Military patrols Vietnam highlands after unrest
HANOI - Soldiers, riot police and military helicopters patrolled
two coffee growing provinces in Vietnam's central highlands on Thursday
after a wave of sometimes violent protests by ethnic hill farmers over religion
and land.
The Foreign Ministry said authorities in Gia Lai province arrested 20 people
on Tuesday in its capital Pleiku for ''provocative acts'' and damaging state
property in what diplomats have called communist Vietnam's worst unrest for
years.
The official Vietnam News Agency broke silence on the issue on Thursday
evening with an unprecedented acknowledgement that there had been
widespread unrest in recent days.
Its report was remarkable both for its relative speed of delivery as well as its
acknowledgement of the extent of the unrest in Gia Lai and neighboring
Daklak provinces, which produce most of Vietnam's coffee.
In the past, it has sometimes taken months for the official media to offer
cryptically worded accounts of lesser rural unrest. However, foreign
correspondents have not been permitted to visit the two provinces.
VNA said the protests had begun in Pleiku last Friday when ''many'' people
gathered to demand the release of two men it said were arrested on January
29 for trying to cause ethnic discord.
It blamed ``bad elements'' and ``extremists'' for whipping up
misunderstanding over the arrests and accused them of destroying state
offices ``in villages, communes and districts.''
It also said the two men arrested were ``immediately released after signing a
protocol confirming their illegal behavior and asking for leniency.''
Normally in authoritarian Vietnam, a confession to such an offence would
result in a long prison term.
``Extremist Elements''
Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh told reporters
some members of the security forces were wounded in clashes, but gave no
details. She said she did not know if the 20 people arrested were from
minorities or ethnic Vietnamese.
``They were people who caused social instability and damage, destroyed
schools and resisted the authorities,'' she said.
She accused ``extremist elements'' of using religion to stir up the unrest, but
said the situation was now under control.
``The situation has become normal and the local authorities are doing what is
necessary for keep social order,'' she said. ''But this does not amount to a
crisis.''
Residents said the situation in some rural areas of the two provinces remained
tense and tourism and hotel workers in both provincial capitals said they had
been told by the authorities to halt services for tourists for at least another
week.
``There are some problems in the countryside,'' said a tourism official in
Pleiku. ``We're disappointed with the situation but we're just following
government orders.''
Residents blamed the protests on disputes over religion, land and corruption,
involving encroachment by majority ethnic Vietnamese migrants and heavy
handed attempts to impose the authority of the ruling Communist Party.
They said members of the Vietnamese majority blamed for land
encroachment and officials accused of corruption had been singled out for
attack by protesters.
They said police and soldiers had set up roadblocks to prevent protesters
reaching the provincial capitals and military helicopters had made frequent
patrols.
A state employee in Daklak told Reuters that staff at state offices had been
ordered to be on 24-hour duty in the past few days, due to worries about
damage to state property.
The Vietnamese Red Cross, meanwhile, announced it had granted 100
million dong ($7,000) to disadvantaged people in the central highlands,
including Gia Lai and Dak Lak.
An official in Daklak's Ea H'leo district, where protesters attacked the post office and telephone switchboard
on Tuesday, said police and military units had restored order there.
``Small parts of the police and military forces have stayed in our area to keep things safe and under control,'' he
said.
On Wednesday, a diplomat quoted Vietnamese sources as saying the army had been put on ``high alert'' to
deal with any escalation.
Traders have reported little disruption to the coffee trade, which has been slow due to low world prices.
Relocation of large numbers of lowland Vietnamese to the highlands to grow coffee has created friction with
ethnic groups who have lived there for generations. Ethnic hill farmers, many of whom belong to illegal
Protestant ``house churches,'' have also been harassed for their beliefs by the communist authorities.
The protests have come ahead of the first conference of southern Protestants since the end of the Vietnam War
in 1975, which is expected to lead to official recognition of the southern branch of the Evangelical Church.
However, pastors said the hundreds of thousand of people, most of them from ethnic minorities, belonging to an
estimated 150,000 small house churches would not be represented in the discussions that got underway on
Thursday.
By David Brunnstrom - Reuters - February 8, 2001.
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