Officials in Hanoi’s Phu Dien Commune, who have engaged in a long-term conflict with local residents, recently took coercive measures to remove local house numbers, compounding an already in force electricity supply ban.

People in Residential Area No. 2 shocked by local police actions

House numbering removed

On October 15, a group of local police in Phu Dien Commune used sticks and canes to remove house numbering on 100 houses in Residential Area No. 2 without any advance notice or explanation. The incident has triggered massive objections among local residents.

According to locals, the work was carried out by plain-clothed and police uniformed individuals.

“For around 20 minutes, they destroyed and removed all 100 house number plates, gathered the debris in their truck and went away,” an anonymous local resident shared.

Nguyen Thi Nhan, a local resident in the area, said, “I asked them why they were removing our house number plates which have been there for 20 years. They said that the numbers must be removed and it wouldn’t matter if they had been there for 40 years, as they’d been told to carry out the action at the behest of communal leaders.”

Tran Tho, head of the Residential Area No. 2, said the communal government granted them the right to use house numbers in what was previously an unofficially settled area in 1989.

Commune’s Chairman Phi Le Binh who ordered the police to remove the numbers said, “Local police were wrong when they did that. I told them to give local residents advanced notice before taking any action but they did not follow my instruction.” However it still remains unclear what point the Chairman was trying to make by ordering the police to remove the numbers in the first place.

Vu Duc Ngoc, Secretary of the communal Party Commitee admitted the situation had got out of hand, saying that local police were too hasty in removing the plates.

On October 15, Chairman Binh sent an official dispatch to communal police to request them to remove house number plates of some families who had changed them without any approval from local government. Binh required the job to be done by October 21.

Chief of the communal police Bui Van Thanh, denied their action had been disproportionate saying, “We were persuading local residents to remove their house number plates by themselves and we just gathered them and took them away.”

However, based on photos taken by local residents, it is clear the police applied coercive method without any agreement from locals.

Lawyers have said that the police action was an infringement on the rights of local people and an abuse of their property, and that the residents had the right to lodge an petition against the communal government to claim compensation.

In 2010, some households in the areas were compelled to relocate to other places to provide land for the expansion of National Highway No. 32.

According to investigations carried out by DTiNews, after the initial site clearance for the highway project, the remaining households in the area continued their lives, business and actively participated in local activities in order to fulfil their civil obligations. Some families with obscured or old house number plates and those who rebuilt their houses changed their door plates by new ones.

Power supply ban

To add insult to injury, nearly 100 households in the residential area have been barred from electricity supply for over a year.

Tran Tho, head of residential area No. 2 in Phu Dien Commune of Tu Liem District, said nearly 100 families in the area consisting of over 400 people have been living without any power since July 2010.

Despite the residential area being constructed in1989, the communal government and Tu Liem District Power Company have refused to supply electricity for the area due to a lack of infrastructure.

With no other choice, local people in 1990 raised funds to build a power transmission line and signed a contract with the Truong Thanh Company, a military power firm, to access electricity but at prices triple to quadruple the national rate.

Truong Thanh Company has supplied electricity for the area for over 20 years but the supply was interrupted last July due to a highway project.

In early 2010, the Government decided to claim back land held by several households in the residential area to facilitate the expansion of National Highway No. 32.

Selected families were compelled to move despite having yet to receive compensation and resettlement support. Phu Dien Commune used the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Hanoi to justify the quick site clearance.

The remaining households again raised funds to build a new power transmission line as they had received no support from the communal government.

Despite providing no support to these families, in late June, the communal government once again blocked local residents from power supply by asking Tu Liem District Power Company and Truong Thanh Company to halt power supplies.

Since then, local residents in the area have been struggling to maintain their lives without an official supply of electricity.

“Nearly 100 households in the area had to ask for help from residents in the surrounding areas to get access to electricity via seven “illegal” power transmission lines,” Bui Dang Huynh, a local resident said. He added that such kind of power supply was unsustainable due to low-quality transmission lines.

Some families try to offset the power shortages by buying electricity dynamos or batteries and electrically charged devices.

“The commune’s chairman said we encroached on land to build houses in the area. If our living here is illegal, why did the communal government allow the setup up of such a residential area for years? Why don’t they clear the area instead of imposing an electricity ban?” Tran Tho emphasised.

The commune’s embattled Chairman Phi Le Binh when questioned by the press over his decisions said local authorities would calculate which households had acquired their land illegally, but according to local residents, nothing had been done in year.

A night-watchman taking the remains of a house number plate away

Electric devices in the residential area have remained almost idle for over a year

Electric dynamos provide some help

Nearly 100 households have been compelled to access electricity via ‘illegal’ lines