Thursday's clashes, and the problems which preceded it, follow similar but more serious unrest in the same province just weeks earlier. Long Binh lies close to Tra Co, where an estimated three thousand Catholic villagers clashed with police in November over moves by the local authorities to acquire land belonging to their local church. The methods employed in both protests were similar. The November troubles began as a protest involving old women and children. It escalated when the authorities tried to intervene with hundreds of people blocking the north-south road artery, National Highway One.
Rural unrest is considered a major concern for Vietnam's communist leadership.
The peasantry, which makes up 80 percent of the country's 78 million people, is the mainstay of its support. The troubles in Dong Nai in November drew a protest from the Vatican and demonstrations among overseas Vietnamese communities. But they also followed more serious unrest in the northern Red River Delta province of Thai Binh. Hanoi has responded by despatching top party officials to both areas in an effort to restore calm, and by dismissing a number of local cadres. Hanoi-based economists said earlier this week that the issue was one of several which had crowded out planned discussion of further reform policies at a meeting of the country's top communist party officials in late December.