FIFTY YEARS of VIOLATIONS of Human Rights in Communist Vietnam 1945-1995

THE POLITICAL GUIDELINES

On March 3, 1994, Secretary-General Do Muoi explained the Vietnamese Communist Party's policies in a speech to an assembly of selected high-ranking cadres in Hanoi. During the months of April-May, 1994, the speech was transmitted to all local cadres for discussion. The speech is as follows:

The Party's Platform

Immediately after the Americans lifted the trade embargo, the Politburo had its directives defining our attitudes regarding the matter to direct cadres at all levels and in all branches. Numerous cadres, party members, and our people all have this comment: the Americans' lifting of the trade embargo will create for us favorable conditions in continuing our multilateral and multifaceted foreign policy, expanding international relations and strengthening influence and power to build up our country. Along with the lifting of the trade embargo and the advance towards establishing diplomatic relations, hostile powers will have conditions to push up their vile schemes and activities for peaceful evolution against our country. The gangs of reactionaries inside the country and abroad are all joyful, feeling that they will have opportunities to push forwards their sabotage against us. It should be recalled that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Nguyen Si Binh established a party organization. He recruited a number of debased members in our Party and expected to overthrow the regime. We administered this affair well.

The resolution of the Seventh Party Congress, the Resolutions II, III, IV, and V of the Central Party Committee, and the resolutions of the Mid-term Party Congress, all point out two strategic apices--building up the country and protection of the fatherland and resuming renovation in the direction of socialism and fighting against peaceful evolution.

The problem is how to thoroughly comprehend the Party's resolutions. First, it is necessary to resolutely hold on to the viewpoint of class and class struggle to evaluate the actual situation as well as to handle the actual orientations appropriately. That is a great task. It is by firmly holding on to the viewpoint of class and class struggle that we can bring out an appropriate evaluation without ambiguity and without being bamboozled. Consequently, the solutions will be appropriate, and our country and the revolution will not result in any damage. With this viewpoint, I want to stress several problems as follows:

The Struggle for Ideology

Many scholars consider that Marxism-Leninism is outmoded and is adverse to the historical development. In the country, a small number of individuals think that Marxism-Leninism, since the foundation of the Communist Party and the victory of the revolution in the Soviet Union, and until, especially, the dissolution of socialism in the Soviet Union, has never been updated. Consequently, it will find its ending in this 20th century. Nowadays, all the hostile forces concentrate their efforts to eliminate the remaining socialist countries. Even within the Party, there are people who criticize Marxism that it is old-fashioned; and it even becomes a source of inconveniences. How is this true? Marx, Engels, and Lenin analyzed in depth the nature of capitalism and imperialism. They pointed out the way of struggle to liberate the class of workers and the working people, to liberate the people, to destroy the yoke of authoritarian rule, exploitation, unjust oppression to bring liberty and happiness to everyone. Marxism achieves an objective need for the development of the modern production forces in the society. It reflects the interests of the class of workers, of the working class, and of the oppressed peoples. It is this powerful influence of Marxism-Leninism and realist socialism that objectively force capitalism itself to modify its politics and to slightly diminish its social injustice to ensure its survival. That is the immense contribution that Marx, Engels, and Lenin transmitted to the following generations. Those grandiose altruistic and humane ideas profoundly imprint on hundreds of millions of people's minds and hearts. There is no force in the world that is able to dissipate them.

Recently, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida said: "Marx is the thinker of the 21st century." He has never been a Marxist; nevertheless, he appeals for a return to the spirit of Marx, a struggle against the "new world order" of capitalism. We consider that, even encompassing the ups and downs, Marxism-Leninism will forever be full of vitality because it flows from reality. It reflects the laws of the development of history. It manifests the aspirations of the working people in all countries and of all the oppressed peoples. That doctrine will forever enlighten all the peoples and mankind into the lofty struggle for a new civilization, a good and just society.

Uncle Ho, in his search of the way of national salvation, assimilated Marxism-Leninism and introduced revolution into Vietnam. He was the founder of the Party. He developed the platform, the strategy, and the politics of the Vietnamese revolution. He founded the Unified National Front and launched the watchword: "Union, Union, Great Union, Success, Success, Great Success." It is thankful to Marx, Engels, and Lenin's ideas that helped Uncle Ho and our Party liberate our country and bring independence to our country as it is nowadays. Those thoughts as well as Uncle Ho's thoughts provide our people with an unequal force. They helped him to bear down the imperialist and colonialist invasions. This doctrine and these thoughts have become the powerful force for the building and defense of our country.

Independence is linked to socialism; the people are linked to the class, and the class is linked to the people. And all of those are for mankind. We are now devoted to developing and applying Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thoughts to the new conditions of the society, consolidating the results of renovation, implementing national independence, and pushing forward pre-socialism to socialism.

According to researches and predictions, it is necessary to add that, on their move to the 21st century, big aggregates of capitalists will use high industry to exploit ultra interests. Thus, poor countries will become poorer and poor people poorer, and wealth will be stored into the hands of a small number of capitalist countries and capitalists. The exploiting nature of capitalism will never change, and its vile artifices of exploitation will become more sophisticated, especially the exploitation of the relative surplus value.

The hostile elements libel the Party, adducing that the 20th century is the time the Communists commit the most terrible mass killing of people in history; it is necessary to bury it. To say such thing is to say that white is black, to reverse history. The truth is capitalism kills people the most. How many wars have there been? How many people have been killed since the beginning of this century? Who waged World War I and World War II which caused the deaths of dozens of million people? Who has waged intruding invasions into so many countries? It is imperialism. Everyone knows it. Only lackey writers could purposely reverse the truth to defend the interests and the position of capitalism and imperialism.

How many people died? How many people suffered misery? How many people were subject to illiteracy under the domination of colonialism and imperialism? The French dominated, crushed down, oppressed, exploited, and killed our people. The Japanese fascists created the famine in 1945 causing the deaths of 2 million people. The French returned, and then the Americans invaded, forcing several millions of our compatriots to sacrifice themselves responding to Uncle Ho's numinous appeal--Nothing is more precious than Independence and Freedom. Although they had to sacrifice everything, our compatriots were determined not to lose their country and not to resign themselves to slavery again and united all as one to stand up to struggle for independence and to protect national independence for our fatherland. Naturally, they had to fight and destroy the invaders. If they had not invaded our country, we would have not proceeded the war against them.

There were wars for just causes and wars for unjustified causes. That is a historical truth. They could deny the truth, even though they could not say contrarily. They say that the Vietnamese Communist Party, the Vietnamese Communists, harms the people and the country. That is a gibberish; that is reactionary.

Every Vietnamese citizen or every conscientious man in the world knows the great achievements our Party has performed. Our Party has no interests other than those it gained for the people and the class of workers. It achieves independence, liberty, and happiness for the people. The people have become rich, and the country powerful. It achieves social justice and civilization; it strives to build up socialism. Many Communists have devoted themselves to and sacrificed themselves for those ideals and purposes. Righteous Communists are striving to continue to struggle and sacrifice themselves to move up step by step. Their commitments are clear: The Communists struggle for a just cause and the truth. Thus, when hostile elements calumniate about Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh's thoughts, and our Party, why isn't there any one among us who can give any answer to strike them back? We have to point out those arguments.

Ever since its foundation, our Party has led the people in the struggle, gaining victory after victory, and, finally, winning total victory, national independence, and unification to bring happiness to the people. Facing the new situation, there are many difficulties. The Party has proposed and led the renovation of the country. It has advanced the economy. It has taken care of the people's lives, encouraging everyone to invest in economic development and making profits legally while overseeing the problems to eliminate famine and diminish poverty. Mr. Buu Hoan, an overseas Vietnamese in the U.S., wrote to me proposing four points. His first point said: "After 2,000 years, our people are now completely independent and free. Although the country is still poor, we are living on our strength, on the power of the people, on our people. Nevertheless, hostile elements have still critically reasoned why the Vietnamese Communist Party fought the French then the Americans just to, now, endure the people into misery, and sacrifice them, and make the country bear with so much poverty as it exists now. I don't know how much money the enemy has given them to divulge this libel. It is true with any country that at any time when the people are under foreign domination, they unquestionably stand up in revolt against it. Our forefathers fought against foreign invaders to defend and build our country for hundreds and thousands of years. Commonly speaking, to win independence and freedom, there must be sacrifices. How can we gain independence and freedom without them? Our comrades have to strike back any time they hear any one slandering.

We should be conscious of our struggle for ideology. Cadres in the Institutes of Natural and Social Sciences, political scientists, and men of culture have to react and speak out their minds. Why have we remained quiet and passive in face of the strikes falling upon us for so many years? In the days to come, we will be induced into passivity unless we are able to fight against the enemy actively. We have to fight in the ideology battle to clarify who is the most terrible killer of human beings. We must not let them "cry out for help while pillaging and killing people." Many comrades among us, including myself, have, all our lives, followed Uncle Ho and the Party and engaged ourselves in the revolution. We realized that our people have lived in utter difficulty and poverty. So many of our compatriots and comrades have sacrificed themselves. The piratical invaders killed people for unjust causes while we saved our country and fought against the killers. That is a just cause. Our comrades have to clarify this point.

In the Domain of Politics

There are, at issue, problems between bourgeois democracy, democracy of the exploiter, and the democracy of the classless proletariat, a democracy of the working people, of capitalists' human rights and the people's rights, of multipartism and pluralism, of capitalist market and market economy with socialist orientation.

Hostile elements accuse our Party, with false accusations, of being despotic and non-democratic. They are propagandizing multipartism, and, in their views, only by following this way will there be democracy.

There are many personalities in the world, including those who are compassionate with us, who concede that it is now very difficult to have multipartism in Vietnam, that the Vietnamese Communist Party seizes political monopoly because, for many decades, it has merits in contributing to the services of the people and the country, it has organized and united the entire people to struggle for independence and freedom, and that now it is renovating the country, improving the economy, and gradually elevating the people's standard of living. Thus, it is not easy to draw the people into the demand for multipartism.

I have traveled to many localities and party bases. I have seen developments with concrete accomplishments of the Party's policy. The people have enough food. Electricity has reached the countryside. The number of the poor is narrowed down. We have focused on lending capital to the poor to make their living. I am happy to see the people's lives improving. However, we have seen that the people's lives at the base of the Revolution are still very miserable. There are more words being spoken than things being done. In the days ahead, we have to concentrate our efforts on solving this problem. In general, nowadays, the lives of the people are much better than those under the French domination. We have hundreds of thousands of college graduates, and literacy is popular. So, what is multipartism for? Our Party is the party of the working class party. It represents the interests of the working class, of the working people, and also of the people. It struggles for national independence and for happiness of the people. It continues its responsibility for its historic mission and its leadership of the people to proceed the renovation, to industrialize and modernize the country, enriching the people, strengthening the country, improving social equality, and upgrading civilization. So, what is multipartism for? Is it for the disorder of the society and endangerment of the people into the loss of their country again? In capitalist countries, there are monopolizing aggregates that breed political parties to fight one another for power and for interests. They oppress the Communist party by every artifice to such a degree that it cannot move. They say that a monopartism lacks democracy and promotes despotism. Is that true? The administration is led by our Party, and the people are the masters. We establish a State rule of law in accordance with the law of the people, by the people, and for the people. All is for the interests of the people.

That is true democracy. The Capitalist party represents the interests of the capitalists. It is despotic against the workers, against the working people, and against the Communist party. They are only democratic toward the capitalist class. As for the entire people, it is only false democracy. It is an American author of the book entitled "The United States, the Country and Man of the 21st Century, the U.S. Looks at Itself," said so. Our comrades should read it and will understand. Seven million people are homeless in the U.S.; and, at least, 45 million people are unemployed in the developing capitalist countries. Are those real democracy and freedom? Free to be jobless, free to be homeless, free to be gangsters, free to be "Mafiasi," free to be drug addicts, and free to be prostitutes.

Concerning human rights, the first point in the Declaration of the United Nations is the respect for independence, the right of the sovereignty, and the right of self-determination. That is the most sacred right. Who violated that right? Under the yoke of the colonialists and the fascists, they arrested, tortured, imprisoned, and killed patriots and innocent people. Why did the oppressors not proclaim themselves protectors of human rights? Our people resigned themselves to live under their domination and lost their most fundamental rights. The invaders forced the Vietnamese people to give in again. Is such an act a respect for human rights? I pose that question to Capitalist politicians every time I meet with them, and they are not able to give an answer. We respect the international declaration of human rights. That declaration is applied to every country in the world. However, each country has its own particularities, its own traditions, and its own laws. The particularities and laws of the East differ from those of the West. One cannot apply to other people things that only concern oneself. The Vietnamese particularities and traditions are still much different. We do not impose on anyone to apply our particularities and traditions. Why do they impose on our country to apply theirs? There are numerous problems concerning human rights in their very own countries. Why do they not care to solve them but try to teach the world to apply them, instead? Time is past when the powerful wants to do things on his own volition, speaks as he pleases, imposes on others to do what he wants others to do, and corrects people into doing things at his will.

Recently, they tried to indict us before the United Nations regarding the violations of human rights. Nevertheless, men of good will affirmed that there were no violations of human rights in Vietnam that is justifiable to indict the country before the United Nations. However, in the days to come, the problem will become complicated. In the recent past, we reacted so well, fast and right, that no one could find any fault in us to fight against us. We struggled and sacrificed ourselves with so many of our lives and so much of our blood to gain back our independence and human rights. Now, they have infiltrated their spies into our country, making connections with reactionaries in the country, disrupting social stability aiming at overthrowing our regime and targeting to eliminate all Communist parties, all revolutionary administrations, and socialism by the end of this century. It is then evident that they continue to violate human rights. We must be on the offensive. We must criticize and unmask influential elements that are violating the Declaration of the United Nations and the International Covenants on Human Rights.

A number of individuals only look at the good side of capitalism and do not recognize the real side of it. They are propagandizing pluralism, multipartism, and democracy. They proclaim that we do not have democracy. If that is true, who, then, has democracy? Who is more democratic, and who is less democratic? Democracy is for whom? We have to clear up these questions. We have to point them out to the entire Party, to the entire people. We must fight against multipartism and pluralism to justify democracy over totalitarianism, dear comrades.

This is a complex struggle. We have to exercise our minds to understand national and international laws thoroughly to take firm positions to react in time and properly. On the one hand, we have to improve ourselves for right thinking; on the other hand, we have to maintain the struggle for our political cause, both rationally and sentimentally, to preserve national integrity firmly and to persistently follow the Party's policy persistently, pushing forward the Vietnamese revolution.

On the Economic Plane

They bid us to follow the free market economy, a capitalist economic style. We have entered the market economy, but our market is managed and intervened by the State, that is, under the leadership of the Communist Party. The Communist Party seizes power, and the State intervenes in the market because of the interests of the people, of the working class, and of the working people, not because of the interests of the capitalists. We allow capitalism to develop. We accept that exploitation will continue. We will use and exploit every ability to speed up the development of our country, however. We accept the market economy, but we have to regularize it, gear it toward our direction. The capitalist class in power also governs the management of the market, but their aim is to bring in interests for Capitalist aggregates. Workers in Capitalist countries work in uptight conditions. Their labor is exploited exhaustively. Their wages are high; however, the prices they pay for them is nevertheless very high. To make such statement is to point out that we maintain the market relations in such a way that the State is able to intervene the market, thus favoring the interests of the working class and the workers. We regard man and his happiness as ends. On the contrary, the capitalists perceive interests as their ends.

There are many sectors in our economy. We actuate every capability of our people to build our country. We use capitalism and all forms of capitalist economy to build socialism, to develop economy, to increase budget, and to serve society. At the same time, we take care of and implement national defense and security. We also have to strengthen state enterprises, to build and renovate cooperative economy on a voluntary basis to operate business effectively, which is beneficial to both the family and the country, and to encourage private enterprises and investments in the country and overseas according to the policies of the Party and the laws of the State. State enterprises play the leading role, but now their conditions are limited due to internal setbacks. We have to study those internal contradictions to administer to the fullest capability to expand the strength of our State enterprise so that they will truly be able to assume their leading role, directing national economy. The same things apply to the open-door policy with other countries. We use capitalism apropos with its foreign capital, industry, management so that we will be able to build our country. We need to proceed to evaluate, in all forms, the cooperation with foreign countries to draw experiences from it to better our job.

