HANOI (AFP)--A plan to let a Chinese company build a bauxite
mine in Vietnam has triggered rare public outcry from critics, who
say the environmental and social damage would far outweigh any
economic benefit.
Some even fear the plan, agreed to by leaders of the two
communist countries without broader dialogue, could ultimately mean
the de facto seizure by Beijing of a strategic region of
Vietnam.
Vietnam's government estimates the country's bauxite reserves at
5.5 billion tons - a major draw for the world's mining giants.
In 2007 it approved a plan for two major mining operations to be
run by state-owned Vietnam National Coal, or Vinacomin, and Mineral
Industries Group in the Central Highlands.
A subsidiary of Aluminum Corp. of China, or Chinalco, has been
granted a contract to build one mine, while the U.S. aluminum
company Alcoa Inc. (AA) has partnered with Vinacomin to explore the
feasibility of a second.
But in a country that bitterly recalls 1,000 years of Chinese
occupation - and more recently a brief 1979 border war - any
presence of Vietnam's big neighbor on its territory is perceived by
some as a menace.
Nguyen Ngoc, a writer whose work focuses on the Central
Highlands and its people, said there was a longer-term risk of
seeing the region come under strong Chinese influence.
"The Central Highlands constitute a strategic position for all
of the south of Indochina," said Ngoc, who alleges Chinese
companies are already exploiting bauxite across the border in
Laos.
"They say that who is master of the Central Highlands is master
of southern Indochina."
While the bauxite project presents "financial, ecological and
social problems," he said the most important question was that of
security and independence.
In a one-party state where public protest is rare, scientists,
intellectuals and former soldiers have joined critics of the regime
to denounce the government's plans.
"China has been notorious in the modern world as a country
causing the biggest pollution as well as other problems," 135
Vietnamese intellectuals said in a petition criticizing the mining
plan and delivered Friday to the National Assembly, or
parliament.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has said the bauxite
mining industry would help spur socio-economic development in the
Central Highlands, the state Vietnam News Agency reported.
The government estimates the projects would require total
investment of more than $10 billion and would, by 2025, annually
produce between 13 million and 18 million tons of alumina, a
partially-processed product of bauxite.
However, critics say the mines would bring only limited
financial benefit to Vietnam, which plans to export most of the
alumina.
The plan's most prominent opponent is Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, 97,
who led Vietnam's victory over French colonial forces.
In open letters to the government, he warned of the danger to
the environment, to the lives of ethnic minorities, and to
Vietnam's "security and defense."
The Ho Chi Minh City War Veterans' Association has expressed
similar views, and economics professor Nguyen Quang Thai said in a
recent report to the government that Giap's warning should be
respected.
"We should not allow foreign laborers" into the area," Thai
wrote, without naming China.
Exploitation of natural resources - notably for coffee
production - has already provoked violent clashes in the Central
Highlands, home to the ethnic minority Christian Montagnards, who
have battled land confiscation and religious persecution.
Dissident monk Thich Quang Do, head of the banned Unified
Buddhist Church of Vietnam, has urged people to denounce the
"destructive effects" of the planned mine on indigenous people.
A permanent Chinese presence in the Central Highlands would pose
"an alarming threat" to national security, he said.
If the bauxite projects are carried out, scientists fear massive
destruction of the fertile soil where forests, coffee and tea
grow.
They also worry about water pollution, and say the local
population - some of whom received or will receive compensation -
risk loss of land and aren't qualified to work in the
facilities.
Writer Ngoc said there could be "new revolts" by the region's
ethnic minorities.
Experts estimate thousands of Chinese would arrive for the
bauxite projects, and say several hundred are already in Lam Dong
province, where the ground is being cleared.
"For countries like Vietnam...exploiting natural resources for
development is necessary," said geologist Dang Trung Thuan.
"Exploitation is obvious, but to what extent?"