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Olympic torch paraded in Vietnam after police detain activists

AFP - Wednesday, April 30

HO CHI MINH CITY (AFP) - - The Beijing Olympic torch was paraded through Vietnam's main city Tuesday, ending the international part of its troubled journey hours after police detained several anti-China activists.

Crowds cheered and police security was tight as 60 runners completed their 90-minute relay through Ho Chi Minh City without apparent incident after protesters had threatened rallies against China's government.

The torch -- which has been dogged by pro-Tibet activists in cities including Athens, London and Paris -- was set to be flown at 10am Wednesday (0300 GMT) to the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, officials said.

Thousands of well-wishers, many waving Chinese flags, crowded the start line of the Olympic flame route near the downtown Opera House in the former Saigon.

"We feel very proud," said Li Guan, a 26-year-old Chinese resident of Ho Chi Minh City, which has Vietnam's largest ethnic Chinese community. "This is one of the greatest moments of my life."

Thousands of police were deployed in the southern port city and the capital Hanoi to guard Beijing's diplomatic missions there and prevent anti-Chinese rallies that had been announced on weblogs.

Activists said more than a dozen demonstrators were detained in Hanoi and prevented from staging rallies against China and its claims over South China Sea islands disputed by several nations, including Vietnam.

The torch relay route was not disclosed in advance and state-run television channels did not broadcast the relay run live. Mobile phone signals were scrambled at the finish point, a military sports centre near the airport.

"This is an important event, a historic moment for the Olympics in the world," said Vietnam Olympic Committee president Nguyen Danh Thai, a former sports minister, at the finishing ceremony attended by China's ambassador.

The US-based pro-democracy group Viet Tan said earlier it had confirmed more than a dozen detentions in Hanoi Tuesday, while many activists and bloggers claimed scores more had been taken into custody there in the morning.

Police would not confirm any detentions, but an AFP reporter witnessed one incident at a Hanoi market when two protesters were taken away after unfurling a banner showing the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs.

While pro-Tibet rallies have dogged the worldwide relay elsewhere, Vietnam's mostly nationalist activists are driven mainly by their country's long-simmering territorial dispute with its neighbour.

Beijing and Hanoi are among the claimants to the Spratly and Paracel island chains, a dispute that late last year triggered a series of street rallies rarely seen in Vietnam, a one-party state.

Vietnam and China routinely stress their comradely ties, and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week promised China's visiting Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to stage a trouble-free torch relay.

In the days before the relay, police detained an activist-blogger, accusing him of tax evasion, and expelled a Vietnamese-American caught with T-shirts bearing slogans such as "A Gold Medal for Oppression."

The banned People's Democratic Party said university students here had also been detained for printing T-shirts that read, "Protest the torch relay" and "China invaded Vietnam's Spratly and Paracel Islands."

Vietnam was ruled by China for centuries and repeatedly invaded by successive dynasties, a legacy that still rouses strong passions here. Most Vietnamese folk heroes are leaders who fought the northern invaders.

China and Vietnam waged their last border war in 1979, but Hanoi and Beijing have since normalised relations and become strong economic partners.

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