Land, graft protest by Vietnamese farmers ends

BANGKOK, July 19 (Reuters) A nearly month-long protest by hundreds of poor Vietnamese farmers against land appropriations and graft has ended in Ho Chi Minh City, state media reported today.

The farmers, who had camped outside the National Assembly office in the southern commercial capital since June 22, left yesterday after negotiations with officials, the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.

''Responsible officials in Ho Chi Minh City coordinated with provincial leaders to continue working with people,'' the newspaper said in a rare report on land protests usually ignored by the state-owned press.

A Vietnamese exile group said police broke up the demonstration, one of the longest-running protests of its kind in the communist-run country.

''Police surrounded the area, jammed cell phone reception and carried demonstrators into waiting vans,'' Viet Tan, a U.S.-based party that is outlawed in Vietnam, said in an e-mailed statement.

But Western diplomats in the former Saigon said they could not corroborate reports that the farmers were removed forcibly.

''As far as we know, the majority have pulled up and gone back to their provinces. Whether they went willingly or were coerced, I don't know,'' one diplomat told Reuters.

The protesters, most of them from 18 southern provinces according to Viet Tan, had accused provincial officials of corruption by taking money from developers and appropriating farmland.

For the past decade, small landowners from the provinces have gone to the main urban centres of Ho Chi Minh City and the capital, Hanoi, to complain they had not received adequate compensation for their land.

In Hanoi, hundreds of protesting farmers from central and southern provinces have gathered in recent weeks near Ba Dinh hall where a new session of the National Assembly started today.

The government has acknowledged the problems and pledged more action in the remaining months of 2007.

REUTERS ARB VC1622