Evidently. the uses of all the economic sectors are aimed to develop, at a high level, the domestic strength of the entire country, to unite and to exploit to the fullest extent the foreign strength, thus advancing towards achieving the people's happiness. We do not follow the way of capitalism. We do not work for the interests of any class or for any group of individuals. In other words, we have to realize Lenin's thinking that if a backwardly underdeveloped country wants to advance toward socialism, it has to experience capitalism, to use the form of capitalism, and use it to build socialism. Our Party seizes power. It has to have a good policy to realize well Lenin's thinking. The State manages well in that direction. That is a question of reasoning and also is a practicable question that we need to examine and discuss so that we will be able to do our job well.

The Four Dangers

The are three internal dangers and one external one. Hostile elements aimed with vile schemes at overthrowing our regime, but, whether or not they can achieve this is mainly dependent on us. The decision is dependent on us, not on them. They strike us. We will strike them back. If our economy develops, the material and cultural life of the people will become increasingly improved. Once our country becomes more developed, wealthier, more beautiful, saner and more powerful, more just and more civilized, the enemy will not be able to do anything. The crucial matter is to do well in economy and take good care of the citizen's life. In the past years, our economy became stronger. The life of the citizens became better. The citizens had good faith in the Party and in the regime, even though the Soviet Union crumbled and bad political developments in the world ensued. Although favorable conditions will follow and complex problems will occur after the lifting of the trade embargo, hostile elements will clangorously propagate in the country ideals of capitalism and social democracy. Hundreds of "channels" soared in to overthrow us. They use the Vietnamese to overthrow the Vietnamese. They use "discontent Vietnamese and debased and disoriented Vietnamese to fight against the Vietnamese revolutionaries." They use religions to divide religions, the people to divide the people. In the old days, they used guns. Now, they use the dollar to actuate, to instigate members of the Party to overthrow each other. We have to identify this situation and heighten our vigilance to fight against each one of their vile schemes and actions.

They talk about freedom. Then, let us answer to this question. First, what is freedom? There exists free movement in everything in nature, in the universe, in the human society, and in individuals. Such a free movement, however, obeys the law of movement, the freedom of mutual dependence, and freedom within a certain framework. There cannot be anarchism. The planets in the universe revolve along their trajectories. They are free in their movements, but they mutually interact. They do not revolve into confusion. If such a thing happened, the universe would have exploded. The same thing is true with our society. Freedom has certain limits, freedom within the framework of the law. Without limits, society will dissolve. Formerly as well as nowadays, everyone has to obey the law, in the least trifling as well as most important daily conduct of affairs and in the family as well as in society. Every individual has his own freedom, but he must not infringe on the freedoms of others and on the freedoms of society. The law regulates the limitations and guarantees this freedom.

The types of freedom such as those of assembly and organization which are devoted to the service for the people and the country are certainly allowed. The freedoms of assembly and organization that are detrimental to the people and the country are definitely not allowed. The people would definitely suffer from them. Hostile elements ask for the freedom of expression. Under the domination of colonialists and imperialists, a large multitude stood up egging against our compatriots' patriotism. They had awakened the people to fight for the liberation from slavery, for independence and for freedom. They were forbidden to perform their task. They were arrested, imprisoned, and killed. Was there freedom of expression then? Was there freedom of expression then? Nowadays, we respect and listen to everyone's different opinions for national building. However, we do not let anyone abuse this respect to propagandize and incite revolt against the regime, against the Fatherland, and against the people.

Concerning the freedom of speech, it must be in accordance with the law; it must be for the benefit of the country and the people. It must not cause any harm to other people and must not violate the interests of other people and the society. Every thing has its limit. Passing that limit is wrong, and no one accepts that. For instance, 200 million guns circulate among the population of the United States. A number of people use them to kill people freely. Clinton began to order for these guns to be gradually confiscated because he considered this situation a danger. There must not be such a freedom. If you criticize those people, you will see how decisively they will react. Why do they give themselves to criticisms with others then?

We respect the right to follow or not to follow a religion. Anyone has his own right to be a monk, a Buddhist believer, a worshipper of Jesus, a believer of any religion, including the right not to follow a religion. In our views, naturally, we should have the freedom to be Communist, to realize the ideals of communism on our native soil according to the aspirations of our people. Why do hostile elements force us to alienate that right, to denounce the Communist Party, then? In this way, they demand the exclusion of our freedom, which is contrary to what they always divulge: the respect for freedom to everyone. Invading our country and killing our compatriots, they became the cruelest offenders of freedom and human rights. Why do they keep on causing harm to us? We have never annoyed them or caused any harm to them. That is no more than a rude act, using a woman breast to fill up a child's mouth. Nevertheless, they fail to achieve their scheme. The Vietnamese people do not allow them to act as they please.

So speaking, I want to stress the essentials of democracy and freedom and to differentiate between democracy and dictatorship, and between democracy and despotism so that we will be able to determine, with just attitudes, our befitting actions. They say we are not democratic at all. Correct! I am not democratic to you because you invade my land, because you intend to harm me, but I am democratic to my people. They say that we are despotic. Correct! I am despotic against the invaders, against the traitors who impair the interests of the country, of the people. I am despotic to defend national independence and the sovereignty of my people. We have to point out our viewpoint clearly because we are with a just cause. Our reasoning is simple: The people still have good faith in our Party and our State.

Regarding the danger of deviations from our direction, ideology, politics and economy, as I have already mentioned, we must try in every way not to deviate from our direction. The theorists, the policy makers as well as the organization leaders, have to achieve their tasks in such a way that we will be able to carry out the Party's policies properly. In this way, we will not deviate from our direction. We have achieved them; we are achieving them; and we certainly will achieve them. Scientists must be the strategists to the Party, making befitting policies. Organizers have to supervise and control the organizations and execute our policies aright. In this way, we will successfully prevent ourselves from deviating from our direction.

Marxism originates from reality. From the reality of revolution in Vietnam, we have executed the best solution to every issue posed by life itself to push forward our revolution. Our economy was in a phase of crisis, but we successfully counterbalanced it. The inflation was very critical, but we successfully downed it without outside aid. The renovation will continue in this way, from the very low level. The GPA is gradually increasing. Those are the achievements created by the intelligence of the Vietnamese Communist Party, of the Vietnamese people.

Corruption is a serious problem. Of course, it is a serious problem to us. One foreigner wrote to me. This is the general idea: Corruption is everywhere in the world. In the capitalist countries, there are so many incidents of corruption. In your country, the Venerable Ho, Mr. Le Duan, Mr. Truong Chinh did not have any property. Several other leaders do not have any property. In reality, there is corruption in your country. However, to fight against it, you should not talk much; but should act, instead. You should act more than talk. If you talk much and act less, bad individuals will take advantage of the situation and divulge news saying that this administration of yours is worthless. Your enemy will, thus, seize this opportunity to overthrow you. Next, you should readdress your finance policies and methods of accountancy. If they will remain as they exist now, the individuals will steal the State's money. In your country, there are no receipts for the buying and selling of things, including valuable things. There is no such thing in any other country in the world. I would suggest that you focus on this most weakening ring in your system, which is the finance policies and methods of accountancy. These policies and methods must be carried out seriously. Nowhere in the world is there a smuggling of 5,000 automobiles, 60,000 motorcycles. That is not smuggling, but an open smuggling. That is not an evasion of taxes, but it is an act of resistance to taxes. It is imperative that finance policies and methods of accountancy be readressed, and tax regulations be revised so that stability can be restored.

On the other hand, there must be a strong organization at the base cell. Until we are able to control the combativeness at the party branches and base cells, and until our Party base cells are able to thoroughly comprehend the situation and motivate the people, we will then be infallibly able to destroy corruption. If the Party branch debars the struggle, does not combat, or does not thoroughly comprehend the situation, it will not be able to do anything. The role of the Party branch at the base cell and its combativeness are the deciding factor. I believe that once the Party branch has thoroughly understood the situation of the people leveling up its combativeness and improving its management, it will then be able to solve many problems well. If a Party member despoils his combat and his spirit of revolution, his combativeness will then abate. If he finds out that he is wrong and dares not say he commits errors for fear that his avowal will be harmful to him, he will then be incapable to solve any problem. The strengthening of the Party is, thus, very important.

The resolutions of the Mid-term Party Congress pointed out four dangers, but three of them stem from our subjectivity: if the economy and the lives of our people are good and stable, if we are not disorientated, if our leadership in the combat against corruption is improved, and if the combativeness at the Party branch and Party committee is leveled up, the situation will certainly move toward a gradual positive progression. If we are strong, the enemies will not be able to overthrow us; they cannot overthrow us. We have to heighten our vigilance, defeating every enemy's scheme and activity and protecting the Party, the Revolution's administration, and socialism. To protect the Party is to protect our comrades, our cadres, and state employees. Let us not any one of our comrades fall in this battle. That is a very important matter. Nowadays, the class struggle still exists and will continue to exist. The struggle between socialism and capitalism for the question of "who will win whom" is taking place. However, this struggle takes place in a new situation. We consolidate peace. We want to be a friend with all countries. We support polarization and multiplication of international relations for peace, stability, cooperation for mutual interests, and respect for national integrity. In every aspect, we need cooperation and an open door in every aspect to profit from whatever is beneficial to the building of our country and eliminate whatever is detrimental to our country. That is our viewpoint, our standpoint. We dare to "play." And, when we play, we certainly have to win. We are not permitted to lose, not to lose in political thinking, not to lose in politics, not to lose in economy, but to win, instead. Among us, we discuss through all the complexities of the situation. Against the outsiders, we have to thoroughly understand our business policy and to have a good understanding of our standpoint to conduct our business. We need not quarrel and make sonorous speech. This struggle will last long, and it will be very difficult at all levels and in every aspect. We need to accomplish the two basic strategies: building the country and protecting the Fatherland.

Remarks by the Reverend Chan Tin

The Reverend Chan Tin, on April 30, 1994, responded to Secretary-General Do Muoi's advocacy of Marxismn-Leninism and eulogy to the Vietnamese Communist Party. His responses read:

The Class and Class Struggle

In the context of the lifting of the American trade embargo, of openness, of the free market in the capitalist style, and of peaceful evolution operating inside as well as outside the country, Mr. Do Muoi appealed to members of the Party to firmly maintain the concept of class and class struggle.

What class is this? This is a fundamental question to attitudinize. Is it the class of poor and oppressed workers in our present time in our country? Or, is it the "labor class" that has nothing to do with the true working class, the class of "mandarins of revolution"? Is it the class that has exploited the working people to the bone? The unique objective of the class struggle is to reserve the right to monopolize power for that dominating class and to assure it of the total control of the economy, politics, society, and education.

To secure for itself the monopoly of power, the "new class" has to immerse the people into slavery and trample underfoot the dignity of man and his most fundamental rights. Regarding human rights, there is no regional singularity. Man has liberty, and no one has the right to dispossess it pretending that "each country has its own particularities, its own traditions, and its own laws. If these traditions or these laws are unjust and oppressive, they must be sorted out. Since mankind advances in civilization, it must get rid of such laws and such traditions. Mr. Do Muoi takes his stand on the tradition of dictatorship and the anticonstitutional legislation to oppose the International Declaration of Human Rights that the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed together with other civilized countries.

The Merits of the Vietnamese Communist Party

Mr. Do Muoi talked about the merits of the Vietnamese Communist Party that has liberated the working class, that has eliminated the yoke of the domination of oppression, and that brought freedom and happiness to everyone. Is it true? The true workers are always poor and oppressed, even more than they were at the time of colonialism. Only the small group of persons who proclaimed themselves the working class to possess wealth, hold high commanding positions and profits, and live like parasites from the work of poor workers who live on woeful salaries. They liberated the people from the colonialists’ yoke to load them with another one, which is even heftier and bleaker. Communism with a unique party monopolizing power, which existed for 70 years in the Soviet Union and 45 years in Eastern Europe, has revealed its tyrannical nature in China, in North Korea, in Cuba, and in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Oppression, coercion, and injustice under these regimes are much more insufferable than those under colonialism and feudalism.

In the old days, the feudal system was severe here and there but was without organization. Bondsmen, then, did not die of starvation or malady. They were not forced to sing the praise to the lord. Nowadays, communism is an organized feudal system. People lose their freedom in it. There is no happiness, but the people are coerced into saying that they are happy. And they live in a regime that is a million times more democratic than the capitalist regime.

Every time I hear people talking about the ideological struggle, I think of Ha Si Phu, Nguyen Ho, Phan Dinh Dieu, Bui Tin, Lu Phuong, all of whom are party members of a high level who talk about the outmoded, backward, and even retrograde character of Marxism-Leninism.

In his praise of Marxism, Mr. Do Muoi only repeated ad nauseam the same old stories. Marx, Engels, and Lenin might have analyzed in depth the nature of capitalism. They might have shown the road of struggle to liberate the working class and the working people. Mr. Do Muoi recites by heart the lessons that were loaded in his memory. That was, in effect, a doctrine. Alas, reality manifests the opposite. Everyone else has perceived it, including intellectuals and scholars of the Party. Standing in opposition to all the intellectuals and scholars who are now seriously condemning socialism and the socialist regime in the Soviet Union, Mr. Do Muoi grew nervous. He pounded on the table and declared: "Cadres of the natural and social research institutes, political scientists, and scholars have to react and raise their voice. Why do we remain silent and passive in face of the blows that have swooped down on us for many years? We will stand against them even more." He groaned: "Don't let them steal and kill while crying to village folks for help." Who then has behaved in that manner? Who has deprived the people of all their human and civil rights and then declared that the regime is a million times more democratic than others. It suffices to answer to that question to identify who the aggressor is claiming as victims.

Mr. Do Muoi also declared: "A certain number of bad elements say that the twentieth century is the time the Communists execute the greatest manslaughter in history. It is necessary now to bury and forget it." Communism and its regime has only survived 70 years in the Soviet Union, 45 years in Eastern Europe, 40 years in Vietnam. However, during this time, the manslaughter by Stalin eliminated millions of innocent people. They were guilty only because they did not agree with him. In Vietnam, so many innocent people were killed, publicly being accused of taking possession of the land of the people; and so many purges of oppression were inflicted on writers and intellectuals! Specifically, so many men and women were imprisoned and eliminated for saying things other than what were said by the Party at the time of the "Nhan Van Giai Pham" (Humanities) incident. In the Soviet Union, horrible realities of communism have been revealed with the appearance of the democratic movement. Thousands of Pole officers were killed at Katyn. At first, the Communists laid the blame on the German national socialism, but it has been proven nowadays that it is, in fact, the Soviet Union that had eliminated them a year before the arrival of the Germans.

Mr. Do Muoi questioned: "Who provoked World War II and caused the deaths of tens of million people?." He no longer remembers that the Germans, with the connivance of the Soviet Union, began this war. Besides, there is a big difference between the millions of people who died under the bombs of the war and the millions of innocent and unarmed victims who were mercilessly massacred for having had opinions that were different from those of the Party.

Civil Rights: Freedoms

Mr. Do Muoi accused: "The hostile forces libel members of the Party, who might be partisans of dictatorship and antidemocrats." Nevertheless, "the hostile forces" only say nothing but the truth! So, let's call dictatorship democracy and vice versa. Other regimes demonstrate applications of democracy in all domains. They limit them in certain others. In Vietnam, dictatorship reigns in all domains. There is no freedom of thought. There is no freedom of the press. There is no freedom of expression. There is no freedom of religion preventing the Churches to organize themselves, to nominate their own hierarchy, and to edit religious books. Neither is there freedom of movement nor freedom of residence. The residence card, which people call "shackles," is a true bill of indictment for house arrest. To change home, people have to ask for permission, but the mandarins of the Revolution have all their freedom to refuse. As for free general elections, in order that they be really free elections, it is necessary that the candidacy be free. In Vietnam, there is no free candidacy. Free candidacy is decorous as a matter of form. The independent candidate is eliminated before the elections, or if it is a question of preparation for birdcalls to become mandarins of the Revolution, the Party will choose them through the intermediary role of what is called the "Fatherland Front."

