Potential Hot Spots: March 20, 2001

Archives

For several centuries, Vietnam has had a low level rebellion in its central highlands. That rugged and thinly populated is the home of several tribal groups that resent control by the lowland, and much more numerous, Vietnamese. During the Vietnam war, American Special Forces organized these tribes into combat units to fight North Vietnamese. These Montagnard ("mountaineers") people have recently turned violent again as more lowland Vietnamese move into the central highlands. There have been several riots and acts of sabotage in the last year. To make matters worse, the Free Vietnam movement, organized by a small group of Vietnamese-Americans, has sent armed groups into Vietnam, mainly for the purpose of recruiting additional members and eventually bringing down the communist Vietnam government. The group operates from Thailand and Cambodia. There have been eleven known incidents in the last two years and several Vietnamese Americans are under arrest in Vietnam and Thailand for these activities. The Vietnam government has avoided blaming the U.S. government for all this, although many Vietnam communists believe the U.S. is actually behind it. But the Vietnam government does not want to antagonize the U.S. government and endanger American investment in Vietnam. 


 

Article Archive

Potential Hot Spots: Current 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close