Thayer Consultancy Background Briefing:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

Vietnam: Dong Tam Village
Dispute Revisited
Carlyle A. Thayer
January 22, 2018

We request your assessment about a current land dispute in Vietnam.

Q1. The incidence of land disputes that pit farmers against powerful commercial,
developmental and/or military interests appears to have increased in recent years.
How serious is this problem for Vietnam’s leadership?
ANSWER: In May 1997 there was a major prolonged land dispute between peasants
and local authorities in Thai Binh province. The events in Dong Tam today paralle; what
occurred in Thai Binh but on a lesser scale. Vietnamese party officials responded to
the events in Thai Binh by punishing a few of the protest leaders and reprimanding
local government officials at the same time. More significantly central government
officials promoted a campaign of grass roots democracy to bring peasants and
authorities together in a dialogue to manage land disputes. The grassroots democracy
initiative was extended to all of Vietnam’s provinces. The impact of the campaign to
promote grass roots democracy is still being debated to this very day.
Local land disputes are viewed as a serious matter by authorities in Hanoi because
they can easily escalate to violence, they expose shortcomings such as collusion of
local authorities with outside commercial interests, and have the potential to
undermine the legitimacy of the Vietnam Communist Party.
Q2. How significant is the Dong Tam hostage incident last April?
ANSWER: The Dong Tam land dispute in 2017 was significant because hundreds of
peasants were involved in protests that turned violent and led to hostage taking of
nearly forty officials. This incident involved local officials, Hanoi municipal authorities,
and the military at central level.
Q3. What’s your assessment of how authorities handled the crisis?
ANSWER: The root cause of this crisis lies in a series of decisions made by the central
government and the Ministry of National Defence since 1980 to order the transfer of
nearly 210 hectares of land from My Duc district to the military. Farmers in Dong Tam
village were ordered to transfer 47 ha.
In 2007, the military returned 47 ha. to Dong Tam but the land was never returned to
its original owners. Eight years later, the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army
issued an order for the transfer 50 ha. of land to Viettel, a military-owned
telecommunications general corporation, for military purposes.
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The situation became inflamed when the My Duc District People’s Committee
permitted several farmers to build on and sell access rights to disputed land. The
District People’s Committee justified their decision by arguing that the farmers with
access to the disputed land were operating as agents of the military. The original
owners argued that the famers building on the land had encroached on land returned
to Dong Tam village in 2007.
It was in this context that in 2016 farmers in Dong Tam village began a series of
protests even holding a demonstration in front of government offices in Hanoi. The
peasants then began to refuse entry into the area by district authorities and officials
from the Ministry of National Defence.
In February 2017, when representatives of Viettel moved in and began demarcating
land for their use, local peasants moved into the area, tore down signs declaring the
area a military zone, and began preparing the land for agricultural use. There were
mass protests the following month that witnessed clashes between the farmers and
security forces. In April, the Hanoi Municipal Police then charged and arrested some
of the demonstrators. This provoked a riot by hundreds of peasants who seized and
held hostage about forty local officials and began to build barricades.
At this point various attempts were made to diffuse the situation, on 17th April there
was an exchange of hostages for prisoners. An official from Hanoi Municipal People’s
Committee spoke on the telephone with leaders of the land rights protest and
arranged for the committee’s chairman to visit Dong Tam. In an effort to calm the
situation further, the Hanoi Municipal People’s Procuracy declared that the decision
to charge and arrest four villagers in April was invalid.
On 20th April, two deputies from the National Assembly accompanied representatives
from the central government went to My Duc District offices for a public meeting.
They were met by a delegation from Dong Tam who insisted that the central
authorities meet the chairman of Dong Tam village. The day after this meeting the
Dong Tam villagers release a local cadre and submitted a written petition and a
conciliatory letter to the Hanoi Municipal Committee.
These events led to face to face meeting between the Chairman of the Hanoi
Municipal People’s Committee and Dong Tam farmers. After the meeting the Hanoi
chairman issued a written statement saying he would not prosecute any of the
demonstrators on criminal charges. The Hanoi chairman also ordered his subordinates
to review the history of this land dispute and announce its findings within forty-five
days. The villagers freed all remaining hostages.
Central intervention was decisive in resolving this crisis. During the crisis Tran Dai
Quang, the state president, remarked in public, “if the local government had listened
to the people, there would be no Dong Tam incident.” Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan
Phuc offered his opinion that “in Dong Tam disturbance the local government was
wrong and did not follow correctly the law.”

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vietnam: Dong Tam Village Dispute Revisited,”
Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, January 22, 2018. All background briefs are
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