Concept of Democracy

This is the truth one may qualify as democracy: "This regime is not a dictatorship! It is a hundred times more democratic than others." To say things like that, it is necessary, first, to go out of one's modesty or take the people for a band of children or a throng of slaves who give in and consent when the Party says that black is in reality white. What a misfortune and humiliation for the people that has behind it 4,000 years of civilization!

Human Rights

Concerning human rights, Mr. Do Muoi declared: "The first article of the United Nations Declaration provides the respect for independence, for the suzerainty, and for the right to self-determination of the peoples." How are independence, suzerainty, and self-determination realized to bring freedom and happiness to the people? If it is the independence that is destined to isolate the country in the hands of an oppressing regime which disallows any person to intervene in the protection of the human person, what interests could the people take from such an independence, then? If the people's suzerainty is manipulated by a political party that applies a government system which is perverse to the fundamental human rights, would that suzerainty be the people's suzerainty? The Vietnamese Communist Party repeatedly says that it is the people that have chosen socialism. What people is it talking about? Is it talking about the group of people it has brought into play who proclaim themselves the people? It is hoped that the Communist Party has a try at organizing a free referendum to see how many people support socialism and the socialist regime nowadays. It will certainly dare not, however.

Economy

On the economic plane, Mr. Do Muoi pretended: "We have entered the market ..." What market is he talking about? Is it the free market with its well-defined laws, its own traditions, and its controlled regulations or an anarchic market without explicit laws, a situation in which fraud and peculation overrule? (Everyone smuggles nowadays--individuals, families, state agencies, including the People's Council and the Party branch, as was revealed in the incident at Binh Hoi.)

Mr. Do Muoi said that the State and the Party need to manage and intervene in the economy. Such an economy is advantageous only to the nomenclature, to those who hold power and influence. They form a type of organized "Mafia" everywhere, in each province, to covet interests in their favor and in favor of the foreigners. They use speculation to obtain contracts, rendering at low price land, buildings, and establishments to foreigners at low prices. Perceiving that national enterprise is now in bankruptcy, they rush headlong towards free market in an anarchic manner.

Mr. Do Muoi spoke of four dangers that jeopardize the Communist regime: a danger of an objective character and three others by order of subjective dispositions.

Peaceful Evolution

The objective danger results from the fact that hostile forces want to overthrow the regime. Mr. Do Muoi said: "They attack us, and we will riposte." Those forces, nevertheless, come from sheer phantasm. The Party calls the actual time "peaceful evolution." The Party fears that "evolution" very much. The Party had a spirituous habit of dealing with the enemy in gun fighting; it is not tired of fighting whereas it is already weary of peace. The process of peaceful evolution simply consists of the following: the people follow he who behaves well and he who brings them freedom and happiness. If the Party is able to fulfill these requirements, it, then, will not have to fear peaceful evolution.

Deviationism

Concerning the three subjective dangers, the first danger that Mr. Do Muoi mentions is deviationism. In what direction does this deviation advance? Is it the direction of the Party or that of the people? The direction that the people follow involves freedom, democracy, respect for human dignity, the rights of the human person, and the rights of the people. It is, then, the Party that deviates from the people's direction. What Mr. Do Muoi calls orientation of the people is a deviation, which consists of reinforcing the dictatorial orientation and the monopoly of power. That is the veritable danger that has existed for quite a long time. The Party has not yet changed direction to agree with that of the people.

Nguyen Trai said: "It is the people who hold up the boat, and it is the people as well who overthrow it." We should not fear that the enemy will overthrow the boat. Mr. Do Muoi is advised to change direction and follow that of the people.

Peculation

As for peculation, Mr. Do Muoi consoled himself by saying that "there is always peculation everywhere in the world. Every country has to stand against it." In other countries, peculation has limits. People denounce it and bring the culprit before the court of justice, even if the culprit is the President of the Republic or the Prime Minister. In this country, peculation is everywhere, in every domain, and at all levels. If it is suppressed, it is suppressed at a certain level of the administration. The mandarins of the Revolution, those who protect peculators and smugglers, not only live in peace but also will even have a greater chance to be promoted to higher positions.

Mr. Do Muoi also talked about the weakness of the base and its lack of spirit of combativeness. When insufficiency of honesty reigns at the top, the bottom will be overwhelmed with troubles. You should go and investigate the enterprises and you will see! Members of the Party are the worst trouble makers. They are the very people that organize peculation. They themselves are the very people who are designated to organize campaigns to struggle against peculation. How can one annihilate that disaster, as Mr. Do Muoi shouted himself out of breath as he proclaimed such a calamity. Peculation develops with so much vivacity as it is intensely fought out, as the press of the Party published news about it just recently.

In summary, not a point in Mr. Do Muoi's speech resists criticisms. He wants changes but keeps up old dogmas. He does not know how to approach reality. He is even blinded to the facts concerning Marxism-Leninism as he was in the old days. The collapse of Communist countries might open the eyes of members of the Communist Party and help them change concerning their orientation of the people. In the future, the Communist Party of Russia or those of the countries in Eastern Europe will renovate themselves and demand democracy, pluralism, multipartism, freedom, and human rights as do other political parties; they will then regain their influence and will be closer to the people. If the Vietnamese Communist Party wants to subsist, it has to respect human dignity, the rights of the people, pluralism, and multipartism.

EVALUATION

While recognizing the Vietnamese Communist Party's contributions to the struggle for national independence, Nguyen Manh Tuong (1992) maintained that recalling them is inessential. As a matter of fact, it was not the first time the country fell victim to a foreign invasion, and it was not the first time it came out of it with glory. Patriotism has always been the constant factor and the deep cause for victory. Naturally, the popular forces only serve as an instrument; they only prove to be valuable and efficacious in the hands of experts who handle them and get from them the best effect. Honor should be dedicated to the kings who knew how to designate military chiefs whose genius and competence enforced their soldiers to manifest their heroism and their will to make sacrifices. Those three assets have equal importance. It is by handling them in an interplay that they led the country to triumph. It might be inequitable to negate the merits of the Communists as well as their contributions to the final victory. The important thing is not to elevate too high or minimize their role but to locate it in its proper place! Nevertheless, under the direction of the Communist Party, the attachment of the people to communism, in the long run, will produce disastrous consequences (Nguyen Manh Tuong, 1992: 82).

Communism as an Ideology

Commenting on communism as an ideology, Nguyen Phong Ho Hieu, a veteran Communist, pointed out that a society of universal concord is a beautiful dream of mankind. However, if it is only a dream or a religious ideal, it is then another matter. Thus, in its context, communism has become a political doctrine. It is socialism as it is related to the life of the human being.

When the imperialists, both old and new, were still doing whatever they liked to do to the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Marxism-Leninism was, indeed, its most fearful opponent. The concrete causatum was that series of countries in the world were liberated from the invasions of the English, French, American, Portugal, Dutch, German, and Japanese empires. Marx's "Das Kapital" was truly a scientific and valuable work of study on capitalism. It contained assertive remarks, analyses, and profound criticisms on capitalism and imperialism. Grounded on those bases of reasoning, the Communist movement was a perfectly effectual solution to fight against imperialism in the past century. That is a historical reality no one can deny, including influential imperialist powers and the noncommunist. Never had Marx accomplished a complete work on the so-called "socialism and communism," however. He, as well as Lenin, only introduced a number of subjective preconceived ideas on the goals society has to outreach. Those perspectives have little value in the scientific aspect since they are still devoid of practical justifications. Marx had never written about "communism." It is then a constraint and a pity for him to elevate those crude preconceived ideas of his to dogmas.

For nearly a century, realities have proven that the preconceived ideas by Marx and Lenin on the construction of socialism are utopian, backward, and unrealizable. They criticized Saint Simon, Fourrier, and Owen for being utopian socialists. Nevertheless, realities have further proven that "scientific communism" is also utopic and not scientific and that Marx and Lenin were merely new utopians. Communism rose because it knew how to incorporate itself into the liberalization of the peoples, actuating the masses to struggle for a new society. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and socialist countries in Eastern Europe and the economic stagnancy in the less developed countries, China, Vietnam, North Korea and those countries that freshly adopted socialism, such as Libya, in recent decades, all led to poverty and famine. The situations are just similar to those in the countries that freshly "converted themselves" to socialism such as Algeria (Muslim socialism) and Myannar. Aren't those realities viable enough for us to draw up a balance sheet for what the [Communist] doctrine has achieved? (Nguyen Phong Ho Hieu, 1993)

The Class and Class Struggle

In his political memoirs entitled "Hoa Xuyen Tuyet" (Snow-piercing Flower), Bui Tin (1991), a veteran Communist, examined the essentials that constituted the basis of the Communist regime in Vietnam. It was the dictatorship of the proletariat founded on the class struggle, a struggle without mercy in which violence is applied in a universal manner without respite in time and discontinuity in space. It is an immense machinery of repression well lubricated with a Soviet-type of KGB that places itself above the law and opinions, that flouts public liberties, that oppresses the citizens and society, and that sowed terror in a durable and permanent manner. It is a system of domination of a privileged class that monopolizes all powers and wealth. It is the "nomenclature" of the "socialist" society in which the class of bureaucrats and parasites exploit the people without shame. They form a clan of "red capitalists." They take advantage of the country's state of decadence, of disintegration, and of chaos. Besides, based on the documents newly exposed to light, it is necessary to reevaluate in a more precise and recondite manner the merits of certain personalities. It is only with such a reexamination on both the past and present that we might be able to find correct solutions to the present and a right orientation for the future.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Female novelist Duong Thu Huong, who served in an avant-garde unit during the resistance against the Americans, maintained that the first thing to do is to give up the principle of dictatorship of the proletariat. It is outmoded. It is the model of administration in war time initiated by Lenin: Dictatorship against the enemy. However, when the period of dictatorship is over, the state machinery of administration, which is based on this principle, will converge all its violence against the people. There will be no more dictatorship of the proletarian. There will only be dictatorship against democracy. (This is not a hypothesis, but a terrifying reality.) In the name of proletariat dictatorship, Lenin had purged 10 million Soviet party members, soldiers, and citizens. In the name of China and the dignity of the Marxist-Leninist, Mao Tse Tung had eliminated 65 million people. The principle of proletariat dictatorship is directly related to the principle of democratic centralism. In essence, those two principles guarantee a model of society governed by despotism and absolutism. In such a society, the entirety of powers is reined by a group of individuals, and ultimately by an individual. These individuals are real superpowers. They place themselves above the law and all systems of social values. No forces could control over or refrain them, even the law, morals, or public opinion (Duong Thu Huong, 1990).

The Monopoly of Power

According to Van Duc, the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party conceives that its monopoly of power is a historical necessity for national reconstruction and a move toward the realization of socialism. Such a perception is untrue. It does not reflect Vietnam's political realities and the Vietnamese's aspirations to democracy. As a result, the monopoly of power only hinders other political parties and the noncommunist's contributions to national reconstruction. It destroys all the hopes for national reconciliation and concord. It goes adversely against Vietnam's traditional democratic way of life.

Van Duc stressed that the Vietnamese are inherently endowed with democratic ways of life, even when they were under feudalism. The Royal Court legally recognized political, social, educational, cultural, and religious customs and manners of the people. The Le Restoration dynasty in the eighteenth century decreed that the people in hamlets and villages were entitled to the rights to elect representatives to administer their local affairs. Elected members of the Councils of Notables had the rights to make decisions that were sometimes contrary to those made by the Royal Court. "The King's orders must give place to the Village's customs." In the colonial times, the French had to respect this division of power, although they tried to restrict it. This way of life still reflects in the administrative infrastructure in the North, even though the Vietnamese Communist Party has tried to suppress it.

The Vietnamese Communists, in the eyes of the people, no longer deserve the merits they proudly attribute to themselves. Van Duc thinks that the prestige of the Vietnam Communist Party is increasingly abrading. The people no longer show fear of it. It is a crack in the hull of a hard boiler that cannot be soldered. On the other hand, the Party's policies prove to be untrue, and their consequences are even more damaging, and thus harrowing the people's loss of faith in the Party's leadership. Have the leaders of the Party realized such a reality? Have the masses fingered such an existence? It is obvious that the absolute majority of the people are aware of them. They all know them because they all have suffered the terrible consequences of such policies (Van Duc, 23 (1993)).

Claims to Eradicate Communism

The Communists' obsession for power results in claims for freedom, democracy, and human rights. The Vietnamese Communists, as Pham Sy adduced, aren't like any other international Communists. We should probe into every aspect of the problems our country has faced to determine what we should do. There are a myriad of issues that require a myriad of solutions that no single group of our generation could possibly solve. It isn't the fear on the part of the noncommunists. It may be the one the Communists might get caught in. They may be afraid of being stripped off their power, privileges, and interests. Now, at every level in the Communist rule, cadres and party members cling to their power, obstinately exercising their political monopoly to oppress the people, political dissidents, and all kinds of opponents (Van Chuong, 1992: 7).

The Popular Resistance

Disobeyance

Political dissidence and opposition were primarily manifest in the disobeyance of the people and state cadres and their disbelief in the Vietnamese Communist Party. By the time the Communist administration put strict control on the allocations of food provisions and commodities, the use of pork to make porkpie and the use of rice to distill alcohol were strictly prohibited. Those who violated the prohibition would be charged with crimes against the state policy on management of food, provisions, and commodities. Nevertheless, whoever needed such food, provisions, and commodities could find them in abundance at the Mao Dien village market, Bac Ninh Province. If the district police team ever came to the village for inspection, it would have to contact with the village administration. They would be welcomed with generosity and feast. Otherwise, if they went to the market place without the village representatives' accompanying, they would find nothing and would be beaten up in the open market. The villagers and local authorities agreed to execute their own regulations, regardless of the State's restrictions or policy. Recently, the taskwork in agricultural production was also the initiated by the peasants and not by the Vietnamese Communist Party.

State Cadres' Accomplices

There were stories about the masses' punishments on cadres who reported to party authorities about the masses' disobeyance towards the Party's policy. For instance, the Party's policy stipulated that to achieve the state five-year economic plan, the growing of rice was compulsory, and the peasants could only grow rice. Those who grew crops other than rice would suffer heavy taxes. The Communist authorities usually squeezed out even the last penny, and the peasants would be exploited to the point they could hardly survive. Nevertheless, the peasants in many areas in the Tonkin delta decided to grow tobacco since the crop often brought them good interests and thus helped them make ends meet. A vile cadre would be punished if he ventured to report the situation to higher authorities. His crop would be destroyed by a secret hand, and he would never find out who the culprit was. That was the will of the masses.

The geberal consensus is that the Vietnamese Communist Party's monopoly of power, in the long run, could not stand. It would only cause political opposition and economic disorder. In the recent years, being aware of popular discontent, it has loosened its control on the peasantry's modes of production and eased the people's economic life by allowing a form of market economy. However, it still holds on to its political monopoly of power, using it as leverage for political difficulties. The Democratic Party and the Social Party that were created by the Vietnamese Communist Party and that existed nominally were disbanded. The leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party were afraid that the other two parties would grow up and eventually replace the Communist Party in the leadership. As the world movement progressed rapidly towards democracy, the Vietnamese Communist Party increasingly worried about an unpredictable change. It saw enemies everywhere. Anyone could be its enemy. It was the fear of a man who rides on a tiger's back (Van Duc, May 1992).

Disbelief in the Communist Party

The late President Ho Chi Minh probably did not know how unfortunate the Vietnamese people would be. Neither did Mr. Le Duan. Until he passed away he had always satiated his happiness with several sweet ladies of his. Nevertheless, every other leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party knew it. They knew more than anyone else about the misfortunes the Vietnamese people were experiencing. Mr. Truong Chinh, Mr. Nguyen Van Linh, Mr. Do Muoi, and members of the Politburo and the Party Central Committee all knew them. Van Duc believes that they all wanted to remedy the situation, but they simply failed to do so. There seemed to be "something bitterly despondent" that hung around in the air as it was expressed in a song by Trinh Cong Son. Furthermore, the political situation in Communist Eastern Europe made the old members of the leadership of the Vietnamese Communist Party afraid. Like an unconditioned reflex, they coiled back to their passive defense strategy. They even asked their neighbor, whose bad reputation was widespread and who had played wicked tricks on them, for help.

The leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party, who have now seized full power, know more than anyone else that the people have no longer had faith in them. However adequate or effective, their policies would hardly convince the masses of their adequacy and efficiency. Even if they are really adequate and efficient, their adequacy and efficiency would not last long. The people have already distrusted the Party! They also know that the leaders of the Vietnamese Communist Party are now worrying. Similar troubles like those in Eastern Europe will happen. However, they are only fearful for their fates and those of the 1.7 million Vietnamese Communist Party members. That is only a simple story. The fates of the German Communist leaders after the fall of the Berlin Wall were to them a good warning.

Indeed, Party members who hold important positions in the central administration no longer enjoy privileges and benefits as their colleagues did several years ago. There are no more special markets and emoluments. The golden age has already passed. Perhaps, the booties that were swept off for the last shipment is being carried on at the lower levels of the administration hierarchy. Cadres and state employees are all aware that once they leave their office they will have nothing. They will have to take care of their lives once they retire. So, they hastily make profits in one way or another to save something for their future. They never hesitate to take bribes. They certainly know that even their bosses will not possibly give them a hand in hard times. They are in a game, and there are rules in it. Undeniably, the game under socialism is fatal (Van Duc, 24 (1993)).

The youths, in particular, now have no faith in the Party. Cao Yen Si, in an article in the weekly "Dai Doan Ket" (Great Union) published in August 1991, lamented that the youths no longer understand the achievements of the Communist Party. He wrote, in part: "There has been quite a number of cases of youths who know nothing about the nation's past struggle. They not only ignore their nation's historical victories but also the places that were once awashed with the blood of enemies who perpetrated crimes against their forefathers and compatriots. Not only have they ignored the Lao Bao and Phu Rieng Do prisons of the French period of domination, they also have vague notions about the Cho Duoc, Phu Loi, Dong Loc Junction, and Kham Thien in Hanoi (FBIS, August 19, 1991: 57).

Loopholes in Economic Policy

The Errors

Veteran Communist Do Trung Hieu (1995) observed that, in 1986, the Sixth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party remolded its economic platform on the Soviet model of "restructuration and openness." The Party acknowledged that it had committed errors in numerous sectors of the economic life. It then put forward the economic policy of "open door" to attract foreign capitalists to invest in Vietnam (while keeping a tight rein on domestic private enterprise).

In the past eight years (1988-1994), the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has issued 1,174 licenses in the sector of investment with a totaling capital of US$ 11.207 billion. The true capital, however, only amounts to US$ 3.5 billion. There have been no real projects that correspond to the development of industry and economic infrastructure as planned, except the projects in oil exploration. Still, the US$ 3.5 billion in investment is not real. Most foreign investors contribute their shares in used machines which are valued twice the real prices to increase the value of their shares. The Vietnamese shareowners, on their part, also want to increase the value of their property to make profits on commission. On the surface, the economic life is relatively accommodating. There has been progress in agriculture since the cessation of the land rent contract policy. The people in the whole country have had enough white rice to consume. The Government said that the economy growth has increased from 8 to 8.5 percent. However, to be serious and responsible, one should say that the present economy in Vietnam is erratic; it is on the brink of an abyss, cornering the whole nation to a dangerous impasse. The centermost source of life is now moving around the "land funds." Since 1992, the prices of land have galloped at a dizzy speed, tenfold on the average, fifteenfold and twentyfold, and even higher in categorical cases. The common citizens sell land to foreign capitalists to have capital to make a living, to buy commodities, to build houses, or to have money for entertainment. Owing to this, other enterprises, businesses, and services develop. State-run enterprises either use state land or expropriate the people's land in various ways to acquire capital or to use land as their material shares to build joint ventures with foreign capitalists (Do Trung Hieu, 1995: 62).

Apropos the economic infrastructure development, foreign sources said, Vietnam put heavy reliance on the $250 million it could borrow from the IMF to start redirecting its programs. In reality, it would need as much as $40 billion to repair and reconstruct its systems of bridges. It also boasted that it would develop Vung Tau into a modern seaport. The State Commission on Investment said that they will enlarge other wharves and seaports. The situation, however, was not clear. The reconstruction of roads and bridges has topped first priorities in the economic planning since 1980, but it has not been improved yet. For instance, in June 1989, the State Company of Roads and Bridges construction in the Hue-Thua Thien Province started its project to reconstruct the Truong Tien Bridge that connects the old capital of Hue with Thua Thien Province. Tons and tons of cement and construction materials were put into the construction. However, by May of 1993, that is, two years after the work had been started, the bridge construction was still under halfway finished. Experts of an international company said that even with billions of dollars, one could not reconstruct Vietnam's economic infrastructure unless corruption is wiped out and its administration system restructured.

Corruption

In his official report to the Laws Committee of the National Assembly on October 11, 1993, Tran Van Luc, Inspector of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, brought out such fact as, up to September 1993, the City had conducted 106 instances of inspection and found out the State had lost 53.5 billion dong, 3,695 ounces of gold, 8 houses, 11,875 square meters of land due to corruption. One hundred twenty-five (125) state officials were interrogated; 33 of them were subjected to investigation; and 22 were arrested for violations of the law. Tran Van Luc further stated that there was indication that corrupt state officials had conjoined themselves in an intertwined network to create a hard shell to protect corruption. Corruption spreads everywhere. It takes place in both political organizations and the mass media. According to Truong Van Da, Vice-Chairman of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, there appeared an organized "Mafia."

Another Vice-Chairman of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, Vuong Huu Nhon, reported that the city's economy growth slowed down partly due to smuggling of commodities into the city. As a case in point, Ba Ty, through the Dong Nai Import and Export Company, smuggled into the city 4 million meters of fabric valued at 38 billion dong. He further indicated that the city had administered 15,000 instances of smuggling, illegal business transaction, and counterfeit merchandise within the two months of August and September, 1993. However, only 110 instances of violation were administered. Vuong Huu Nhon also indicated that one of the hurdles in the fight against smuggling results from inefficient coordination between authorities and abuses of power. There are "special quarters" such as the area surrounding the Tan Son Nhat Airport. Local authorities were not permitted to go into the area for inspection, although they were aware that smuggling commodities had been stored there.

Nguyen Cao Hach (1993) observed:

According to the Reuters, on April 13, 1995, the official reported that there has been an alarming increase in smuggling of goods such as electronics products, clothing and cigarettes into the country. Revenue losses from smuggling along the border with China are estimated at up to 400 million dong (US$ 36,000) a day. Customs officials say they intercept only 30% of the illegal goods moving across the border. There were no details of the value of goods smuggled in by the sea routes. Official media have quoted government leaders saying that smuggling would pose a serious threat to the Vietnamese economy if it was not brought under control. Among the items smuggled into Vietnam are consumer goods, electronics, tobacco products, clothes, beer, and motor scooters.

The official daily "Quan Doi Nhan Dan" (the People's Army) reported that, in the first three months of 1995 alone, there were 12,400 violations of smuggling and market control rules such as sales tax evasion. The figure for 1994 was 129,919, a rise of 30% from 1993. Market control violations include illegal exports of rice; exports are only operated by the government. To increase profit, traders and officials of state agencies illegally send boatloads of rice to areas bordering China to be sold at a better price. In the first three months of 1995, 22 ships hired by the government to carry rice from the South to the food scarce North never reached their destination and were believed to have been diverted to China. The government estimated that about 100,000 tons of rice were exported illegally by land and sea in the first quarter of 1995. So far this year, 1,446 people have been convicted of smuggling and other trade violations. Two were sentenced to death and three to life imprisonment. Among those punished were officials who embezzled state money or took bribes to overlook several tens of billions of dong (millions of dollars) in due taxes. Observers say Vietnam's free market reforms and steady economic growths of the past few years have been accompanied with the growing number of officials who misuse their positions for illegal benefits.

Investment

Since 1986, the government has begun the market oriented economic reforms. Goods and services are more widely available in the cities. However, only the privileged groups of entrepreneurs who have connections with influential officials are free to engage in the industry and business enterprise. Investment fraud is extensively practiced. The party-run daily "Nhan Dan" (The People) carried, on its front page, Nguyen Tien Phuoc's article analyzing why investment projects in Ho Chi Minh City cannot be implemented. Since the beginning of May 1986, there have been 171 projects approved by the State Committee for Cooperation and Investment. The Law on Investment came into existence. However, the number of projects put into practice is only 57 or 33.33 percent of the approved projects. There are 24 other projects which are facing difficulties. Nineteen (19) projects cannot be started. Twenty (20) projects forfeited their operating licenses. All of these projects account for 46 percent of the total projects. This situation is not a trivial matter. The cause of the situation is that many self-proclaimed investors are only high-class intermediaries when they apply for investment licenses. They apply for the license then sell it to other companies for a sumptuous commission. They do not care whether or not the projects are viable. The intermediaries exploit the lack of information, research, and dialogue in Vietnam and pretend to be big investors. Worse still, they also use licenses as fronts for illegal trading activities. They do not invest any money in production or business as stated in the licenses. They bring in tax-free commodities and then sell them in the market instead of selling them for foreign currencies as stipulated in their projects. An example of such commodities is building materials whose value and quality we do not know (Hanoi Voice of Vietnam Network in Vietnamese, June 22, 1992).

Phillip Shenon of the New York Time reported in May 1994 how foreign investors go about their business in Vietnam:

Commenting on the present economic renovation, Nguyen Cao Hach said:

Dang Vu Phuong Anh, in her speech at the conference on "To Celebrate Tet, Look Toward the Future" sponsored by the Association of Vietnamese Students at Georgetown University, February 10, 1994, said that the shining appearance of products that overwhelmed the market and shows of entertainment destined to debase the personality of the Vietnamese people in Vietnam would only conceal the utter misery throughout the 19 years under the Communist regime. Those are the problems to which foreigners will turn a deaf ear. The Vietnamese should be aware of them because they are their economic interests. However, they would only bring a false hope.

In early March 1995, Vietnam's foreign trade is reportedly growing. Nevertheless, imports are increasing faster than exports, confirming a trend toward a trade deficit. The official newspaper "Quan Doi Nhan Dan" (The People's Army) said that the first two months of this year export totaled $470 million and imports US$ 550 million. In the same period of last year, exports and imports were US $424 million and US $465 million respectively. The trade deficit in January of this year was $20 million with exports worth US$ 250 million and imports worth US$ 270 million. Provisional figures indicated Vietnam had a trade deficit of about US$ 600 million last year on the total trade of US$ 7.8 billion. Final official figures have not yet been announced.

Official statistics indicated that the indices on prices in June 1995 rose to 0.8%. Within a year, the rate of inflation has risen to 19.5%. According to the authorities, the prices of needy commodities and goods and construction materials all rise; those for foods rise to 20%; those for construction material, 18%; those for industrial products, 13.5%; those for import goods, 13.5%; and those for export goods, 35%. On the other hand, the authorities have failed to prevent peculators from operating the black market. Peculators and smugglers, in collusion with army authorities, illegally exported to China 200,000 tons of rice. The budget deficit remains critical. Although the government has kept it a dead secret, it pledges to lower it to 4.25% of the GDP.

The Issues

National Reconciliation

As he went to the polls on July 19, 1992, Secretary-General Do Muoi said, in an impromptu meeting with the press, that the multi-party system does not necessarily mean a democratic system. The Secretary-General argued that Vietnam had a few political parties taking part after the August Revolution in 1945. However, the political situation aggravated, and stability took over. Through the practice of inner struggle, most of the parties melted away by themselves. Only the Communist party remained firm in leading the revolution, and it went from one success to another. Beside the Communist party, there were the democratic and socialist parties that accepted the leadership of the Communists.

Nguyen Van Phat, a nationalist revolutionary who lives in Orange County, California, referred to Do Muoi's allegations on the inner struggle of the national parties as "dirty distortions." Vietnam had a coalition government after the August Revolution. Since Ho Chi Minh and the Communists did not have popular support, they sought cooperation from national parties. To deceive their leaders and to win their confidence in his promises for national unity and concord, Ho declared to dissolve the Indochina Communist Party. However, no sooner had Ho and his comrades acceded to power they swallowed their promises, using vile tricks and artful schemes to eliminate prominent and prestigious opponents in the national parties to monopolize power. The roles of the democratic and socialist parties with Vu Dinh Hoe and Nguyen Xien as leaders, respectively, were nominal (VNHRW, 30 (April 1994): 7).

In a letter to Secretary-General Do Muoi in August 1994, veteran socialist Nguyen Xien, indeed, complained about the distant relationship between the Communist Party and the masses and about the poor relations between the Party and the intellectuals. Nguyen reported that the Vietnamese Communist Party always declares its devotion to the service for the entire people, even as a servant to the people. In reality, noncommunists are treated as inferiors, even as second class citizens. Almost the entire administration is in the hands of the Communists, from the village People's Council to the administration office. It is sad to say that the culprits of corruption, which is now a scourge to the people, are Communist party members because they are the only people with the power to participate in corruption.

Concerning the intelligentsia, the letter wrote:

The state of affairs at the Saigon archdiocese, for instance, is a point of friction between the State and the Church. The "Eglises d'Asie," on September 16, 1994, noted that the Vietnamese government appeared to be distinctly uncompromising. It still refuses to reconsider the recognition of Mgsr. Huynh Van Nghi as administrator or Bishop Coadjutor of the Saigon archdiocese. The state-affiliated Union of Catholics Committee is another issue of disagreement. The government's interventions show that it is eager to hear from the Vatican, especially about its negative attitude toward that union as was manifested by its Secretary for the Interior, Cardinal Sodano. A compromise between the State and the Church in this matter seems to be far-fetched.

Secretary-General Do Muoi again developed his ideas on national solidarity and economic development to religious leaders and political personalities outside the Communist Party at the Fourth Fatherland Front Congress, held in Hanoi. during August 17-19, 1994. He proposed, in his speech, "to consider national sentiment as essential, to be on good terms on common objectives, to disremember old complexes, to forget hatred, and to look forward to the future." The daily "Tuoi Tre" (Youth) carried a report on the congress on August 21, 1994. According to the report, Mgsr. Nguyen Minh Nhat, President of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Vietnam, the Venerable Thich Tri Quang of the state-sponsored Vietnam Buddhist Church, and a great number of leaders of other religions were among the participants in the congress. Also present was Professor Phan Dinh Dieu, a member of the presiding committee and speech deliverer. The invitations seemed to have been sent to all azimuths, party members of the regime, and veteran opponents in and outside the country. Among those political figures were Duong Van Minh, former Chief of State of the Republic of Vietnam, and Vu Van Mau, a prominent politician in South Vietnam before 1975.

In his speech, Do Muoi particularly appealed to overseas Vietnamese, whose competence and capitals are now extremely necessary for the development of the country, to serve the country. To show its concerns, the congress nominated Lam Ba Chau of the Vietnamese Associations in France and several other overseas Vietnamese to the Fatherland Front Central Committee.

Comments and Observations

Non-Communist circles, however, observed that the themes addressed at the congress did not entail anything new. As always, they were only appeals to overseas Vietnamese to contribute spiritually and materially to national unity and economic development. The Fatherland Front was again used as a loudspeaker to mobilize the religious and intellectual circles to support the Communist Party to propagate its political schemes.

So far, as Lam Le Trinh noted, countless promises of solidarity with national parties have been broken. Hanoi even violates the international treaties that it has signed. South Vietnam was invaded in the face of nine states who signed the Paris Treaty on March 2, 1973. The United Nations subsequently ratified the illegal occupation of South Vietnam by accepting Communist Vietnam as a member state. The South Vietnamese people's right to self-determination, which had been proclaimed and defined by Article VI of the Agreement of January 27, 1973, was and is being denied ( Lam Le Trinh, 1993: A1).

