Vietnam district stable after ethnic clash
HANOI - Calm has returned to a coffee growing district of
Vietnam's central highlands after a violent clash between ethnic hilltribe people
and Vietnamese settlers last week, local officials said on Thursday.
Four officials were slightly injured, two of them police officers, when about 150
members of the Ede minority attacked Vietnamese settlers in Hamlet 8 of Daklak
province's Ea H'leo district on August 8, an official there said.
He said the attackers burnt some houses and destroyed about two hectares
(about five acres) of robusta coffee trees.
The situation has been stabilised now, the official said on Thursday when
news of the incident was first reported.
The district has set up a working group of agricultural officials and police
to stay permanently at Hamlet 8 to supervise the situation.
He said the hill farmers came from Dlei Yang commune, about 12 km
(eight miles) away, to protest about encroachment on their ancestral land
by ethnic Vietnamese who settled in the area after the 1975 communist
victory in the Vietnam War.
Local media reports said the hill farmers were armed with guns, grenades,
knives and sticks, but the official said there were no firearms.
They used sticks and other tools, but there was no rifles or grenades, he
said. We tried to stop the attackers but we could not stop them properly.
He said the authorities were now rechecking details of the land ownership.
If we find any violation, the land should be returned to the owner.
The official said provincial and district police were investigating the
incident but no charges had yet been laid.
Land disputes in the area first started in 1997, he said.
Most of the (migrants) were living peacefully and working to turn forest
into agricultural land, he said. But a few among them also tried to take in
possession some more land which was not theirs.
Land disputes are common in Vietnam and have occasionally become
violent when combined with dissent over local-level corruption.
Reuters - August 17, 2000.
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