  The recent discovery of diffuse, VHE gamma radiation from the Galactic center
ridge by the H.E.S.S. telescope allow for the first time the direct
determination of parameters of galactic cosmic ray propagation models. In this
paper we show that the diffuse gamma radiation near the Galactic center may be
explained by the interaction of VHE cosmic ray (CR) protons with the
interstellar gas located in several giant molecular clouds leading to a
measurement of the cosmic ray diffusion coefficient for the galactic center
region of k = 1.3 kpc^2 Myr^-1 for a mean proton energy of about 3 TeV, if we
assume that the CR protons originated from a supernova event (Sgr A East),
which took off about 10 kyr ago. This value of k is about 5 to 10 times smaller
than the locally measured value.
