Vietnam arrests scores of hill tribe members for attempting new protest
HANOI - Vietnam has arrested scores of ethnic minority villagers to
thwart
an anti-government protest allegedly planned in the Central Highlands,
scene
of mass demonstrations last year, an official said Friday.
The people belonged to the Ede ethnic group and were arrested Aug. 31,
ahead
of a protest they planned to hold Sept. 2, which is communist Vietnam's
National Day, the official in Mdrak district of Daklak province said.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the protest did
not
take place. He didn't know how big it was planned to be. He could not
give
an exact figure for the number of people arrested.
Vietnam's state-controlled media have not reported the arrests.
In February last year, thousands of minority hill tribe villagers
protested
in the capitals of Gia Lai and Daklak provinces over land grievances and
government restrictions on their Protestant faith.
The government quickly sent in army and police units to quell the
unrest,
which was unprecedented.
Thousands of ethnic minority people fled to neighboring Cambodia to
escape a
subsequent government crackdown. Several hundred have since been granted
asylum in the United States.
The official said that suspects arrested last week had encouraged
villagers
to stockpile food and buy masks before the recent planned protest.
The organizers were probably former members of the banned United Front
for
the Liberation of Oppressed Races, or FULRO, and were linked to an
anti-communist exile group in the United States, he said.
FULRO was formed in 1964 by ethnic minority members to fight for their
ancestral lands and maintain their traditional lifestyles in Vietnam's
Central Highlands. It later sided with American troops against communist
forces during the Vietnam War.
The government blamed last year's protests on a group of overseas
anti-communist hill tribe members, but acknowledged high poverty levels
among minority groups in the Central Highlands.
Courts in Gia Lai and Daklak sentenced 14 hill tribe people to jail
sentences of up to 12 years on charges of inciting the unrest.
The government has sent hundreds of provincial officials to take over
the
leadership of "hot spot" villages since last year's protests.
The Associated Press - September 6, 2002
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