Hanoi seeks to placate farmers amid unrest worry
04:06 a.m. Aug 08, 1997 Eastern

By Adrian Edwards

HANOI, Aug 8 (Reuter) - Hanoi announced measures on
Friday aimed at encouraging the formation of
farmers' cooperatives and improving rural incomes,
as new indications emerged of trouble in northern
areas of the country stricken by recent unrest.

Friday's Communist Party Nhan Dan newspaper said
the Agriculture Ministry had unveiled what it
called ``10 big policies'' aimed at modernising and
industrialising rural Vietnam.

The measures include increased capital for
developing rural infrastructure, a land-use
licensing system, export taxes on raw commodities
to encourage processing, and reduced taxes for
farmers.

They also call for strict controls on inflation and
``suitable readjustment'' of foreign exchange rates
to boost the competitiveness of agricultural
products, the newspaper said without elaborating.

The new measures follow calls by senior politburo
officials and advisers for a bolstering of the
socialist system of rural cooperatives, but they
also come amid concern over recent unrest in areas
of northern Vietnam.

A foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday that
the authorities in Thai Binh province, some 80 km
(50 miles) southeast of Hanoi, were taking steps to
restore stability there following violent protests
since May over alleged corruption and tax demands.

Tran Quang Hoan said low-level officials in the
province had been punished, but did not elaborate.

The troubles in Thai Binh have not been reported in
Vietnam's state-controlled media, and foreign
journalists have not been able to visit.

But in a new development on Friday, a report in the
Cong An Nhan Dan (People's Police) newspaper
indicated problems in at least one other northern
region.

It spoke in vague terms of ``internal conflicts
between individuals'' in nearby Thanh Hoa province
and said police units sent to the area during the
past seven months had found 67 communes where there
were ``internal contradictions.''

In nearly half of those ``people had questioned''
alleged corruption among officials, or been
involved in land disputes.

``Some cases, under the responsibility of police
were quickly resolved, others were proposed by
police to be resolved at higher party and
government levels in order to stabilise the
situation,'' it said, adding that the problems were
now resolved.

Around 80 percent of Vietnam's 77 million people
live in rural areas, which have been hit hard this
year by falling commodity prices despite bumper
harvests of the staple, rice.

Violent protests are normally considered rare in
Vietnam.

Diplomats in Hanoi say the recent troubles have
presented the country's communist government with
the sensitive question of how to tackle unrest
among a section of society traditionally considered
as a sturdy pillar of its support.