The Global Land Grab

Retaliation: Peter Doan Van Vuon's wife examines the rubble of their demolished home.

In Vietnam, Peter Doan Van Vuon, a farmer who foughtback when police came to confiscate his farm, is widely regarded as a hero.His neighbors have actually considered building a statue in his honor. In theUnited States, he would almost certainly be dead. 

 

The strike team that assaulted Vuon’s 40-hectare fish farmin Hai Phong on January 5 did demolish the family’s modest two-story home,forcing them to live in a makeshift shelter fashioned from a tarp. On previousperformance it’s reasonable to say that their counterparts in the employ of theRegime in Washington would have made sure to incinerate the family as well.

 

The raiders – roughly 100 police and soldiers -- didn’texpect resistance when they arrived to evict the 49-year-old Vuon and hisfamily and seize the property. Vuon’s wife, Ngyuen, had just returned from droppingoff the kids at school when the strike team arrived. Rather than submittingmeekly to the invaders, the Vuon family fought back, using improvised pelletguns and land mines. Nobody was killed or seriously injured, but the armoredassailants – six of whom suffered trivial wounds – were forced to retreat.

 

In the United States, Vuon -- assuming that he survived the fire-bombing that appearsto be the Regime’s preferred tactical endgame in standoffs of this kind -- would have been execrated as a would-be "cop killer." Although he and several relatives were arrested, thestate-run media in Communist Vietnam “have openly sympathized with him ininvestigative reports,” notes the AP. “Their dispatches have alleged that HaiPhong officials lied about details of the eviction. They also have said thefamily was cheated in 1993 when they were given a lease of only 14 yearsinstead of what should have been 20 years.”

 

More remarkable still is the fact that Prime Minister NguyenTan Dung intervened to investigate the matter. After the inquiry concluded that local authorities broke the law by attempting toconfiscate Vuon’s land, he ordered that the officials responsible for thedestruction of the family’s home be suspended and investigated for possiblecriminal prosecution. 

 

In Vietnam, the government claims ownership of all landwhile issuing long-term land grants to farmers. In 1993, Vuon used his lifesavings to buy and reclaim a small tract of swampland, eventually establishinga small but profitable fish farm.  

 

In 2009, the Hai Phong citygovernment suddenly “discovered” that Vuon’s land grant had expired and announcedits intention to confiscate the property without compensation in order to sellit to land developers. When Vuon filed a lawsuit against the seizure, the courtpromised to let them keep the land if he dropped the case. This was a ruse:After Vuon dropped the suit, the city government initiated seizure proceedings.Deprived of any legal means to protect their property, Vuon and his familybegan making preparations to defend their land by force. 

The Vuon family's new home.

From the perspective of their rulers, Vuon and his familywere engaged in a seditious conspiracy, particularly when it’s understood thatthey are not only capitalists but devout Catholics. 

At a time when Vietnam’seconomy is afflicted with the highest inflation rate in Asia and confrontationsbetween small farmers and government officials are increasingly common, Vuon’sarmed defiance is a spark that could ignite a widespread conflagration.However, rather than simply extinguishing Vuon outright, Communist government ofVietnam has actually examined his grievances on their merits. 

It is impossible to believe that any affiliate or subdivision of the U.S. Government would be so conciliatory. 

 

Similar developments are taking place in mainland China,which like Vietnam is ruled by a one-party State that is Marxist in itsprofessed ideology but corporatist in practice.

 

Gu Kul, who used to own and operate an automotive partsbusiness in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, has been victimized byChina’s predatory corporate elite. A few years ago, local urban planners,seeking to enhance their revenue stream, ordered the seizure of Gu’s 13-acrecommercial property. In short order, a fleet of bulldozers arrived, protectedby a small army of police and hired thugs. 

 

“I had to look on as bulldozers demolished my property,” Gurecounted to Der Spiegel. Notsatisfied with the trivial, paltry compensation for the destruction of aprofitable and growing business and the theft of his property, Gu filed a legalchallenge under recently enacted national legislation that supposedly limitsseizures by local governments. 

 

In short order, Gu found himself being constantly trailed byblack-clad mercenaries in blacked-out SUVs. Their intentions were astransparent as their mirrored sunglasses were opaque. While Gu has managed toavoid capture, more than a few others have been kidnapped, tortured, and killedfor objecting to the ongoing land grab – and the revolt is propagating itselfacross rural China.

 

Yang Youde used to own a thriving cotton farm in Yuhan. In2009, local commissars, coveting the fertile land and well-stocked troutstreams, announced their intention to seize the property. After Yang filed alegal petition to protest the planned confiscation, police descended on hishome and hauled him away to a “black jail” where he was beaten and tortured.“They strung me up by my hands and put out cigarettes on my skin,” he recalledin an interview with the Telegraph ofLondon.  