Le Trong Phap stressed that the "reconciliation and harmony" label is only a political approach with which the Vietnamese Communist leadership bemused the Vietnamese people and international public opinion. Their ultimate objective is to establish and implement the despotic one-party rule on the whole country, regardless of the preeminent interests of the people. To the top members in the Communist leadership circle, "reconciliation and concord" would only mean that all individuals and societal components that oppose them must surrender to and obey them to achieve their objectives. The Vietnamese Communists propagandized this "reconciliation and harmony" label among the population as a solution to "end the war and restore the peace in Vietnam" before April 30, 1975. The Paris Agreements of January 21, 1973, foresaw a system of "councils for reconciliation and concord" at all levels, both regional and central. However, when the American troops withdrew from Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communists took advantage of the situation to seize South Vietnam by force. After April 30, 1975, the Vietnamese Communists attached to "reconciliation and concord" two main ideas: to associate well with the good elements as well as to eliminate well the bad elements, and not to reconcile and harmonize with criminals. Cadres explained to the masses that they would only "reconcile and harmonize with the people, but not with criminals (Le Trong Phap, 1993: 67-68)."

Nguyen Van Canh observed:

The Seventh Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party (1991) decided to follow Communist China's path: to renovate economy but not politics. The Plenum Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, held during January 20-25, 1994, launched a multipurpose plan to counterattack the so-called "peaceful evolution." The plan aimed at implementing unity within the Party, increasing salaries for the military personnel, fortifying and modernizing the police forces, and implanting covert Communist agents in all civil and social institutions and religions. On the other hand, it arrested dissidents who spoke for freedom, democracy, and human rights. All demands for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression are punished. In Hanoi, the Party's dogmatic Communist group carried out intensive researches and political efforts to prove that peaceful evolution is conducted by the CIA, the imperialist enemy powers, and reactionary elements. These elements, according to the group, conceived artful schemes as both means and ends to subvert the regime. They fight against the people of Vietnam and the socialist regime. The group tried to prove that the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was an incorrect application of socialism. It is a matter of human errors. Marxism-Leninism is always right. Thus, those bad elements need to be punished by the Vietnamese Communist Party, the people, and the socialist forces.

The results were that, in December 1993, Division I of the Ministry for the Interior and the Strategic Institute of State Defense issued a state document under the Secret Code #KK.09 or "The Peaceful Evolution Strategy--A Revolt to Overthrow the Socialist State and Our Counter Strategy." The document was used to teach cadres, officers, state agencies, and the people with the methods, facilities, and approaches to deal with "the soft war," a non-frontier war, which was threatening to erase the socialist system.

During the last ten days of June 1992, the Central Committee Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party held its sessions in Hanoi. It particularly probed into and discussed the two most serious problems that are of primary concerns to its rule: the dispute over the sovereignty of the Spratley Islands and political dissidence within the country. The French AFP, citing from several sources, said that Hanoi did not believe that "there is an international conspiracy in political dissidence." However, it shows its concern over "the threat from counterrevolutionary elements" among overseas Vietnamese who take advantage of its "open door" policy to "de-stabilize" the political regime within the country. In its final communiqué to the press, the congress stressed its concerns relating to internal political dissidence. It stated that the State will fortify defense and security measures to dismantle any sabotage by antisocialist elements.

In January 1993, Defense Minister Doan Khue warned the army that it must fight against what he described as imperialist plots to destroy socialism. In a speech made to troops in Central Vietnam, he said that unidentified enemies had been encouraged by the collapse of the Soviet Union and were stepping up efforts to end the Communist Party rule in Vietnam. Their target, according to him, was to liquidate the revolutionary achievements and wipe out the socialist system in the world. Those hostile forces were trying to destroy Vietnamese socialism by using military means and "peaceful evolution," a term also used by China to describe Western attempts to spread ideas about political pluralism.

Doan Khue described "peaceful evolution" as a dangerous force that could seep through the society, and even the party, without people realizing it. Hostile elements, according to him, tried their best to carry out distorting propaganda and to take advantage of the regime's mistakes to arouse and spread doubt and vagueness. "Peaceful evolution" takes place in all aspects of politics, ideology, economy, culture, diplomacy and uses many forces, many means and exists from many directions, anywhere and any time, and affects everyone from top government levels down to grassroots masses. Doan Khue alleged that since the collapse of the Soviet Union the imperialist and reactionary forces have stepped up efforts to establish a "new world order" controlled by the United States. He stressed that unidentified enemies are trying to establish organizations within the Party and among the Vietnamese people to overthrow the system. He forewarned that reorganization of the Party is a key way to fight against enemies' attempts at "peaceful evolution."

By the time the United States still maintained the trade embargo on Communist Vietnam, several editorials published in Hanoi newspapers warned of threats from hostile forces. They indicated Vietnam's disappointment at failing to normalize relations with the United States. They blamed Washington for maintaining a tough trade embargo against Hanoi and denied Vietnam access to credits from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and other lenders. They urged the people and the army to be vigilant against plots which plan to topple the regime through "peaceful evolution." The call, in an unusually strong commentary on State radio's "People's Army" program, revived an old theme: Vietnam's enemies are trying to subvert the Communist rule by peaceful means rather than force. Officials argued that it was "peaceful evolution" inspired by the West that caused the downfall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The Radio said:

The Danger

Peaceful Evolution may lead to collapse of the regime. In 1994, the daily "Quan Doi Nhan Dan" (The People's Army) continually ran articles heightening the masses' vigilance on fighting against what it referred to as "peaceful evolution." On June 20, 1994, it carried a front-page essay iterating the regime's watchword: the Press must not act adversely against the interests of the people. The noble duty of more than 7,000 newsmen in the Association of Journalists is to serve the Vietnamese Communist Party. It must pilot the people on the path to socialism and fight against hostile enemies that are shielding themselves behind the label "peaceful evolution." To demand for freedom of the press in the Western style is to be poisoned by peaceful evolution.

In truth, in the mid-term Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party on March 3, 1994, there was a hot ideological discussion among party members on the so-called peaceful evolution. The term conveys different meanings, from pluralistic democracy to human rights, free expression, anything that the Communists think will debase the supremacy of the Vietnamese Communist Party. In his speech to high-ranking cadres, Secretary-general Do Muoi brought forward, as evidences, documents on the "activities of a certain number of hostile forces and oppositions" and related several reactionary movements that operated in South Vietnam. He stressed that the documents should be the object for discussion during April and May, 1994. The reports on them had to be sent to the Party Central Committee by the end of May 1994.

In his article on the "Quan Doi Nhan Dan" (The People) on June 21, 1994, Quoc Huy maintained that the enemy of the regime is everywhere. It uses every means possible. It uses even the most apparently innocent ones to overthrow the regime. On the contrary, Quang Thong argued that the most dangerous enemies are probably the ones that have already dug trenches inside the regime. However, they are not the ones the imperialists have implanted in the country. Many party members also thought that to put the blame on peaceful evolution is again to put the blame on the outside enemies. The most pressing task now is to find them inside the Party and the government.

The Problems

Unemployment

By the end of the 1980's, the International Bureau of Labor predicted unemployment to be doubled by the end of 1990. It is caused by the restructuration of state enterprise and the release of soldiers from service. The number of soldiers discharged outnumbered the unemployed, estimated at 2 million. The ambitious program of restructuration, on the other hand, was inadequate. Minister of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Welfare Tran Dinh Hoan, cited in the "Lao Dong" (Labor) weekly publication, predicted that "the number of Vietnamese workers sent to the Soviet Union and East European countries will fall in the 1991-1995 period." This was due to economic difficulties, including unemployment, wracking these countries, which underwent major political changes. Up to 30 per cent of the 80,000 Vietnamese workers in the Soviet Union currently lacked employment and received tiny subsidies, making their daily lives a struggle as food prices continued to rise. Other socialist countries in Eastern Europe were facing similar problems due to political upheavals. Vietnam was likely to send workers to Bulgaria and Czecholosvakia. The Ministry showed that 240,000 Vietnamese had been sent to work overseas since 1980 (FBIS, January 29, 1990: 59).

Observers said there must be more profound and efficacious reforms to get the country out of this stagnant situation. To master unemployment, the Vietnamese economy must create 1.5 million jobs. Of the 30 million active workers, 20 million worked in the agricultural sector. The absorption capacity of this sector was de facto obstructed. The Vietnamese Communist rule exported part of the country's work force to Communist Eastern Europe. Some 200,000 workers were sent abroad in the 1980's under the so-called "cooperative socialist program." The task became increasingly difficult because of the political and economic crisis in those countries. This politics came again as exports of workers to Western Europe. Because of the economic crisis in Vietnam, there were not enough jobs for these workers. The candidates considered themselves as "privileged" because the wage in West Germany, for example, was equivalent to more than 20 times that in Vietnam. However, the situation of the Vietnamese workers overseas never ceased to dilapidate. Five thousand of them, taking advantage of the opening of the Berlin Wall, evaded to the West. Thousands of them were repatriated in the past year, thus adding weight to persistent unemployment in the country.

Workers' Strikes

Popular dissidence is manifest in various sectors of the economy and society. A new phenomenon takes place under the proletariat dictatorship: workers quit jobs and go on strike. Beginning in 1994, workers at clothes- and shoes-making manufactories in North Vietnam quit their jobs due to low wages and labor exploitation and looked for jobs at private enterprises. Workers at state-run factories have to work from 9 to 10 and even 12 hours a day without compensation. Many factory workers went on strike, even though going on strike requires authorization from the State. During the first six months of 1994, 6,156 workers in the lower industry quit their jobs. The walk-out caused serious problems to 23 state-run business enterprises, and 4,613 workers did not go to work for one month, demanding for working benefits. Many among them resisted going to work for 4 or 5 months. Two hundred workers at a seafood processing factory went on strike after the factory leadership since it announced it would cut one-third of the worker's wage due to the insufficiency of seafood products.

More than 500 workers at the joint-venture textile factory, Choong Nam-Viet Thang, went on strike on Christmas 1993. Three other strikes occurred in February 1994 in Saigon and Hanoi. The first strike took place at Vitexco in Saigon. Approximately 500 workers called for a token strike, asking for the Tet (Lunar New Year) bonuses and explanation for the use of welfare budget for workers at the factory. Coincidentally, 150 workers at the Sanitary Company in the 6th District in Saigon staged a strike complaining that their New Year bonuses were lower than those for the preceding year and the management did not openly make public the welfare budget. The strike lasted for one week. The third strike took place at the wool and carpet factory Dong Da, in Hanoi. in two consecutive days, February 2-3, 1994. The workers demanded a pay raise and requested that the sale prices of products be made public. The workers also demanded to be treated equally in job opportunities at the work place and to be given shared benefits.

The daily "Tuoi Tre" (Youth) reported that 300 workers at a shoes-making factory in Saigon went on strike to demand for pay raise and protested against the laying off of workers without reasons. Workers at this factory have to work 12 hours a day. However, they are paid only 300,000 dong (US$ 27) monthly. Observers said that the economic development in Vietnam has encountered setbacks due to government's outmoded management, its conduct of economic reforms, and its breach of freedom and democracy. The daily also disclosed that there were more than 10 labor strikes taking place in Saigon in 1994. The main reasons behind these strikes were the absence of clear and upright labor laws and regulations. It is partly due to the mismanagement of the factory leadership.

Security Endangered

Anti-Communist Propaganda

Tiny pamphlets denouncing the regime appeared at Dong Xuan Market in the old city of Hanoi on the general election day, July 19, 1992. Jacques Bekaert, in his report (JPRS, August 8, 1992), said that "the Communist administration must face the consequences of decades of poor management, of tremendous economic mistakes. It must prepare the country for a more authentic form of democracy while reforming itself at a time when money is fast becoming the most important ideology. And people are getting impatient. Unemployment is high. Law and order is an issue affecting the entire country, and economic reforms are creating social inequality." Political opposition to the Vietnamese Communist Party, it is believed, is not only advanced by patriotic dissidents but also by middle-level cadres who have opposed the Hanoi administration through either open or clandestine activities. A Hanoi-based Western diplomat (1992) said that if there was an uprising against the Communist rule, it would erupt right in the provinces in the North.

During Christmas of 1992, anticommunist leaflets were found in the largest districts of Ho Chi Minh City. The leaflet was signed by the "To Chuc Phuc Hung Vietnam" (Vietnam Restoration Organization). It denounced Hanoi's crimes of inducing the Vietnamese people into misery and isolating Vietnam from international economy. It also charged the Communist administration with corruption, enriching itself with bribes while enslaving the people into poverty. The leaflet further called for a popular uprising against the Vietnamese Communists: "It is now the ripe time for us to stand up against the Communists to save ourselves. To wait for their disengagement from power is to wait for death in despair."

Fear of Uprising

The "An Ninh To Quoc" (Security of the Fatherland), a newsletter circulating within the Ho Chi Minh security police, in February 1993, warned its servicemen against a possible popular uprising in the city. The newsletter carried an article according to which anticommunist leaflets were spread over the streets of Precincts I, II, and V in the morning of January 1, 1993. The leaflet called for the release of political prisoners and realization of human rights. It also demanded the Communist rule to withdraw from the political scene and give back the political power to the people. It also warned: "If the Communists stubbornly cling to their own interests and use repressive measures against the people, they will definitely bear disastrous consequences--an eye for an eye."

Hot Spots

Nhi Le admitted in the review "Cong San" (Communism) published in July 1994 that there are nearly 1,000 hot spots throughout the country that are ready to explode. Thanh Hoa Province, for instance, is one of them. There was a land dispute between the Thanh Son Cooperative and the Sao Vang Enterprise. Most of these incidents occurred in the rural areas where the population density is high and social security is wanton. According to Nhi Le, hot spots are also areas where the population is likely to uprise to manifest angry protests against the administration.

The journalist Nhu Phong Le Van Tien in an interview with the journal "Viet Bao Kinh Te" (Viet Economic Daily Nerws) published in Los Angeles, in October 1994, said that the Hanoi administration is campaigning political indoctrination among its cadres to hold out what it calls peaceful evolution. Communist top leaders are apprehensive of any political crisis since "a small spot of fire could set a large hay field afire." There are many such "hot spots." The first is Hanoi, the capital; the second is Haiphong, then Saigon, Da Nang, Hue, and then in the areas where religions are influential. In addition, the industrial areas, coal mines in Hon Gay and Quang Yen and the mines along the Ha Long Bay, are hot spots. Zones where ethnic minorities are populous are centers for opposition. These ethnic minorities include the Nung in Quang Yen; the Tho or Choang in Lang Son, Cao Bang; the Thai in Lao Cai, Lai Chau, and Son La; the Meo or Hmong in the high mountains on the Laotian-Vietnamese borders. In the low highland, there is the Muong ethnic. In the Center, there are the Cham, Thuong or the old Fulro. In the South, there are Cambodians in Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Tra Vinh, and Rach Gia.

To be on guard against and to squelch easily small spots of fire as well as seeds for rebellion, secret security policemen have been insinuated to work in factories and social activities. They are given double salaries, from both the security police and the factory. They are also paid special stipends for odd expenditure, entertainment, and intelligence service. However, the hope for peace, freedom, and democracy in Vietnam has been becoming brighter. The prestige of the Communist leaders at all levels and in all sectors of life is deteriorating. They are dolefully "degraded." They are like cancer patients in the terminal period (Le Van Tien, 1994).

Police Measures

Popular dissidence has increasingly become a threat to the Communist administration. Minister for the Interior Bui Thien Ngo, in August 1995, issued the Decision 404/QD-BNV. It particularly regulates the uses of weapons and implements that are likely harmful to life, health, or social order and security. Those coarse weapons and implements include bows, arbalests, choppers, and swords.

The decision provides that only the army, security police, customs and market inspection teams, and forest rangers and local guards are permitted to use them. The newspaper "Lao Dong" (The Workers) published in Hanoi, in August 1995, reported that there have been attacks against the security police and an assault with grenade against state officials. Vice-Minister of the Ministry for the Interior Le The Tiem said that Vietnam should necessarily heighten more vigilance against "international terrorism" that has caused casualties to the people inside the country. According to the AFP, this fact indicates the Communist administration's worries: The administration has tightened its control on the people. The news agency also reported that the citizens are not permitted to conceal weapons in their homes. Security policemen are seen constantly patrolling in the streets of Hanoi. It has kept a severe eye on any opposition against the State. Nevertheless, there has been opposition in many areas in North Vietnam.

Political Measures Repression against Opposition

Repression has been increasing. Instead of stifling centers of protest, Hanoi provoked perverse effects. In the past years, they appeared to expand and develop from the South towards the North. Strong opposition also took place overseas at the time Hanoi sought to attract occidental investments and accede to international credits (IMF, World Bank, Asia Development Bank). Those are the agencies capable of financing block and block works, such as reconditioning the infrastructure of the country.

