Vietnam peasants stage sit-in at Hanoi legislature HANOI - Around 100 Vietnamese peasant farmers gathered in an apparent silent protest outside the communist-ruled country's National Assembly on Thursday. The protesters, surrounded by dozens of plain clothes and uniformed security police, staged a sit-in just a short distance from the granite mausoleum that houses the preserved remains of late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. It was unclear where the peasants came from or what they were protesting, and security personnel physically barred foreign reporters from going near the people. As the day's sitting of the legislature drew to a close in the late afternoon small groups of farmers broke away and left peacefully. Farmers coming into the city, often to lodge complaints about local corruption, abuses of power and disputes over land, have been an increasing phenomenon in recent years. In response to growing rural discontent, the National Assembly last year passed a law that for the first time created a framework for people to lodge complaints against or denounce errant bureaucrats. Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, fed-up with protests outside his and the houses of other leaders, also ordered that people take their complaints only to local district or provincial authorities. In a report delivered to the National Assembly last November deputies heard that 50,000 complaints over various issues had been lodged in the third quarter of 1998, a rise of 25 percent over the same period in 1997. Reuters - May 20, 1999.