Vietnam: bomb attack kills local police chief, daughter
HANOI - A bomb attack in central Vietnam killed a local police chief and
his five-year-old daughter and seriously wounded his two older
children, police said Saturday.
Investigators are still puzzled as to the motives of Wednesday's
bombing in a coastal district of Ha Tinh province, a police
spokesman
told AFP.
Hoang Dinh Ky was chief of police for the Ky Hoa commune and also
deputy head of its governing people's committee.
The bomb, which was left in a sealed bag in the courtyard of the
family home, killed him and his young daughter instantly. His
16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter remain in hospital with
serious injuries.
The coastal Hoanh Son mountain range in Ky Anh district has
attracted
considerable interest from illegal loggers and police say local
timber
interests are one of their leading lines of inquiry.
Mounting violence by illegal loggers in recent years has sparked
growing official concern.
A total of 12 forest wardens have been killed and 490 injured in
attacks by loggers over the past five years, the Saigon Giai Phong
daily reported last month.
In September the head of the agriculture ministry's forestry
inspection division, Pham Quoc Vang, told AFP that 26 rangers had
been
wounded in 20 separate attacks so far this year.
Loggers have used knives, guns and even explosives to attack rangers
as a sharp reduction in legal fellings has made illegal logging more
profitable, he said.
Authorised timber extraction has been slashed from 1.5 million cubic
metres to 900,000 since 1996.
The agriculture ministry is so concerned about the mounting violence
that it has drawn up draft legislation establishing a new forestry
police which is expected to be submitted to parliament in the New
Year.
Agence France Presse - November 4, 2000.
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