The movement of protest seriously called into relevancy the loans provided by these financial organizations. As a consequence, it caused risks to the Communist administration's plan of restart and development of the national economy. With its increasing open-door politics overseas, Hanoi had difficulty in camouflaging and minimizing political unrest and the incidents that the population brought against the regime. Under international pressure, it released a small number of prisoners of conscience. Despite its efforts displayed, Hanoi has not succeeded in changing international opinion. The world can no longer be duped. International human rights agencies continue to demand respect for human rights (Thien Chuong, 1993).

The Cause and Rise of Dissidence

Van Duc considers that the present Communist government frequently propagandizes its tolerance and justice. However, it frequently objects to giving impartially neutral international commissions a chance to come to Vietnam to study penitentiary police. It vehemently accuses political prisoners of "violating and being dangerous to national security" and "scheming activities detrimental to socialism." In truth, these patriots only displease the Communist rule because of their own beliefs. Writers, intellectuals, and artists are arrested for their freedom of thought, political dissidents, for their ideals, priests and followers of all beliefs for their faith, and common citizens for their rights. They all demand to exercise their unalienable rights of the human person and basic civil rights of the citizen as stipulated in international treaties and the International Bill of Human Rights that the Communist rule has pledged to abide by and the constitutional law and other laws it has promulgated. They have openly demanded these rights because they have overcome fear. They oppose the Communist rule that has failed to achieve the national goals it had promised to fulfill. The Communist rule has betrayed the people's will and wishes (Van Duc 25 (November 1993).

At a conference in mid-September 1993, sponsored by the University of Southern California's International Business Education and Research Programs, Stanley Rosen, associate professor of Political Science at USC, compared Vietnam's human rights problems to those in China. The professor noted that Vietnam is now in the transitional situation. Like China, its government is maintaining "neo-authoritarian" control, a tight state control, while liberalizing its economy. The most likely source for political instability in Vietnam is the widening gap between the rural poor and the wealthier urbanites. Among other setbacks in its politics, its halfhearted efforts to crack down official corruption are seen as internally destabilizing.

Internal conflict explains why the conservative faction in the Politburo always keeps a tight control on possible enemies. Harish Mehta reported that "the most well-known Vietnamese Communist, General Vo Nguyen Giap, is under house surveillance by Hanoi authorities out of suspicion that he is inciting a coup d'etat." The source also said: "The army was indignant over comments he made about getting military leaders out of decision making." The general also angered the conservatives by criticizing official corruption and the Communist Party's grip on power."

Another case in evidence proves that the internal conflict has become serious. President Le Duc Anh dismissed 250 high-ranking officers within the four months of 1992. Though corruption was cited in the removal of these people, diplomatic sources in Hanoi interpreted it as a sign of severe infighting among party factions. In a meeting of the Party's military commission on April 15, 1992, Le Duc Anh openly criticized the commander of Military Zone 7, Tran Hai Phung, and the chief of intelligence for the Cambodia war zone, Nguyen Quyet, as corrupt officers, collaborating with the smugglers along the border. Le Duc Anh's speech also impressed foreign diplomats in Hanoi as a direct accusation of Vo Nguyen Giap and Van Tien Dung, the two most prominent Communist generals in the wars, of inciting other military leaders in collaborating with Chinese extremists to restore them back to power (Business Times, May 13, 1992)."

The Just Cause for Political Opposition and the Right to Rebel

There is a just cause for political opposition, and there is a right to rebel. Political prisoners oppose the Vietnamese Communist Party because it gives itself the right of leadership of the people. There are no justifications for which this Party could claim itself such rights. Political prisoners oppose it because they want to secure the human rights for the Vietnamese people, making these rights a reality. To promote "economic renovation in the direction of socialism," the Vietnamese Communist Party, indeed, executes repressive measures to decimate the Vietnamese people's human and civil rights. It represses "peaceful evolution." In achieving this purpose, the Vietnamese Communist Party exterminates any opposition that may be detrimental to its monopoly of power and leadership.

As Nguyen Cao Hach conceived:

The Right to Change Government

The U.S. State Department (1994) reported that Vietnamese citizens do not have the right to change their government, to assemble, associate, or speak freely, and the government continues to arrest and imprison people arbitrarily. In March 1995, Le Van Bang, Chief of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Liaison Office, attributed the report's criticisms to cultural and economic differences between the United States and Vietnam. He said: "Here, the press criticizes the president openly. Traditionally, in Vietnam, that is not acceptable." As for arbitrary arrests, he said: "We still consider security a very high priority. If you are going to do something that causes disorder, we have to take care of that." Le undeniably sounded a note of warning about political dissidence. He confirmed, at the same time, the iron-handed policy of the Vietnamese Communist Party on political opposition.

Liberty under Communist Vietnam

Nguyen Ho opened his mind to his colleagues and friends when he abandoned the Vietnamese Communist Party and retreated from the public:

In January 1957, that is, after the 1956 uprising, due to the low standing of the membership of the National Assembly and complaints about the respect for the Assembly's distinctive role and parliamentary immunizations, the 1946 constitution was revised. Elections held since the adoption of the 1960 constitution were somewhat like the ones for the new national legislature on May 8, 1960. According to Bernard Fall, these elections "followed the Communist standard pattern, with 99.8 percent of the voters casting ballots for a total of 458 candidates 'competing' for 404 seats. Two small minority parties (Democratic and Socialist), whose existence is tolerated as long as they obediently collaborate with the Communists, were permitted to put up candidates in certain districts (notably in Hanoi) and won a few seats, but for the most part the voters were offered no choice. The latest regular legislative elections, held in April 1964, brought little apparent change, except for a reduction of the number of seats to be filled to 366, for which 448 candidates ran (Fall, 1966: 126-127)."

Andrew Sherry of the AFP reported how "democracy" is practically realized through the 1992 national assembly screening process:

The Right to Private Property Ownership

On March 14, 1994, the attorney Nguyen Huu Thong wrote to the U.S. Assistant to the Secretary of State in charge of Asian and Pacific Affairs and Coordinator of American Delegations in Talks with Hanoi. The letter asked him to raise the question of the Vietnamese people's rights to private properties with Hanoi. It reclaimed the private property the Vietnamese Communist authorities unlawfully seized after their takeover of South Vietnam. It specified that such a seizure of private property "is a blatant confiscation without compensation and that mass seizure of privately-owned property stems from war, revolution, and revenge. That is an act of coercion going against our traditional values and is in violation of the U.N. Charter on Human Rights, particularly the civil and political rights, Vietnam has agreed since 1982. Such an act also goes against the spirit of Article 17 of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights and Provision 18 of its own constitution according to which "the citizen's properties must be protected and cannot be arbitrarily seized."

The Right to Freedom of the Press

The official daily "Nhan Dan" (The People), in July 1993, ran a news analysis interpreting the Communist administration's new law defining the role of the press. The law was passed by the National Assembly in early July 1993 and put into effect on July 26, 1993. Among other stipulations, the law has such provision as "to battle against all thoughts and actions that are detrimental to the common interests of the whole country, the mores and ways of living of the Vietnamese people." It also stresses that all the printing materials, books, and magazines that are officially permitted to circulate are required "to contribute to the achievements of renovation." It also forbids "the printing of works of literature whose contents counteract the Socialist State, exhort violence activities, display the secrets of the Party and State, distort history, and negate the achievements of the revolution."

Reactions from Advocates for the Right to Freedom of the Press

When the National Assembly of Vietnam held its session at Ba Dinh Headquarters on December 27, 1989, Assemblywoman Ha Thi Thu Suong of Quang Da Province, Central Vietnam, said: "There are now 265 newspapers which are used to circulate orders of the Vietnamese Communist Party. However, for the propagation of ideas and opinions to the 70 million citizens, Vietnam needs to have thousands of them if we want to reach the ratio of 400 newspapers to more than one million citizens." In contrast, Tran Van Son, a Nhan Dan's staff writer, contended in August 1990 that the people are staying away from the Party's newspaper.

At the International PEN Congress, held in Madeira, Portugal, in May, 1990, representatives from more than 100 PEN centers over the world unanimously charged the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with being undemocratic as it prohibits the publication of private newspapers. The congress cited, as a case in evidence, Article I of the SL 100 Decree-Law on the Press, issued on November 2, 1990. The Article stipulated: "The Press in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is the voice of the Party, State, and Society." The law promises: "The State creates favorable conditions for the citizens to exercise their freedom of the press and freedom of speech in the press to correctly develop its work. The press and journalists operate within the framework of the law and are protected by the State. No organization or individual may limit or obstruct the activities of the press and journalists. Nobody may abuse the freedom of the press to infringe on the interests of the State, collectives, and citizens. The press is not censored prior to printing and broadcasting (Article 2 of the Press Law adopted by the Eighth National Assembly at its sixth session on December 28, 1989)."

On the contrary, as Bui Tin indicated in his political memoirs "Hoa Xuyen Tuyet," (Snow-piercing Flower), there is absolutely no freedom of the press in Communist Vietnam. Even writings by staff editors were subject to censor process and alterations. Editors, in many cases, can not even recognize articles edited by themselves. Bui was vice director-in-chief of the daily "Nhan Dan" (The People). He also recalled in his memoirs that some people said that in the Nhan Dan newspaper only weather forecasts are partly true, and obituary notices are wholly reliable (Bui Tin, 1991: 42).

According to the State Department of Statistics, until May 1995, there were 376 newspapers and magazines of all types circulating in the country. Three of them were dailies, three of them were bilingual, and none of them were private. The Vietnam News Agency, also a state-owned agency, had its news sections in the provinces and 16 news sections overseas. Only journalists operate within the State press system may enjoy the "freedom of the press" and be protected by the State.

On the Day for Freedom of the Press, May 3, 1992, France Radio RFI broadcast a commentary on the press and press activities in Vietnam. The radio reported that international organizations such as the PEN International and Asia Watch have continually voiced their concerns over the arrest and detention of independent writers by the Vietnamese Communist administration. Hanoi has released several writers, but many others have still been imprisoned because of their expressions of thought. Among them are Doan Viet Hoat, Nguyen Van Thuan, Le Manh That, and Pham Van Thuong.

A Free Press or an Instrumental Press?

Nguyen Ngoc Lan's interview with Radio France International on the Day of the Free Press, June 3, 1994, can be a summary of the present situation of the press in Communist Vietnam. The following is the translation of the interview:

During the last 19 years, there were two short periods during which one had the impression or illusion of a beginning of free expression in the press of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The first period, that is during the years 1975-1980, with the publication of two private newspapers, the magazine "Dung Day" (Let's Stand Up) and the daily "Tin Sang" (Morning News). However, the magazine came up with only 35 issues of its publication; half of them were published before 1975. Then it had to say farewell to its readership in December 1978. As for the daily, although it had agreed to prior censorship by a representative of the Party who settled in the staff office, it was forced to declare that it had fulfilled its mission on June 30, 1980.

The second time, the occasion came up. That was the period beginning from 1986 to 1988. The wind of freshness fanned from the Soviet Union was felt in Vietnam. Newspapers such as the "Tuoi Tre" (Youth), a Communist youth agency, and the "Thanh Nien" (TheYoung) blossomed then. Even in the daily "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated), the readers could find several passages worthy to read, here and there. The weekly magazine "Van" (The Arts), in particular, appeared exceptional. The magazine published a series of articles of literary critiques that were completely different from those of the old ones and a series of short stories susceptible to leave a durable imprint on the memory of the readers such as "The Retired General " or "The Woman on Her Knees." Nevertheless, at the end of 1988, writer Nguyen Ngoc, editor-in-chief of the magazine "The Arts" was asked, in a very much less artistic manner, to go and play elsewhere. In 1989, To Hoa, editor-in-chief of the "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated), operated a strategic retreat. As to the assistant to editor-in-chief of the "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated) Vo Nhu Lanh, former president of the Students Association of Van Hanh University (a Buddhist University operating before 1975), a devoted person, being aware of his fate, left the position a year or two later. He then came to take refuge in a newspaper on economy. In 1991, it was the Kim Hanh's turn who lost her title of editor-in-chief of the daily "Tuoi Tre" (Youth).

To say the truth, nothing is surprising about it. Each time the so-called day of the press comes back on June 21, newspapers remind themselves that they are instruments of the Party and that only instrument newspapers exist in this regime. However, it should not be forgotten to note that these instrument newspapers of the Party live thanks to the money of the people. If only the instrument press exists, then it means that there is no freedom of the press, and thus there are no newspapers in the proper sense of the word; there are only instruments.

The law of the press of 1989 reveals itself an illusory term. When the law was still a project, it was diffused so that the people would be able to give their opinions. There were five or six sessions of discussion here and there. One only heard criticisms everywhere. In particular, in the session of the Committee of Liaison of the Veteran Resistance Newsmen-fighters on December 3, 1989, as I noted in my diary publish during the years 1989-1990, Nguyen Ngoc Luong, an experienced journalist who still continues to write, made this remark: "Never will there be journalists under our regime. There are only civil servants at high or low levels who write in newspapers. Even with this law-project, things will remain unchanged. No one ever hopes they will change. It is better then to drop this project than to play a comedy that will make everybody else laugh at us." Poet Chinh Van also declared on the same occasion: "Freedom of the press has had with it a tradition of two centuries (since the French Revolution of 1789). One can say that its nature and its content are now universal. What is it for to suddenly make a law on the press that is unlike anything at all?

In fact, that law was made in its unique purpose and was predestined to receive opinions that could approve of it. Only several weeks later, in December 1989, the National Assembly approved that law which was unlike anything at all. That was only the question of "being an instrument press of the Party." There was no mention of a press of the people, of society.

The conclusion of the interview of Nguyen Duy with the daily "Tuoi Tre" (Youth) at the end of 1988 about the elimination of Nguyen Ngoc is still a topic of the day: It authenticates a sad verity. No sooner had the door of change regarding the press been half-opened than it was closed again. Someone has his hand caught; many others are overwhelmed by despair (Tuoi Tre Published on Sunday, December 18, 1988).

The freedom of the press, thus, is like a puff of wind destined for the respiration of the society and of the country. Without it, they become suffocated, stagnant, and retrogressing. They will no longer be able to befit themselves and to change veritably. Let's take the campaign against peculation and smuggling as an example. No one denies that they are a calamity to the nation. The newspapers take part in this struggle. However, if they are only the instruments of the Party, a Party that is monopolizing the entirety of power, they will only become as efficacious as a hairdresser or a barber. They can merely make the appearances seemly while they are apt to perform an operation to extract the cancerous cells inside the organ.

It is superfluous to stress again the extent the harms that the absence of freedom of the press has brought to the people and the country. I simply would like to note a number of inconveniences related to the press that are considered as an instrument of the power that controls it entirely.

1. The instrument press becomes a kind of warehouse for a funeral home. The editors-in-chief of instrument newspapers gaze upon their readers as lifeless objects or, in other words, those who lack at least self-esteem.

A. In my diary of 1988, I noted that the daily "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated), in its two different issues of publication during a three-week interval (April 10 and May 3, 1994), ran on the front page two long articles on a certain conference to oppose the canonization of the Vietnamese martyrs which was held in Kien Giang. Only their headlines are different. The texts of these two articles were strictly identical. (Both are evasive on the date where the conference was held.) They said: "The Committee of the Patriotic Front of the province of Kien Giang has just organized..." Nowhere in the world (except, of course, in countries that look upon the press as an instrument) would the journalists be able to edit their journals while they are sleeping like that.

B. Ever since almost 20 years ago, every year, on December 26, after Christmas celebration, there is always an article reporting the event. It announces that our Catholic compatriots and Protestants come in great number to celebrate with joy the fete-day of Christmas. This article is always illustrated with a photograph of the cathedral. The journalist certainly may have sent his article to the staff office in advance and then go dancing through Christmas Eve. That kind of work ethics is a source of incidents that are both sad and ludicrous. That is what happened in 1992. That year, Mgsr. Nguyen Van Binh, who was sick, could not go and celebrate the Mass at the cathedral and was replaced by his associate, Mgsr. Pham Van Nam. However, according to the article published by the "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated), it was Mgsr. Binh who celebrated and who, in his preaching, appealed to the devout to edify this and that ...