 

Yang survived his time in police custody; Xue Jingbo ofWukan, a fishing village of 10,000, wasn’t so fortunate. During late 2011, arevolt erupted in the village over land confiscation, and Xue was designated tonegotiate on behalf of the population. Instead of listening to the village’scomplaints, the local government ordered Xue’s arrest. While in police custody,Xue died very quickly of what officials insisted were “natural causes.” Hisbody was never returned to his family. 

 

Rather than mourning, the locals organized. Thousands ofprotesters gathered in the village square to demand an investigation of Xue’sdeath and an end to the corrupt practice of seizing land for the benefit ofpolitically connected corporate interests. Anticipating that the localgovernment would demand reinforcements, the population erected roadblocks andother barricades at the village entrances. Using cellphones and social media,protesters contacted the BBC and other international media sources seeking topublicize the village’s plight and Xue’s murder.

 

After news of the protests reached a global audience lastDecember, China’s Public Security Bureau – that nation’s equivalent of theAmerican FBI or Russian KGB – shut down media access to Wukan and closed offmost internet links to the village. 

The local government, alarmed by the extentand intensity of the protests, was actually forced to flee for two weeks. Upontheir return the city officials promised to halt the ongoing land grab andinvestigate allegations of official corruption – for whatever a promise ofthat kind may be worth. 

Unfortunately, rather than simply withdrawing their consent to be ruled, the people of Wukan agreed to a series of "democratic reforms," including the appointment of a protester as a local commissar. Their exemplary defiance may have a healthier impact that the useless concessions they received.

In early February, more than 5,000 people took to thestreets of East and West Pahne Villages in Zhejiang Province to protest landseizures by local officials. The villagers became aware of the seizures onlyafter construction began on some of the stolen land.

 

"Officials from the village sold land,” explainedlocal resident Lu Yeqin. “This land originally belonged to the villagers. Afterit was sold, the [villagers] were not given any money for it. The villagers areupset, and after all, this land was passed down through their family business.They rely on the land for their livelihood, but now it has been sold."

 

As happened in Wukan, local Communist Party officials tookflight, regrouping in secret locations to await instructions from Beijing. Manyvillage activists are likewise seeking intervention by the central governmentin the mistaken hope that this will protect them from the corruption of localfunctionaries. 

 

Tragically, they don’t understand that the land grabs are aresult of central government intervention: In the teeth of a catastrophiceconomic downturn, China’srulers – like their counterparts in Vietnam -- are frantically seizing land andadding to the commercial and residential real estate glut in the hope ofboosting the GDP. 

 

 

“A large portion of China’s estimated 100,000 or so publicprotests each year are driven by rage over compulsory evictions,” notes the Telegraph. This is the sort of thingthat would never happen in the United States, of course – except for the factthat it happens all the time. 

As the Wall StreetJournal has pointed out, Chinese subjects who refuse to surrender theirhomes to the land-grabbers “are known as `nail households,' since their homesare sometimes left stranded in the middle of busy construction sites. Moreoften, however, they are driven away by paid thugs."

That description summons memories of  NewLondon, Connecticut resident Lauren Canario, who was kidnapped by rentedthugs – that is, officers of the New London policedepartment -- for refusing to vacate property that had been stolen througheminent domain on behalf of a federally subsidized "public/private partnership"(that is, fascist entity) called the New London Development Corporation (NLDC).

Lauren was not a trespasser; she was visiting theproperty with the permission of its owner. However, the NDLC haddecided to steal the land and give it to the Pfizer Corporation,and this act of vulgar larceny received thebenediction of the Supreme Court. Lauren was arrested,imprisoned for months, and -- in a touch that would have earned theadmiration of Soviet or Chinese commissars -- repeatedly subjected topsychological evaluation.

The "nail households" were hammered down, the Pfizer plantwas quickly erected, and the expected kickbacks were delivered. Shortly thereafter theeconomy collapsed and Pfizer decided toshut down the facility and move its employees elsewhere, leaving behind arotting and useless building that had been constructed on stolen land.

This case is a mere snapshot of an ongoing national crime wave. Former real estate developer Don Corace writes in his recent book GovernmentPirates: The Assault on Private Property Rights and How We Can Fight It: "Arrogantand corrupt city and county officials -- with near limitless legal budgets ...continue to align themselves with well-heeled developers, political cronies,and major corporations to prey on the politically less powerful anddisenfranchised, particularly minority communities.”

Eminent domain "abuse" (a term that refers to the predictableexercise of an innately illegitimate power) is just one of many ways thatproperty can be blatantly stolen through political means: "Through localzoning and the regulation of wetlands and endangered species, governments takeproperty without compensating owners and also extort land and money inreturn for approvals." 

This is, of course, exactly the same racket being run bylocal commissars in the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. It isinteresting, and somewhat unsettling, that people to whomprivate property may be a relatively new and exotic concept seem to have abetter understanding of what is happening than do their counterparts here inthe putative Land of the Free – and that they display more intrepidity in fighting fortheir freedom than can be found here in the purported Home of the Brave.

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Dum Spiro, Pugno!