Police barred peasants from demonstrating outside the Vietnamese parliament Wednesday as security was stepped up across the capital on the eve of a landmark visit by US President Bill Clinton.
A group of around 10 elderly farmers who were attempting to hand in a petition to the national assembly were blocked by a group of armed uniformed and plain-clothes officers.
An AFP reporter who witnessed the security action said the protestors were not arrested. The national assembly convened for a month's session on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Hanoi, police manning checkpoints surrounding the capital were monitoring numbers traveling in from the provinces.
Poor farmers often congregate outside official buildings during communist party or government meetings to protest official corruption or maladministration, and Clinton's visit provides an opportunity for worldwide exposure.
As well as deterring demonstrations, the authorities are reducing the number of fruit and vegetable sellers entering the city to discourage anything that might tarnish their attempts to show Hanoi at its most prosperous and chic, residents told AFP.
Just 10 days ago, the official media announced that the city authorities had finally completed a three-year-old effort to empty a shanty district of the capital renewed as a center for heroin-dealing, prostitution and begging.
Clinton's route around the Vietnamese capital has been carefully selected to take in the more affluent areas of tree-lined boulevards, pavement cafes and Western-style fashion stores.
In between meetings, Clinton will enjoy a night at the Hanoi Opera and an expected lunch at a trendy Vietnamese restaurant, "Brother's Cafe," whose decor and menu would not be out of place in New York.
As the hours counted down to the US president's arrival, visible security in the Vietnamese capital was as normal.
But extra plain clothes police officers were deployed along the route Clinton will travel on Friday, particularly around the Temple of Literature, a 930-year-old monument to Confucian scholarship which he will visit, shop owners told AFP.
A souvenir seller said the number of undercover security officers at the site had increased markedly this week.
"They don't say anything to us, even that Clinton is coming, but why else are they here?" she asked. "They stand around all day pretending to be tourists."
Secrecy appeared to be the watchword of the regime's security operation.
Asked about Clinton's lunch stop, the owner of Brother's Cafe said: "I can't say anything about that."
Some workers in neighboring stores appeared unaware even of Clinton's imminent arrival. Coverage in the state press has been minimal and a foreign press briefing scheduled for Thursday was indefinitely postponed.
And while others confirmed the number of police patrolling the streets both in and out of uniform had been increased this week, few expressed any reservations.
"The security is good because it will make him feel safe," said the owner of a picture stall near the Temple of Literature in Nguyen Thai Hoc Street.
Clinton will arrive in Hanoi on Thursday night for the first visit by a US president since the war and the first ever to communist Vietnam.
He will meet President Tran Duc Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai on Friday as well as addressing students at Hanoi National University before watching a performance at the opera.
On Saturday he will visit an excavation site where a US warplane is believed to have crashed in 1967, before meeting communist party chief Le Kha Phieu.
After a ceremony of repatriation for remains suspected to be those of US servicemen still posted as missing, Clinton will fly to Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon and Vietnam's economic capital.
There on Sunday he will address an American business delegation before leaving that night for the return trip to Washington -- HANOI (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