2. The Instrument Press Is Ineffective

A. The instrument press is not only unreadable, but it is also not read. Even if the freedom of the press does not exist, people still have the freedom to read or not to read, to read what pleases them, to read in their own manner.

For example, the official daily "Nhan Dan" (The People), a 100% instrument newspaper, is the journal the people read the least. Without exaggeration, 99% of the journal readership in Ho Chi Minh City are like me; they only touch this journal one time a year. The other newspapers are supported according to the extent to which they minimize their role as instruments, that is, the publication of editorials, of resolutions, and so on. The rest is for reportage of social celebrities, critiques of films, theater, sports, soccer, sentimental and psychological columns. It is in this domain in which the newspapers compete with one another for their readership.

On April 30 of last year, I sat on a step in Thong Nhat Stadium, watching a soccer match. It was 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature was 36 degrees, and I was directly exposed to the sun. A cute little vendor of newspapers passed by. He happened to find a formula that most appropriately suited the press of our period of renovation. He cried out: "The sun is hot; if you don't want to get a headache, buy a newspaper!" That type of publicity reminded me of the time when wrapping paper did not exist and plastic bags were rare. At the hour when the daily "Nhan Dan" (The People) came out, a large crowd hurried to the post office of the city to get copies of that journal because they were cheap. These copies would then be used for all kinds of services. I also remember one day in September 1975 when I listened with astonishment and simple-mindedness to journalist Hoang Tung telling me that before 1975, every day in Hanoi, people stood in line to buy a copy of "Nhan Dan" (The People).

B. People only skim instrument newspapers. It is without a reason that a Parisian journal recognizes itself as "my journal," the merit that helps encourage people to read the "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated). During the time I was placed under house arrest, I was subject to a "session of work" with one of my "friends". They complained about me: "That guy continues to read 'Saigon Giai Phong' (Saigon Liberated) and 'Tuoi Tre' (Youth)."

C. The instrument press, in other words, cannot hide anything. In this way, on April 7, 1994, quite by accident, people read in the "Saigon Giai Phong" (Saigon Liberated) the following short account: "On the occasion of the fete of tombs (commemorating the dead), two delegates of the Embassy of China led by Ambassador Truong Thanh and his political associate, Te Kien, went to pay services to the tombs of Chinese soldiers who sacrificed themselves on the battlefield during the anti-American resistance for the salvage of our people in Ha Bac and in Lao Cai. That suffices to say ..."

3. Finally, an instrument press is a two-edged sword that will eventually cause harm to the power that uses it.

A. From the diplomatic viewpoint, for example, under this regime, no matter what a journal might be, it is considered as the official voice of the Party and the State. Then, from this viewpoint, such a journal is not able to have its own opinions. (That totally is not the case in France, for example, where the journal called "Le Monde Politique" may publish articles from every tendency without embarrassing the French diplomacy at all.) The instrumental character of our press may create comic circumstances like the one that just occurred. A certain journal of our city, inspired by some sources which I do not know, published again a once well-known photograph accompanied by two verses of To Huu: "The young and frail farmer raised high her rifle. The American felt all trembly, walking with his head lowered." The editing staff of the journal received a blame from its superior authorities for "lack of tactfulness." In fact, the Americans just lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam. Time has changed. The journals, all as one and all in one mind, have to prove their tactfulness toward the Chinese hegemony and the American imperialists.

B. From the viewpoint of a man in the interior, the inconveniences of such a press are very much serious. In his speech to high-ranking cadres a month ago in Hanoi, March 3, 1994, Secretary-General Do Muoi lamented in these following words: "We have, then, to turn our attention to the struggle for ideology. Cadres in the institutes of researches of natural and social sciences, political scientists, and scholars have to react and raise their voice. Why do we remain quiet and passive to be attacked for many years? We will receive more blows ..."

What is the situation that evoked the sighs of the secretary-general? Also from the viewpoints of the people in the interior as well as in the exterior, in these past years, people have been very much interested in critical articles by Phan Dinh Dieu, Ha Si Phu, Lu Phuong, Ho Hieu, Thanh Giang. They are only several intellectuals. Or, the true misfortune is not what Mr. Do Muoi and his associates remain quiet and passive. On the contrary, they are all agitated in every direction. There appeared on the press hundreds of articles attacking the only article by Ha Si Phu, which was not published in the newspapers.

It is possible that most of the intellectuals under this regime do not think differently from Phan Dinh Dieu or Ha Si Phu because of similarity in thoughts. However, they may not be able to express it in the official press. It is also possible that certain others may disagree with these dissidents, which is well normal. But, since they have a minimum of human dignity and self-respect, they cannot allow themselves to express their views in the press. They cannot go into discussion with Phan Dinh Dieu or Ha Si Phu in the press, if such a press exists. People cannot play trick on and beat an opponent whose hands are chained in fetters. They only dishonor themselves.

Without freedom of the press, there is only an instrument press, and democratic freedom is non-existent. Without democracy, the society and the country will not be able to conceive any perspectives for the future. Eventually, the instrument press will bring no advantage. It only entails inconveniences to the power that controls it. And, that is deplorable!

The Right to Freedom of Expression

The Committee to Protect Journalists Coordinator for Asia, on April 25, 1995, observed that while the freedom of the press in Vietnam appears to be slowly improving, there are still harsh restrictions of freedom of expression. The government put many dissident journalists in jail. It arrested Doan Viet Hoat and seven other contributors to the "Dien Dan Tu Do" (Freedom Forum) in late 1990 and convicted them in March 1993 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. Three of the detainees were subsequently released, including two--Nguyen Thieu Hung and Pham Thai Thuy--who remain under government surveillance. The other five, including Doan Viet Hoat, are currently serving sentences ranging from 4 to 15 years. Imprisoned in a separate case is Nguyen Dan Que, who received a 20-year jail term in November 1991 for distributing political handbills and sending documents abroad. The committee conferred upon Doan Viet Hoat one of its annual International Press Freedom Awards in November 1993.

Followed is a list of the journalists imprisoned and the sentences imposed on them: Doan Viet Hoat was imprisoned on November 17, 1990. Doan Viet Hoat, editor and publisher of the "Dien Dan Tu Do" (Freedom Forum), was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in late March 1993 for his involvement with the publication. He is currently serving his sentence, commuted to 15 years on appeal, in Thanh Cam prison. Located in Northern Vietnam, near the Laotian border, Thanh Cam is normally reserved for serious criminal offenders. Doan Viet Hoat, who is being held in isolation, suffers from kidney stones, a condition that developed during the previous twelve-year incarceration.

Pham Duc Kham was imprisoned in late 1990. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in late March 1993 for his involvement with the "Freedom Forum." His sentence was commuted on appeal to 10 years. He was reportedly transferred, in late October 1994, from Xuan Phuoc labor camp to Thanh Cam prison, where Doan Viet Hoat is also incarcerated. Nguyen Van Thuan (Chau Son) was imprisoned in late 1990. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison in late March 1993 for his involvement with Freedom Forum. His sentence was commuted on appeal to 8 years. He suffered a stroke on February 15, 1994, that left him partially paralyzed. Due to poor health, he was transferred to the National Center for Cardiology and Neurology in Ho chi Minh City, where he is currently being held. Le Duc Vuong was imprisoned in late 1990. He was sentenced in late March 1993 to 7 years in prison for his involvement with the "Dien Dan Tu Do" (Freedom forum). His sentence was reduced on appeal to 5 years. He is presently interned in Xuan Phuoc labor camp. Nguyen Xuan Dong was sentenced in late March 1993 to 4 years in prison for his involvement with the "Dien Dan Tu Do" (Freedom Forum). Nguyen Xuan Dong, 70, is reportedly in poor health. Nguyen Dan Que was sentenced to 20 years in prison in November 1991 on charges of compiling and distributing subversive literature. He had distributed political handbills and sent documents abroad. Nguyen Dan Que suffers from hypertension and a bleeding gastric ulcer.

Suppression of the right to freedom of expression expands to Vietnamese communities overseas. The collection "Ngay Moi" (New Day), published in Germany, reported, in August 1992, that the Vietnamese Embassy in the Soviet Union suspended the publication of "Tuoi Tre" (Youth). The publication was a collection of essays and news published by Vietnamese students at the University of Lomolsov in Moscow. "Tuoi Tre" was, to the students, a dream that came true and the voice of thirst for freedom. The collection was known to be a continuation of a "news on bulletin board" that Vietnamese students at Lomolsov used to exchange news. It was later converted into a collection of writings edited by the students whose concerns were to approach current issues in their country.

Officials of the Vietnam Embassy in Moscow, aware of its influence on the overseas students' thinking and attitudes, came to the university and investigated the situation. "Tuoi Tre" was suspended, and two of its editors, Ho Khanh and Viet Hoa, were stopped short of their studies and sent home. No one ever knew what their fates would be since they were charged with having received assistance from foreign counterrevolutionary elements and democratic forces in the Soviet Union.

President of PEN Vietnam Overseas Vien Linh said at the Sixty-first PEN International Congress held in Czechoslovakia during November 7-12,1994, that in their 40 years in power, the Vietnamese Communists have executed more arrests of writers and artists than did the French during colonialism.

The Rights to Freedom Residence and Movement

The Residence Status

Lenin conceived that each member in society is entitled to a certificate attesting an essential amount of labor he has performed. With this certification, he is allowed to receive a certain amount of commodities or goods from a public warehouse. The idea could be used as a basic principle on which the regulations on the residence status in socialist countries are grounded, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is not an exception.

The Vietnamese Communist rule has its watchword: One works according to one's ability and one gains according to one's labor. Following this watchword, the household registration system reflects two possible interpretations. Positively interpreted, it suggests some criteria for social equality. There will be no rich people who enjoy a luxurious life while others die due to starvation. In a derogatory sense, it is an institution destined to control and frighten man by food. These two interpretations can be applied both to cadres and common citizens, respectively.

The arts of government conceived by the Communists reside in fulfilling Lenin's battle cry: control, control, and control. The house registration carries in it a sophisticated and efficacious method of control over the citizen. In appearance, the Vietnamese Communist rule issues decrees and regulations defining the residence status with all kinds of rhetoric. In practice, however, they are regulations that require the citizen to report all about him--his family, social background, education, religion, and political position. One has to be a citizen who lives under Communist Vietnam to realize how frightful it really is when one is not entitled to a residence card. It means food, clothing, and legal residence. There is no surprise when a Vietnamese citizen seeks to bribe a local cadre for a residence card.

The story does not end there! Once he is given residence status, he is bound to all kinds of regulations prescribed by the security administration. He has to request the local security administration for permission when he wants to go to a far place. He has to report to them where he will go, in whose house he will stay, how long he will stay, and the relations between him and the houseowner. Failure in exhibiting the security's permission will result in deprivation of the legal residence right or charges of such crimes as spying or conducting secret activities against the regime. Restrictions are extended to married couples who live in different localities. They are not given new residence status. The spouse has to keep his or her own regional residence status. In maintaining these regulations, the local security administration will easily continue to keep track of the citizen's pedigree, follow up his or her activities, and control his or her political life.

The Household Registration and Management

The regulations on the household registration and administration determine that a household registration card is provided for every household in the city, township, village on the border or on an island, or other necessitous places. A collective inhabitant registration certificate is provided for an inhabitant of a collective household.

The household registration card or the collective inhabitant registration certificate, however, is not considered as a substitute for any other legal paper. Clause 8 of the Regulations on Household Registration and Management provides that, when anyone in the house moves out, the head of the household or the person in charge of the collective household has to report to the Household Registration administration and the security police at the precinct, district, township, and city concerned. The household head or the responsible in charge at a collective household must report to the security police at the district, township of the province if he receives a newcomer to his household. In this case, the report should include such identification papers as the household registration card issued by the newcomer's previous local authority and a certificate approved by the newcomer's previous local security police. Rules and regulations, however, vary depending on localities and on the local authorities' whims and wishes.

Beginning in the middle of October 1993, the sub-precinct, precinct, and city security police of Ho Chi Minh City, for example, have performed a population census in the city. Local security police comes to every household to verify the household registration card and the statements on them (Ha Thuc Sinh, 28 ( November 1992).

The same regulations are applied to monks and priests. Parish priests are restricted to their sanctuary, and their activities are policed. Visits to the poor, the sick, the old and blessing for the dying, all have to be authorized. Right in the heart of Saigon, only a priest who possesses the household registration card can lead the priesthood. A visiting priest who wants to stay overnight at another parish must have permission from the local authority where he is going to stay (Trung Tan, 1991).

The Ho Chi Minh City Security Police issued orders that, beginning in March 15, 1995, persons from 15 years of age and above have to carry with them their identification cards or other identifications. Those who fail to exhibit their identification cards to the security police when asked will be fined or subjected to interrogation at security police headquarters. The head of the household has to report to the street ward when he or she has anyone from the provinces or the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City who wants to stay overnight in his or her home.

The Right to Freedom of Assembly

Regulations on assembly are even much more ambiguous. The 1992 Constitution provides the right to assembly of the citizen. However, the Decree-law 101/SL/L-003 promulgated on May 20, 1957, and the Decree 257 signed by the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam are still in effect. Assemblies for the following activities are not subject to prior authorization: family reunions; meetings for marriage celebration, funeral, or anniversary; meetings between friends; meetings for activities in the headquarters of legal associations; regular religious celebrations of religions performed in worship places, meetings for activities of the Unified People Front, which is now the Fatherland Front, and open meetings organized by this organization. However, the organizer of the following activities has to report, in writing or verbally, with the village, sub-district, district, township's authorities in the People's Councils 24 hours before the activities take place: family reunions and meetings between friends for those purposes other than marriage, funeral, and anniversary reunions of more than 20 people, and meetings for activities of a legal association that is not a member in the Front.

Activities other than those mentioned above are subject to authorization by the village, sub-district, district, or township People's Councils. The application for authorization must be addressed 3 days before the meeting takes place. The organizer of the meeting must observe all requirements set forth by the State. Its objective and content must follow the current law and regulations, and the organizer is held responsible for the meeting's activities (Ha Thuc Sinh, 28 (November1992)).

Freedom of assembly is restricted, even to foreign visitors. As a case in point, the Communist authorities annulled the Mass celebration at the Hanoi Cathedral by Cardinal Edward Clancy on August 12, 1993. News from the AFP said the cathedral was full of Catholics, although it was not a Sunday Mass. The Cardinal appeared in front of the cathedral and was greeted by the faithful. After a brief contact with the devotees, shaking hands with children and giving benediction to the elders, he left for Saigon. The Cardinal reportedly celebrated a High Mass without authorization at the main Cathedral of Phat Diem Diocese. In company with him during his visit to Vietnam was Bishop George Pell, President of the Catholic Relief Organization of Australia.

The Right to Freedom of Religion

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is in serious violation of the right to freedom of religion. Religious organizations and leaders, inside the country and overseas, have voiced demands for this right and concerns over the religious propagation and practices.

On September 9, 1991, the Conference on Freedom of Religion, held at the Center of Vietnamese Catholics, Westminster, California, confirmed in an evaluation to the Vietnamese press that the Vietnamese Communist Party has strengthened its political powers by restricting the basic rights of the human person and tightening religious freedom. The conference fully supports the letter of opinions by the Vietnam Conference of Catholics Bishops to the Vietnamese Communist Party leadership on April 21, 1991. It calls for materialization of the rights to freedom, revocation of the 69/HDBT Decree, March 21, 1991, and full respect for religious freedom as stipulated by the International Bill of Human Rights. It also demands immediate and unconditional release of all the priests and religious believers presently imprisoned or detained under house arrest for their religious practices and preaching.

On December 22, 1991, five spiritual leaders, consisting of the Reverend Viet Chau, the Most Venerable Thich Man Giac, His Eminency Do Van Ly, Chairman of the Executive Board of Hoa Hao Buddhism Thai Hoa, and the Reverend Vu Duc Chang, signed a letter to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet urging him to free priests and believers of their religions.

