Boy killed at Vietnam refinery protest

by Ian Timberlake Ian Timberlake – Wed May 26, 2010

HANOI (AFP) – A boy was killed and a man left in critical condition when
violence broke out during a protest at the site of a planned oil refinery
in northern Vietnam, residents and hospital officials said Wednesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday more than 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of
Hanoi on land designated for the Nghi Son oil refinery.

Land disputes and complaints that residents have been cheated out of
compensation have become the most common cause of protests in Vietnam, a
mainly rural country that is rapidly industrialising.

In the latest incident, women, children and the elderly had been among
those demonstrating peacefully for three days to protest "unfair"
compensation they had received for their land, a 68-year-old retired
government worker said.

He blamed police for the death in Tuesday's clashes, explaining that he
had covered the boy's face with a cloth as residents carried the body
home.

"I could not say whether he was shot or beaten to death. But I can confirm
that he was killed during a clash, and he was killed because of the
police," said the retired government worker, who declined to be named.

A groundbreaking ceremony occurred two years ago for the
6.2-billion-dollar refinery, a joint venture between state-owned Vietnam
Oil and Gas Corp (PetroVietnam), Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co and Mitsui
Chemicals Inc, and Kuwait Petroleum International.

The refinery, the country's second, was due to be operational by 2013,
officials said at the time, although it was not clear how far construction
had got.

On Tuesday evening angry residents descended on the home of the local
government's chairman, causing damage inside the house and burning two
motorcycles, the 68-year-old said.

Local government officials were not immediately available for comment.
District police confirmed that an incident had occurred Tuesday but gave
no details. "This case is under investigation," an officer said.

A 60-year-old woman cited witnesses from her family as saying that a
policeman had shot the child in the stomach, wounded a woman's hand and
shot a man in the head. The boy was reportedly 12 years old.

The wounded man was in critical condition, according to an administrator
at the main hospital in the northern province of Thanh Hoa.

The Dan Tri online news site quoted the province's head of public
security, Dong Dai Loc, as saying one person had died and two were wounded
in the clashes.

The 68-year-old retired government worker said: "They did not do anything
wrong. They remained calm, while there had always been hundreds of police,
uniformed and plainclothes, watching them."

The bee.net.vn online news site printed what it said was a police
statement about the incident. It said some people threw bricks and stones
at police, who fired a warning before "extremists" tried to take the
police gun. The statement did not clarify who fired the fatal shot.

The retired government worker said things were quiet on Wednesday after
local officials went into hiding but tensions could flare again "if the
authorities do not deal with the situation properly".