27 members of former wartime guerrilla group surrender in Vietnam's Central Highlands
More than two dozen ex-guerrillas who fought alongside American troops in the Vietnam War have surrendered to authorities in the country's restive Central Highlands, an official said Friday. In a meeting with authorities in Ayun village in Gia Lai province on Thursday, 27 men agreed to abandon the defunct FULRO group, said village chief Dang Viet Cuong.
FULRO, the French acronym for United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races, was blamed by Hanoi for instigating mass protests in the Central Highlands in early 2001 and again last year during Easter weekend. Cuong said the men, all members of the Bana ethnic minority group, confessed to inciting villagers to participate in the anti-government activities. They were not charged with a crime, but were warned that similar actions in the future would be prosecuted, he said.
Tens of thousands of Christian ethnic minority people took to the streets in the Central Highlands during Easter weekend last year to protest the communist government's restrictions on their faith and confiscation of their ancestral lands. International human rights groups claimed 10 protesters were killed in clashes with police, but Hanoi maintains only two died after being pelted with rocks thrown by other protesters.
Dozens of ethnic minority members have been given hefty jail terms for staging the protests or organizing an exodus of refugees to neighboring Cambodia.
The Associated Press - April 08, 2005.
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