Hanoi - Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has met with organizers of the
Olympic torch relay to be held later this month in Ho Chi Minh City to
review their precautions for preventing demonstrators from disrupting
the event, Vietnamese media reported Monday.

Democracy activists on several Vietnamese websites have called for
demonstrations along the route of the torch's progress through Ho Chi
Minh City, scheduled for April 29.

"Although the security and social order situation in our country is
stable, hostile forces always attempt to disturb security and order,
affecting our country's prestige and position on the international
arena," Dung was quoted as saying by the newspaper People's Police.

The paper said the prime minister had asked city authorities at a
meeting Sunday to organize the Olympic torch relay "solemnly and
safely, to show Vietnam's love for sports and peace and to show the
special friendship between Vietnam and China."

Several Vietnamese democracy activists, who requested anonymity, said
that some groups were trying to organize protests and disruptions of
the torch relay in Ho Chi Minh City, but that the prime minister's
meeting indicated that a heavy police presence was likely. They said
this would make it difficult to organize demonstrations.

"The preparation for the torch relay has been almost completed," Nguyen
Thi Thu Ha, deputy chairperson of Ho Chi Minh City, told dpa. Ha said
there would be some 60 people involved in carrying the torch.

A detailed schedule for the relay in Ho Chi Minh City was published in
Vietnamese press in March, but has apparently been rescinded since
pro-Tibetan protests were staged against the torch's progress through
various European cities. The protests at the torch relays came in the
wake of violent clashes between Tibetans and Chinese police which began
in early March. (dpa)