Subject:      Riots against Hanoi at Kim No


HANOI, Dec 31 (Reuter) - Hundreds of villagers clashed with  
police on the northern edge of Hanoi this week as authorities 
moved to reclaim farmland earmarked for a luxury golf course, 
local residents said on Tuesday. 

They said some 600 police officers, many carrying riot  
shields and wielding electric prods, fought a pitched battle 
with protesters on a dirt track in Kim No commune, near the 
Vietnamese capital's airport, on Monday. 

The protesters, estimated to number 500, hurled stones at  
the police and set two bulldozers and another vehicle on fire. 

It was not clear how many were hurt in the violence, though  
one resident said he saw at least five injured people being 
taken away. 

An official at the Kim No People's Committee said  
authorities were still trying to persuade people to give up 
their land but denied that any violence had occurred. 

A Reuters correspondent watched on Tuesday as about 60  
people from the commune's Tho Da hamlet surrounded a truck on 
the same dirt track, hauled its driver and passenger out and 
torched the vehicle. 

Two other trucks, which local residents said had come to  
erect fencing, turned around and raced back down the track as 
smoke billowed from the first. 

Riots and demonstrations are rare in communist Vietnam and  
almost never reported by the state-controlled media. 

However, this was not the first unrest at Kim No commune.  
One woman was killed and scores were injured there last May in 
violence which erupted when police began ripping up rice plants 
from a field being appropriated for the golf course. 

Three men and one woman were sentenced last month to prison  
terms of between three and five years for their involvement in 
that incident. 

The planned golf course is part of a $177 million  
joint-venture project involving South Korea's Daewoo Group, the 
biggest single foreign investor in Vietnam. A senior official 
from the joint venture declined to comment on the land dispute. 

The official Hanoi Moi daily said the villagers had agreed  
to vacate their land by December 30 and praised them for 
demonstrating their district's traditional revolutionary fervour.