Protest in rural Vietnam prompts official probe

Reuters 
Friday, June 13, 1997 

HANOI, Vietnam -- Communist Vietnam has sent a team to report on public 
grievances around the country following a rare protest by villagers over 
corruption.

A government offical said the delegation had completed a tour of 
northern Vietnam and was now visiting southern Vietnam to report on how 
province and city authorities were handling local complaints.

A state-controlled newspaper reported in its Thursday edition that the 
probe was aimed at assuring control over grievances about official 
corruption, smuggling, disputes over land and property, and 
authoritarian attitudes.

Witnesses say some 3,000 people have been protesting in Thai Binh 
province, some 45 miles southeast of Hanoi, for the past month.

Local people from some four communes are said to have occupied an area 
outside the People's Committee in the district capital and held local 
leaders as hostage to negotiations. However, there have been no reports 
of violence.

Reports of protests and demonstrations in Vietnam are extremely rare. 
But political sources said there had been more than 30 recent incidents 
in northern Vietnam and in provinces around Ho Chi Minh City.

The government barred foreign correspondents earlier this year from 
traveling to a village outside Hanoi where hundreds of people had taken 
part in a protest over the construction of a luxury golf course.

Overseas journalists are also subject to a five-day rule on seeking 
government permission for trips outside the capital. It was therefore 
not immediately possible to verify the reports from Thai Binh.

Public grievances in Vietnam are often related to problems over land-use 
rights -- a complicated issue in a country where socialist policies 
dictate that all land belongs to the state.

The Thai Binh protest is reported to have been sparked by alleged 
official corruption.