Hundreds of smugglers storm Laos-Vietnam border crossing
Hundreds of smugglers stormed one of Vietnam's main land border
crossings with Laos, leaving six customs officers wounded as they
rammed through a huge convoy of contraband, checkpoint commanders said.
The mob captured and threatened to kill one officer in Tuesday night's attack on the Cau Treo
checkpoint.
Deputy customs chief Nguyen Quang Thanh described it as the most violent in a growing
spate of attacks on the crossing on the main tourist bus route between Hanoi and Vientiane.
"We had just 13 officers and we were attacked by hundreds of people with sticks and
stones," Thanh told AFP.
"There were so many people, we couldn't count them. They even included local people.
"They caught one of our men and put him on the back of a truck and threatened to kill him."
Thanh said officers were unable to resist the mob as standing orders barred them from
opening fire on the smugglers for fear of igniting a firefight.
The crossing, in the remote mountains west of the north central port of Vinh, is regularly used
by tourists, although Thanh said none were around when the smugglers struck shortly after
midnight (1700 GMT) Tuesday.
Attacks on customs officers and other security personnel at the crossing had become routine
as the smugglers resorted to ever more violent methods to get their lucrative cargo across the
border, Thanh said.
"Working here we get attacked by the smugglers so often, they throw stones at us every day."
Vietnamese customs had received a tip-off that a large convoy of some 50 unlicensed flat-bed
trucks was amassing on the Lao side of the border ahead of Tuesday night's attack.
They had not reinforced the crossing because they had not expected such a violent attack.
Order was eventually restored with the arrival of the border guard, but not before all 50
trucks had successfully crossed into Vietnam, presumed headed for the main consumer
markets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Thanh said he did not know what was in the convoy, although fruit juice and electronic goods
were the most common contraband.
The mountainous north-central provinces of Ha Tinh and Nghe An are also notorious for drug
smuggling as they afford the least protected route into Vietnam for convoys of opium and
heroin crossing from Laos and the other poppy-growing countries of the Golden Triangle
beyond.
Unusually Tuesday's attack was reported in the ruling communist party's mouthpiece daily
Nhan Dan (The People).
Clashes of this scale with the security forces are rarely reported in Vietnam's state-run media
as the communist authorities pride themselves on a reputation for tight security.
Agence France Presse - April 18, 2002.
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