HANOI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Anti-communist ethnic exiles said about 20,000 ethnic hill farmers took part in protests in Vietnam's coffee-growing central highlands after two Christians were arrested and beaten.
The U.S.-based Montagnard Foundation Inc, founded by former hill tribe guerrillas who fought alongside U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, said on its Web site (www.montagnard-foundation.org) the two brothers, both hill farmers, were tortured by police at an army camp last week.
Its report, seen on Friday and which cited an unnamed contact in Pleiku, capital of Gia Lai province, said 600 of the hill people who gathered on the town to protest the arrest were "severely beaten" by police and 200 were "seriously hurt."
It said demonstrators in the town, numbering about 20,000, fought back to defend themselves, wounding 20 police officers, but the authorities eventually agreed to free the two prisoners.
The estimate for the number of demonstrators was far higher than that given by local residents, who estimated some 4,000 minority people gathered in Pleiku last Friday to protest over land issues and religion.
However, the Vietnamese government has also cited the arrest of two men, who it accused of trying to cause ethnic discord, as the catalyst for the protests that swept Gia Lai and neighbouring Daklak provinces in recent days.
It said the men, who it did not name, were released after admitting their illegal behaviour and asking for leniency.
The government and official media has blamed "bad elements" and "extremists" for whipping up the unrest, which they blamed on land disputes, and accused such elements of destroying state property and injuring police officers.
The Foreign Ministry said 20 people had been arrested in what diplomats described as Vietnam's worst unrest for years.
Residents said the protests had been punctuated by violence, although no deaths have been reported.
A coffee trader in Daklak said he had heard reports that a police officer in one district had his hand cut off by a protester on Wednesday and demonstrators captured a commune official and strung him up to a pole by his hands and beat him.
The Montagnard Foundation was founded by former members of FULRO -- the French acronym for the United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races.
FULRO was founded by the colonial French in the 1950s and its tribal fighters, often armed only with crossbows, continued to stage hit-and-run attacks on communist forces after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 from bases in the Central Highlands and neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.
FULRO is now thought to be largely defunct.
05:55 02-09-01
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