Vietnam tightens security in restive province
HANOI - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has begun tightening security
in
its volatile Central Highlands, sending senior officials to reinforce
party
cells and committees in communes at one highland province, state media
said
on Monday.
"Their duty is to join the leadership with local officials in all life
aspects in order to develop the socio-economy and stabilise the security
and
national defence at the local level," the Tien Phong (Vanguard) paper
said.
Officials were not immediately available for comment.
Vietnam's Central Highlands region saw its worst protests over land
rights
and religious freedom in February 2001, after which more than 1,000
hilltribe people fled alleged government crackdowns to Cambodia and
stayed
on in camps there.
The newspaper said 34 young party members, now managers and deputies at
the
highland province of Gia Lai's various provincial departments, went out
on
Monday to work in party cells and people's committees in 34 communes for
at
least two years.
Tien Phong said the 34 officials would each get an extra sum of cash of
one
million dong ($66) and a monthly allowance of 400,000 dong ($26) during
their mission, apart from the salary.
It was not immediately clear where a similar exercise was taking place
in
another three central highland provinces.
In January the Communist Party resolved that more senior officials would
be
sent to the Central Highlands, including police and military personnel,
partly aimed at reinforcing areas which had "a pressing demand".
Following the exodus of members of the ethnic hill tribes from Vietnam,
some
had returned home while several dozen others resettled in the United
States
amid protests from Hanoi.
On Saturday, Cambodian authorities began moving 905 ethnic minority
hilltribe people from the country's northeastern camps to Phnom Penh,
where
they would await U.S. and U.N preparations for their departure for the
United States.
Washington, with past links to the anti-Communist hilltribes who fought
alongside U.S. forces in Indochina during the Vietnam War, reached a
pact
with Cambodia in March to resettle the refugees.
Reuters - April 15, 2002
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