The US embassy here warned Americans to stay away from Vietnam's central highlands Friday in spite of the communist authorities' insistence that the wave of ethnic unrest in the region was under control.
"The US embassy in Hanoi and the consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City have been monitoring events in Dac Lac and Gia Lai provinces of Vietnam and urge American citizens to defer travel to these provinces at this time," the embassy said in an advisory.
However, the warning was largely academic since authorities have already moved to close the region to outsiders.
Hotels in the main towns of both provinces said police had barred them from letting rooms to foreigners until February 15. Officials at the area's principal tourist attraction, the Yok Don National Park, said it would remain closed until further notice.
The advisory came just as Vietnam's tightly controlled press finally broke its silence over the unrest, insisting that "life has returned to normal."
"(Highland) provinces peaceful again following land grievance disturbances," thundered identical headlines in all of Vietnam's dailies, repeating a statement broadcast on state television Thursday evening.
But events on the ground belied the official assurances as troops continued to pour into both Dac Lac and Gia Lai, according to diplomats.
With the authorities continuing to bar access to outsiders, telephone calls to residents remained the only source of information surrounding the unrest.
On Wednesday, residents spoke of helicopters scouring the countryside while riot police patrolled the main towns as authorities tried to contain a wave of anger among the region's indigenous minorities which boiled over into more than a week of demonstrations.
But as the regime moved to put a lid on the disturbances, an atmosphere of fear gripped the region.
Several residents who spoke to AFP the previous day insisted Friday they could no longer talk about matters now considered a "state secret."
Hoteliers in the main towns said the situations were calm, but declined to discuss what was going on in the surrounding countryside ares.
Diplomats said it was clear from the scale of the government's response that severe unrest was continuing in rural areas.
"You don't send in troops and helicopters to deal with urban demonstrations," one said.
The official media obliquely acknowleged unrest was continuing in the countryside, saying authorities were still "applying proper security measures" and "encouraging local people to return to their hamlets."
Unrest, even armed attack, are not unprecedented in the region amidst widespread anger at the huge influx of ethnic Vietnamese settlers that has accompanied the region's development over the past decade as the country's principal coffee growing area.
Last August, the official Lao Dong daily reported four ethnic Vietnamese, including two policemen, had been wounded in an attack on a settler village in Dak Lak province by a band of 150 Ede people using guns and grenades as well as traditional weapons.
While railing against "extremists" and "provocateurs" for fanning the disturbances, even the official media acknowledged some genuine grievances lay behind the protests.
Government officials had held "frank talks" with some of the protests' leaders about "party and state polices relating to land issues and national unity," they said.
A front page article in the official English-language Vietnam News daily also obliquely acknowledged one of the central problems.
"Dac Lac's population has increased from one million 10 years ago to 1.8 million currently" largely through the influx of settlers, the paper said.
But it insisted there was no cause to rethink government policy.
"The life of the ethnic minority groups in the central highlands' Dac Lac province has remarkably improved over the past 10 years," it said -- HANOI (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
