Vietnam supremo in first tour of central highlands since February
unrest
HANOI - Vietnamese communist party supremo Nong Duc Manh demanded
some serious soul-searching from provincial authorities during a
first tour of the central highlands since unprecedented ethnic
unrest in February, official media reported Monday.
Wrapping up a week-long visit in the hotspot province of Gia Lai
over the weekend, Manh demanded "strict punishment of errant
officials and party cadres", the ruling communist party's
mouthpiece daily, Nhan Dan (The People), said.
Officials should "pay more frequent visits to the localities and
improve their ties with the public" to prevent any repetition of
the wave of protest by the region's indigenous minorities which
sparked an army crackdown and an exodus of refugees to neighbouring
Cambodia.
Both state and party cadres should "rely on the public to spot out
their own shortcomings as well as other cadres' wrongdoings", he
said.
Manh, an ethnic Tay from Vietnam's northern mountains who is the
first non-ethnic Vietnamese ever to hold the country's top job,
demanded more measures from the local authorities to
ensure "solidarity between all ethnic groups".
He called on the authorities in Gia Lai to ensure the "timely
correction of mistakes".
During an inspection tour of the highlands just before his
resignation in July, former US ambassador Pete Peterson singled out
the province as the worst offender in its treatment of the region's
minorities.
The Gia Lai authorities had reacted to the February protests with a
security clampdown and no new initiatives to address the
minorities' grievances, Peterson said.
A massive influx of Vietnamese settlers over the past two decades
has left the indigenous highlanders economically marginalised and
increasingly angry.
Protestors set up no-go zones in the countryside and held violent
demonstrations in the main towns in the country's worst unrest
since at least the 1980s.
The region has been largely closed to outsiders since February but
a continuing exodus of refugees suggests the unrest is not entirely
over.
Fugitives from the government's clampdown continue to cross over
into Cambodia at a rate of around 10 a week, officials there say.
More than 360 fugitives are living in a makeshift camp near the
border established by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees.
Advocacy groups say the highlanders are subjected to discrimination
by the communist authorities because large numbers of them fought
with the US Special Forces during the Vietnam War.
Their accusations include compulsory sterilizations, tortures and
disappearances.
An armed opposition group fought on in the central highlands until
as recently as 1992.
Manh's tour of the central highlands was the second time this month
that he has publicly championed the cause of the minorities. The
weekend before last, he hosted a Hanoi gathering of representatives
of all of the country's 54 ethnic groups.
Agence France Presse - 17 Septembre 2001
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