In Hanoi, a rare and cautious protest against house demolitions

Between silent vigils, carefully worded banners and t-shirts imploring that certain neighborhoods be spared, the residents of Hanoi are expressing a rare public opposition, in communist Vietnam, to a vast redevelopment project likely to displace hundreds of thousands of people.

Authorities in the capital are demolishing thousands of homes to make way for bridges and other infrastructure projects planned under a 100-year master plan approved last month.

An area of 110 km³ along the Red River -- roughly the size of Paris -- is slated to accommodate parks and luxury buildings, forcing approximately 250.000 people to be relocated.

Protests are rare in Vietnam, where the communist authorities have little tolerance for dissent. But private grievances against the planned demolitions have given way to cautious public opposition.

"We live in fear, not knowing when we will be evicted. We want our voice to be heard," says Hoa, who has invested all her savings in a two-story house surrounded by fruit trees.

Like hundreds of residents in the affected area, she is participating in a Buddhist temple in one of the vigils organized anonymously in recent weeks via social media to pray for peace, a roundabout way of asking that their homes be spared.

"It's unfair"

The area is home to dozens of vibrant communities, some dating back centuries, with bustling markets, verdant gardens and traditional cemeteries.

French-style villas are to be demolished, as well as modest "tube houses" typical of Hanoi.

Duke and several of his neighbors had hung a banner on a balcony of their small four-story building.

"We urge local authorities to take into account the residents' desire to maintain existing communities," it read.

The wording was deliberately cautious according to him, "avoiding strong words like +protest+ or +against+", but the municipality asked them to remove it.

Dozens of similar banners quickly disappeared from other houses, and Duc is waiting to see how the situation develops before attempting any further action.

"It's unfair and a lot of money wasted," he said of the project. "We really don't want to move."

Private public partnership

Wearing matching red and yellow t-shirts, a dozen women walk along the shores of Hanoi's West Lake. Officially, they are there to exercise, but their shirts carry a message on their backs calling for the preservation of the "existing residential area".

The authorities have promised to compensate expropriated residents and announced the construction of 85.000 new homes to relocate them to the outskirts of the capital.

"The new living conditions will be equal to or better than the old ones," they assert.

But many residents already displaced as part of Hanoi's urban renewal complain of having been compensated at below-market rates.

Others question the time required to build the new housing and denounce the fact that private companies will benefit from the high-end apartments replacing their homes.

A consortium of three real estate developers is leading the $30 billion mega-project as part of a public-private partnership.

The residents are clearly expressing "their disagreement and resentment over the loss of their land and homes," points out Tuong Vu, a Vietnam specialist at the University of Oregon.

Paying better compensation could have appeased some of the protest, he notes, "but it would mean little profit for the developers."