http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050114/1/3puow.html
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Action urged on fisherman murders
>From correspondents in Hanoi
January 14, 2005
VIETNAM today urged China to severely punish border guards it said
shot dead nine Vietnamese fishermen who allegedly strayed into Chinese
waters.
The Chinese guards killed the nine when they opened fire on two
fishing vessels during the night of January 9, foreign ministry
spokesman Le Dung said.
Seven people were injured and eight detained by Chinese authorities on
Hainan island, he said.
It is a serious affair, he said. Vietnam is asking China
to take active measures to prevent this erroneous action from
happening, to investigate the case and severely punish the
murderers.
The incident took place off the Thanh Hoa coast, which faces Hainan,
in the Gulf of Tonkin about 200km south of Hanoi.
China and Vietnam dispute some of the land and sea borders between
them and have agreed several times to speed up the implementation of
accords to resolve the disputes.
Both have also pledged not to take extreme action or make use of
force on fisheries-related issues.
The countries are ideological comrades but historical foes; China
invaded Vietnam in February 1979 following Hanoi's intervention in
Cambodia to oust Beijing's Khmer Rouge allies.
They came to blows again in 1988 in the disputed Spratly Islands, a
potentially oil-rich archipelago in the South China Sea.
Relations were normalised in 1991.
Agence France-Presse
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