From the story of the turtle...

(Baonghean)At the end of September 2011, Mr. Tran Dinh Quyet (Director of Tien Hau Company) bought 608 soft-shell turtles from Mr. Tran Dinh Toan (Dong Thap province) and gave them to driver Nguyen Minh Duc to transport to Hanoi for sale. When they arrived in Quang Binh province, they were temporarily detained by the provincial forest rangers. Then, the Chairman of the Quang Binh Provincial People's Committee issued a decision to administratively fine Mr. Quyet and the driver 500 million VND for illegally transporting forest products.

The owner of the product sued the Quang Binh Provincial Chairman for the decision to impose a fine, claiming that the soft-shell turtles purchased from Mr. Toan were aquatic animals raised on a farmer's farm. After citing all sorts of circulars and decisions, asking for opinions from several central specialized agencies, and verifying a pile of documents, the Quang Binh Court finally rejected the owner's complaint and ruled in favor of the Provincial Chairman.

Mr. Quyet continued to file a lawsuit with the Supreme People's Court. The story surrounding the turtle, which seemed very small, now became complicated.

The next incident was: When temporarily holding the goods of Tien Hau Company, Quang Binh Forest Rangers immediately sent a dispatch to Hanoi to ask. The General Department of Forestry replied that soft-shelled turtles are wild animals, and that transporting and consuming them without a license from the forest rangers is a violation of the law. To be more careful, Quang Binh Forest Rangers also opened the textbooks of the Forestry University to look up a very academic sentence: Soft-shelled turtles are animals originating from the forest. The owner of the goods refused, and asked for help from lawyers, scientists, and the General Department of Fisheries, who advised that soft-shelled turtles are aquatic products that have been encouraged to be raised for a quarter of a century and are normally traded, and are not rare animals, and do not require a certificate from the forest rangers when transporting them.

So the debate was fierce, no one would give in and in the end the owner lost the court in a choking indignation because up to now Tien Hau Company has transported thousands of trips with tens of thousands of soft-shell turtles to supply many large supermarkets nationwide and to the world as commercial products, without needing a certificate from the forest rangers and no province has imposed a fine like Quang Binh. It is not known how the Supreme Court will rule on this case. However, looking at what has happened, public opinion is truly not convinced by the way the authorities have acted.

From the turtles, thinking about other things also seems extremely complicated. Building hydroelectric power plants, the Ministry of Industry and Trade thinks it is necessary because our country is estimated to lack about 3 billion kWh each year. The Forestry Department says that 1MW of hydroelectric power destroys 16 hectares of forest, an unforeseeable disaster. The Transport Department is dizzy because deep-water ports and airports in the provinces are springing up like mushrooms. Investing a lot of money and then abandoning them, business is losing money, debt is still piling up. A state administration with conflicting policies, conflicting regulations, everyone doing their own thing, every sector is conservative that they are right and in the end all the misery is just dumped on the people. Such an administration cannot be the driving force for development.

On Sunday morning, I went to the block's cultural house and listened to some elders sitting around discussing current events. Suddenly, the block leader mentioned the gossipy turtles in Quang Binh. Suddenly, an elder loudly declared that the turtles were not at fault, but the current stagnant policy system was the real culprit.

It sounds good.

Khanh Linh