Lines of protestors stretching as far as the eye could see marched along the roads into Pleiku

Pleiku businessman

The country's largest wildlife reserve, the Yok Don National Park, a major tourist attraction, has been closed for days due to the unrest.

A key reason behind the protests was the government turning the hill tribes' ancestral forests into the country's largest coffee-growing region, which has brought in lowland Vietnamese, the French news agency AFP reported.

Also fuelling the protests was government repression of fringe Protestant churches, which have attracted many followers from ethnic minorities in recent years.

The central highlands are home to many of the country's 54 ethnic minority hill tribes.

Playing down protests

Communist authorities summoned religious leaders in the province on Tuesday, warning them to maintain solidarity and not to allow religion to spark divisions.

Some people who lack information and were incited by news that two local residents had been arrested converged in front of Gia Lai's Communist Party offices

Foreign Ministry

The government has tried to play down the protests, saying they were due to a misunderstanding over arrests of two minority people.

"Some people who lack information and were incited by news that two local residents had been arrested converged in front of Gia Lai's Communist Party offices to question the provincial leaders on this issue," the Foreign Ministry said.

Several thousand protesters have held a four-day protest in Pleiku, capital of Gia Lai province.

Violence

Residents said uniform and plainclothes police were out in force to monitor the demonstrations, some of which turned violent, with protesters blocking a national highway and overturning vehicles.

The demonstrations have brought together people from the region's many ethnic minorities, including the three biggest - the Jarai, Ede and Bahnar - who between them number more than 600,000 people.

The region has long been resisted control from various governments, generating resistance movements which fought first the French, then the US-backed Saigon regime and then the communists.