Vietnamese villagers release 19 officials held hostage

HANOI, Vietnam — Villagers near Vietnam’s capital on Saturday released 19 officials they had held hostage for about a week, ending a rare standoff that underscored tensions over land rights in this Communist country.

Thirty-eight police and security officials were captured last weekend in Dong Tam village, 25 miles south of the capital, Hanoi, in the dispute, activists said. The state news media said that 16 of the hostages were later released and that three had escaped.

The remaining 19 were released after a meeting between the villagers and Hanoi’s top local official, Nguyen Duc Chung, the staterun newspaper Tuoi Tre said in an online report. Photos circulating on social media and the websites of state-run newspapers appeared to show hundreds of villagers.

State media reports said the disputed 145 acres were originally earmarked for a military airport that was never built. The land was transferred in 2015 to Viettel, a militarybacked telecommunications company, for a defense-related project, the reports said.

But Tran Cuong, 40, a Dong Tam resident, said by telephone on Saturday that the authorities had allowed 14 local families to build houses on the land after the airport project was canceled, and that the exact ownership of the land was still unclear.

“If it really is the military’s land, they need to show us some kind of paperwork,” Cuong said.

On Saturday in Dong Tam, Chung, the Hanoi official, promised the villagers that authorities would investigate the dispute and solve it within 45 days, according to Cuong.

“We’re happy that our voices were heard,” Cuong said. “It’s been a frustrating few days, but now the problem will be solved in a positive way.”

Experts and activists have said that villagers would almost certainly be punished for taking the officials hostage. But on Saturday, according to the Tuoi Tre report, Chung said they would not be prosecuted.

Vietnam allows its citizens to own land on a quasiprivate basis, but at the same time, all land is technically state property. Villagers are often evicted from farmland to make way for industrial or residential projects linked to state-affiliated companies.