crackdown on large-scale
demonstrations led by Vietnamese Catholics who have demanded a return of former
church property nationalized in Hanoi when the communists first took power over
50 years ago.
Religious protesters have been beaten, arrested and harassed, according to a
variety of news agency reports. The US-based rights group Human Rights Watch
has described it as the harshest crackdown on Vietnam's Catholics in decades.
Catholic organizations outside of the country have joined the criticism,
although the Vatican has not yet commented publicly.
The crackdown is in marked contrast to the authorities' tolerant
and restrained approach towards similar vigils held in December and January by
Catholic parishioners seeking the return of disputed properties, including the
site of the former Vatican diplomatic mission near the St Joseph's Cathedral in
Hanoi's city center and the nearby Thai Ha church and monastery.
Earlier vigils came to a peaceful end when the Vatican in Rome urged Vietnam's
Catholics to avoid provoking confrontation, while government authorities
promised to discuss the return of the properties. But tensions have mounted
between hardliners and moderates inside Vietnam's leadership, particularly over
how to handle rising inflationary pressures in the economy and the overall
economic reform direction.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, viewed widely as a moderate, has led Vietnam's
rapid economic reform drive and has responded to various foreign investor calls
to move towards a more rules-based economic system, including over property
rights. Dung has recently come under conservative criticism for moving too
quickly and a hardline camp has played on his previous softly-softly approach
in handling earlier Catholic protests as evidence he is both soft on security
and over-eager to bow to foreign demands.
Now, the government's newly adopted hardline approach is stoking instability. A
new round of Catholic protests began in August, beginning with 100 or less
devotees taking part in prayer vigils, in response to the failure of any
advance in the discussions with the local government authorities over the
contested holy sites. In late August, police arrested at least eight peaceful
demonstrators on the grounds of the Thai Ha Church of the Redemptorist
monastery, which was founded in the 18th century to assist the urban poor. News
reports said that police beat parishioners with electric batons to disperse a a
subsequent vigil calling for the release of those detained.
On September 19, in a clear statement of the government's hardening position,
construction workers backed by hundreds of police officers and clearance crews
bulldozed the former nunciature's perimeter walls and old gardens - but left
the colonial residence of the former delegate of the pope - to make way for a
park and public library.
An Associated Press reporter was beaten by police after being arrested for
taking photos of the building work and his camera was confiscated.
Local Hanoi authorities have also declared their intention to turn the greater
17,000-square-meter Thai Ha Redemptorist property into a public park and have
offered the Church the use of three alternative properties for religious
purposes. The offers have been declined, however. By September 21, as many as
10,000 devotees stood off against the authorities.
That same evening hundreds of men, some in Communist Youth uniforms, according
to reports, attacked Thai Ha Church, harassing and even spitting on priests and
their parishioners. Police reportedly watched idly as the mob harassed
parishioners, destroyed an iron cross erected in the nunciature's garden and
removed a sacred statue of the Pieta.
On the same day, more than 5,000 Catholics gathered for a prayer vigil in
southern Ho Chi Minh City to show their support for the parishioners in
northern Hanoi.
Four days later, state-owned buses delivered a pro-government mob that attacked
Catholic demonstrators at the site of the nunciature and denounced Hanoi's
Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet. Kiet, who has publicly defended the rights of
the Catholic protesters and visited the families of arrested parishioners, now
faces government restrictions on his movements. Other clerics and parishioners
have been summoned for interrogations.
Atheist propaganda
In the state-controlled media allegations have been made that Kiet "has
committed illegal and unpatriotic acts" by inciting the protests and
represented a threat "to public safety and national unity". Underscoring the
government's harder line, authorities have apparently taken extreme propaganda
measures by publishing criticisms of Kiet in children's magazines. The current
issue of Thieu Nien Tien Phong (Pioneer Children) magazine, produced for
primary school children, includes an article by a Catholic primary student who
writes that she lost her Catholic belief due to Kiet's words and behavior.
Kiet has in response criticized the Vietnamese government's monopoly control
over the country's mass media. "The reason why you don't see or hear the
opinions of the Office of the Archbishop in the mass media is that such means
of communication belongs to the government, and that we don't have any right to
use it to express our viewpoints," Kiet was reported saying in
religious-oriented publications.
After the Hanoi People's Committee, a governmental authority answerable to the
Communist Party, recommended punishing Kiet and four other priests for inciting
riots and disrespecting the nation, among other charges, the Vietnam Conference
of Bishops issued public statements in defense of the clergymen and raised
concerns about religious freedom and the right to property.
For their part, government officials have repeatedly claimed that the Church
gave them the land decades ago, but Catholics dispute that claim. Supporters of
the government's policy, writing in the local state-controlled press, point out
that the nunciature's land was before the Church's construction occupied by the
Bao Thien pagoda. The shrine was destroyed in 1886 by "French imperialists" to
build a church, seminary and building for the Vatican's representative to
Vietnam, the commentators wrote.
After the end of French rule in 1954, the Government of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, took over management of the
land. Under Vietnamese law, there is no privately held property and land is
managed by the state for all of the people. The state may decide to allocate
land for different uses, including for religions such as the Catholic Church.
Premier Dung was reported in the state-run Vietnamese News Agency in early
October saying that the Catholic protesters and Archbishop Kiet had overstepped
the mark and were often acting illegally. At a meeting with the Vietnam
Episcopal Council after the conclusion of its second annual conference, Dung
said that Vietnam's constitution and current laws state clearly that land
belongs to the people under the unified management of the state.
He also said that the allocation of land to any organization for religious
purposes had to be performed in line with the law and cited a number of
localities, including Ho Chi Minh City, which has allocated land to the
municipal bishopric to build a center serving its activities, where this policy
has been successfully implemented.
Others included the central highlands province of Dac Lac, where more than
11,000 square meters of land were handed over to the Buon Ma Thuot bishopric,
the central city of Danang's allotment of 9,000 square meters of land to the
Danang bishopric, and the central province of Quang Tri's allocation of over 15
hectares of land to the La Vang parish.
Dung said Kiet had demonstrated a lack of respect and cooperation with the
Hanoi administration and that his words "challenged the state, hurt the nation,
and disregarded the country's position and the status of Vietnamese citizens in
their interrelation with the world".
"If those activities do not come to an end, they will have an adverse impact on
the good ties between the State and the Church and the relationship between
Vietnam and the Vatican, which has been progressing positively," Dung said.
He also said the government was willing to have dialogue with the Catholics and
not use force to settle the issues over the two properties. In the subtext,
Dung's remarks spoke to the still-unreformed nature of property ownership in
Vietnam's otherwise fast transformation from a communist to market-based
economy.
There are reports that land grievances are escalating throughout the country
and it is thought that conservatives in the Communist Party leadership believe
that if the Catholics are successful in challenging the state's control over
their property, it could unleash an unmanageable spate of similar demands
across the country.
It's still unclear what the recent crackdown on Catholics means for the
country's overall economic reform direction. What seems clearer is that Dung
has acquiesced to conservative demands to take a tougher position exerting the
state's command over land ownership and in the process raises disturbing new
fears of a wider crackdown on dissent and religion.
Andrew Symon is a Singapore-based writer and a frequent visitor to
Vietnam. He can be reached on andrew.symon@yahoo.com.sg
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