On December 26, 1991, the Venerable Thich Phap Chau, Secretary General of the Vietnam Union of Buddhist Churches Overseas, in a letter to General-Secretary Do Muoi on December 26, 1991, requested the release of dissidents imprisoned by the Hanoi administration.

The letter stressed that while national leaders in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have gradually settled ideological conflicts by peaceful means and replaced totalitarianism with democratic multi-party systems, Vietnam, a country whose people are imbued with four thousand years of culture and civilization and impregnated with two thousand years of Buddhist Spirit of Benevolence, has adversely perpetuated an oppressive policy, detaining Buddhist leaders, spiritual leaders of other religions, human rights activists, and writers and artists. The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, however, purposely ignored all those demands.

In a letter to Catholic followers, the Reverend Chan Tin (1992) had this to say:

The Demands

The Vietnamese inside the country as well as overseas have expressed deep concerns over the violations of human rights in their country. In his opening speech to an audience of about 100 participants at a news conference commemorating the 43rd anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights on December 12, 1991, Nguyen Minh Duong, Chairman of the San Diego Committee for the Struggle for Freedom and Human Rights for Vietnam, brought to the attention of the public the unjust violations of human rights by the Communist rule in Vietnam. There is a pressing need to involve overseas Vietnamese in the struggle for human rights and to transform it into a cause. According to Nguyen Anh Giao, Secretary-General of the Federation of Vietnamese Communities in San Diego, California, the United States, in particular, should, first of all, normalize its relations with the Vietnamese people before it realizes its diplomatic normalization with the Hanoi administration. Referring to Hanoi's violations of human rights, he affirmed that, in Vietnam, ceremonies for worship in pagodas and churches are only permitted subsequent to authorization. Using its law and regulations, the Communist rule restricted the Vietnamese’s rights to freedom. The Vietnamese are also conditioned by the rigorous house registration system. This system must be abolished since the citizen will be dispossessed of his residence status once he is suspected of dissidence. Former Colonel Phung Ngoc Sa recalled the days he was in reeducation camps, saying: "We are ill-treated, more cruelly than an animal is."

In a petition to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, on July 11, 1992, representatives of the Vietnamese workers and students in Prague, Czechoslovakia, stated concerns over the violations of freedom of religion and human rights in Vietnam. The petition requested the Vietnamese government to stop arresting religious leaders who have expressed ideas and opinions by peaceful means and release fifty prisoners of conscience whose names were listed by Amnesty International in its latest news release. Among them were Nguyen Dan Que and Doan Viet Hoat. The letter emphasized that, besides Amnesty International, many other human rights organizations are actively seeking support among international circles and working for immediate release of these prisoners. By arresting and detaining them, Vietnam has violated international treaties on human rights by which it has pledged to abide. The respect for human rights is now the measuring scale by which international public opinion uses to judge whether a society is democratic and its good will to serve international cooperation.

Le Thanh, a veteran political prisoner, argued:

Tammy T. Tran, an eighth grader at Mac Garvin School, on February 3, 1994, wrote the following letter when President Clinton decided to lift the trade embargo on Vietnam:

In April 1993, at the Conference on Human Rights in Bangkok, Thailand, Communist China, North Korea, and Vietnam advocated that human rights issues are internal affairs, that intervention in human rights issues in another country is an infringement on the internal affairs of that country, and that taking side with an ethnic group is to destroy national integrity of a country. Negating international intervention in the violations of human rights in Vietnam, the Communist Party alleges as pretext that such a foreign intervention in internal affairs is an infringement on Vietnam's national sovereignty. The Vietnamese Communist rule pretends that the exercise of human rights in Vietnam must be in conformity with the Vietnamese culture, society, and national customs and manners. Foreign countries should not use economic aid or trade to force the State of Vietnam to respect human rights. Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Tran Quang Co, in particular, defended Vietnam's cause of human rights and values in the Far Eastern Economy Review on August 4, 1994.

As we look at the post-Cold War world, he wrote, we find ourselves raced with a picture full of contradictions. On the one hand, we see a globe divide by ethnic, nationalist, religious and factional conflict. On the other hand, despite such conflicts, the trend lines clearly lead towards increasing international cooperation and integration, such as the recently completed Uruguay Round of Gatt. Against this background, the issue of human rights has also assumed a global dimension. Last year, it was the subject of the much-publicized, United Nations-sponsored world conference in Vienna, and in a number of countries, it has become a component of foreign policy--not to mention a topic of debate within and among not only governments but a host of private organizations. Human rights themselves, of course, are hardly new. What is new is the way these rights are today advocated by some countries and groups.

In the best of all worlds, human rights would become a field for cooperation rather than a battleground of confrontation. But for this to happen, it is important to keep in mind that such rights are a product of human evolution and evolve with time, being neither absolute nor immutable. It is therefore strange that some of those who advocate human rights as a cornerstone of international relations pay so little regard to the differences in the stages of socioeconomic development and the ensuing differences in the perception of imperatives and the setting of national priorities. A starving country, for example, will be far more concerned with feeding its people rather than the forms and methods of democracy.

I hasten to add that my attention here is not to fall into the over-simplistic, quasi-mechanical argument that the higher the level of socioeconomic development is, the higher, too, is the level of human rights. All I wish to stress is that socioeconomic development provides objective conditions and possibilities for better implementation of human rights, both individual and collective.

The point is that human rights are an aggregate product that calls for a balanced, holistic approach. History shows that economic rights have always been as important as, if not more than, civil and political rights. During the 1980's, we had had our own experienc with the "boat people" problem. Facing hard economic conditions after decades of war, thousands of Vietnamese chose illegal emigration in hopes of finding a better material life abroad. But because of political motivation, some countries have interpreted this as an exodus of political refugees. It is blatantly clear that this is not at all the truth. Indeed, the success of our economic reform has halted this sad phenomenon. It should also be clear that human rights cannot be summed up merely as individual rights. Human rights also encompass the collective rights of communities and nations to self-determination, the right to sovereign use of natural resources, the right to development, and the right to equality of status among nations.

To some in the developed North, these collective rights might appear somewhat abstract and remote. But to the nations that have recently emerged from colonial bondage and are struggling to develop in an unfavorable and still unfair international environment, there is nothing remote about these aspirations at all. One is tempted to think sometimes that the reason affluent nations speak so little of self-determination, sovereignty, and equality is that in their everyday lives as rich and powerful nations they take these rights for granted. In other words, they call the shots.

More interesting still is that the same rights and rules so often invoked for judging relations between governments and their people are by no means followed when it comes to relations between states. If democracy is indeed a worthy goal for regulating relations within a society, for example, should it not also be followed among nations? It seems somehow strange to us that the heightened attention that certain quarters display over a few specific cases of what they consider to be human-rights violations in our country often goes together with a blithe indifference for the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese whose human rights were abridged in many different ways during the war, from whose consequences they continue to suffer today.

To put it another way, we all need to remember that human rights will always be a complex and sensitive issue, if only because, by its nature, it touches at the core of each society's scale of values and way of life. Certainly, all states must strive to improve the human rights for their people, and they are accountable both to their own peoples and the world community at large. What we find disquieting is the growing practice in bilateral dealings which push to the limit areas of concern without regard for our values, often going into details and aspects so specific that it raises the question of national sovereignty. At the international level, diversity is no longer hailed as a virtue.

Inasmuch as human rights have become part of international life and dialogue, we need to anchor this dialogue firmly to sound principles that will ensure their sustainability: mutual understanding and respect, objectivity and non-politicisation, equal footing, and the recognition that, as the Vienna Declaration put it, "the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms are the first responsibility of governments." Only thus will we advance human rights throughout the world and avoid a new North-South Human Rights economic divide adding to the North-South Economic Divide.

The journalist and writer Vuong Huu Bot, in his reply to Tran Quang Co, argued that, at the beginning of this 20th century, when the Vietnamese youth began the movement for short haircut, they were severely accused of wrongdoing by their parents. Conservatives said that hair or teeth are all born from parents and that they have to be preserved until death. To have a short haircut is to commit ungratefulness toward one's parents, to betray one's ancestors, since, according to the elders, our ancestors did not have their hair cut; only Westerners had the tradition of cutting their hair. (Our fathers and elder brothers forgot that Chinese historians portrayed the characteristics of the Viet as having short haircut and their bodies tattooed, etc.)

Many governments in Asia are opposing the human rights and democracy movements of the people in their countries and champion their cause with similar arguments. Many Asian government delegations at the Bangkok Conference in 1993 officially declared these arguments. In the issue of publication in early August of the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), Mr. Tran Quang Co, Vietnam Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, repeated a number of these false arguments.

The first false argument is: "Human rights are traditionally characteristic of Western culture and not of Asian culture. The Asian peoples have the tradition to respect the authorities."

To say such an argument is like to say that the Asians do not have their tradition to drink Coca Cola, and thus they should not be allowed to produce and drink this beverage! Two centuries ago, Coca cola was not a popular drink in the United States. Two centuries ago, democracy and human rights only began to become a movement in the West. However, be they Occidental or Oriental, all cultures recognize that man has fundamental rights, and the affirmation of these rights aims at limiting the authority of the King and that of whoever was in office. There is no difference in this tenet, whether it is in the East or the West. The difference lies in the standards of civilization, whether they are inferior or superior. For example, the rights to habeas corpus and property of the citizen are recognized, be it in the East or the West, once there is civilization. The limitations of the authority of mandarins were described in the Hong Duc Code in the 15th century in Vietnam as well as in the 17th century in the British Isles. The right to sex equality was respected in the Hong Duc Code. The respect for human rights does not depend on Eastern or Western traditions, but on whether the cultural standards of society are progressive or non-progressive. When society advances, the citizens know how to demand their rights to be a human person, and the progressive authorities also know how to respect the dignity of man. Human rights are the revelations of those values. If the citizens are progressive and are conscious of human rights while the authorities remains less civilized, unavoidably, chaos will generate. Would it be true that the governments of Vietnam, Myannar, and China want to demonstrate to the world that the standards of civilization in Asia are now still backward and inferior as compared to those in the West two centuries ago?

To respect the authorities is not a habit particular to Asians. Westerners respect the authorities throughout history, too. They respected the authorities even more earnestly than did the Asians. In Europe, the authority of the King and that of the Church were regarded as sacred and absolute throughout the Middle Ages. Whereas, in Asia, Mentsju had recognized the right to usurp kings and mandarins ever since the 5th century B.C.. Misinformed Western journalists often declare that Confucianism praises order and authority. To praise order, that is true, but to praise the absolute authority of kings and mandarins, that is wrong. While Lock (17th century) proposed the principles for a democratic regime, Robert Filmer, in the British Isles, still vigorously defended the rights to heirship of kings. Even Hobbes, a precursor philosopher of democratic movement, contended that the Social Contract is only a contract between the governed and those who governed; the king had no obligation whatsoever to it.

In practice, before the 19th century, human rights were more highly respected as a way of life in Asia than in Europe. Religious freedom had always been respected throughout centuries in Asia whereas the governments in Europe maltreated and burnt alive the religious followers of other faiths. Their most lenient punishment was to impose them a fine if they did not go to church according to the king's order. As far as the administrative and judiciary systems were concerned, the methods of selective examination to choose mandarins, beginning in the 8th century in China and in the 11th century in Vietnam, had been a very democratic institution that could only be applied until after the French Revolution. Even by the time the Parliament came into existence and shared power with the king in the British Isles, there were four law schools in London that received only the descent of the nobility. By that time, in Vietnam, beginning from the Ly dynasty, the descent of the peasantry, craftsmen, and tradesmen were equally allowed to go to school, to sit for examination, and, once they passed the examination, they would be appointed mandarins. It was in the royal courts in the countries of the Orient countries that imperial judges could be named to dissuade the king from wrongdoings and question the mandarins. Many imperial judges fulfilled their functions valiantly and were highly praised in history. At the time the absolute monarchy was at its apogee in Vietnam, a woman, Mrs. Bui Huu Nghia, for example, whose husband had been arrested and falsely adjudged, had the right to come to the gate of the royal court to beat the king's drum to exculpate her husband from charges. Would that tradition not be a translation for democracy and a respect for human rights?

The second false argument is: "Individualism, a characteristic of democratic regime, is a tradition of the West while the East highly values community and regards individualism with less importance."

This argument commits two false arguments. First, democracy and human rights must not necessarily be founded on individualism. A democratic society could equally be founded on the political standards as conceived by Confucius: "The whole world belongs to everyone ... We must treat relatives or children of others as our own, nominate the sage and the able, explain good faith, and practice living in concord." Second, both Eastern and Western thoughts have sought to equipoise the individual and the community. Formerly, the role of the community was more highly valued thus generating the reaction of admiration for individuals when the democracy movement began to develop. Greek philosophers of the old age generally paid more attention to the community than the individual. Plato's "Republic" discussed a perfect community and not the position of the individual. The admiration for the role of the individual emerged with cynics and stoics whose positions were possibly likened to those of Laotsju and Jiang Cheou in China. Christianity heightens the role of the individual. (Everyone is equal before God.) However, in the Middle Ages, the Church in Europe surely lagged far behind the religions in Asia with respect to the role of the individual in the community. Only from the Church reforms in Europe could the role of the individual be elevated in religious teaching.. Nevertheless, Taoism and Buddhism became popular in Asia. They focused on the cultivation of the mind and heart and did not highly appreciate the role of the community. Taoism positioned every individual in the setting of nature, and all social institutions deserved to be discarded. And, Buddha taught that everyone could be Buddha. Thus, the fact that the role of the individual can be highly appreciated does not derive from the fact that Eastern and Western traditions are different; it is rather a derivative of the social and economic life.

Thus, asserting that Asia does not have the tradition of democracy and human rights as has Europe is to distort a whole culture. Misinformed Western journalists might commit that misinterpretation out of negligence or racial supremacy. However, those authorities in Asia who hold such assertions are deemed to be uninstructed; they dishonor their ancestors. What is ironical is that those who use those arguments noisily are the authorities in China and in Vietnam. They refute the demands for human rights under the pretext that the concepts of human rights are inconsonant with the Asian Culture. On the contrary, it is they who imported and are still worshipping a doctrine which is wholly a product of the West whereby the West is eradicating because the West knows that it is false: It's Marxism-Leninism. Materialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat have no roots whatsoever in the traditions of Asia; still, they contradict the tradition of "concord of the three religions" in Asia. Such an attitude shows ill self-respect and deficient knowledge.

Thus, if Democracy and Human Rights are not absent in the traditions of Asia, why are so many countries on this continent submerged in the utmost darkness of despotism? The answer can be found in the historical conditions and the levels of economic developments of the countries in Asia. Historically, since the last century, many Asian countries have been eager to struggle, primarily, for their independence (Korea, Vietnam) and food and clothing (China). In this struggle, they are unfortunate to fall into the control of despotic political parties and foreign political doctrine. They have dependently suffered in silence. That does not mean the peoples in these countries voluntarily choose despotism and absolutism. On the other hand, the freedom of thoughts had prospered in the West a few centuries ahead of Asia owing to the industrial revolution and foreign trade development.

In other words, the arguments using culture as a pretext to oppose democracy and human rights by a number of governments in Asia are false and without honesty.

The third false argument is: "The citizens in the countries in Asia do not have the practices of democracy; thus, it is not yet time to open the door to the institutions of democracy and freedom, for fear that division and chaos will occur."

Asserting such an argument is like telling a person who does not have the habit of swimming not to swim or a maid who has never been with a child not to get married and bear a child. The democratic system is the result of the normal development in human society. The transformation of society from an old condition to a new one always causes confusion. Sometimes, it even causes pain. Nevertheless, it is a natural phenomenon in an advancing process.

Those who want to maintain despotism always regard the governed commoners as young children who have not attained manhood and who are unworthy of trust. They believe that the governance of the country must be solely reserved for a group of eminent people and that allowing the citizens to choose the governors is extremely dangerous. The hereditary nobility generally raised this argument to defend feudalism. Immediately after the movement of democratic thoughts had expanded, the Fascist parties also used similar arguments (such as the ones by Nietzche) to plead for their authority. Likewise, the Communist parties used the label "the progressive class." Those arguments could not persuade the citizens who have tasted the flavor of freedom and democracy. They can only maintain order with the violence of the security forces.

The economic development will change the attitude of the citizens. We may recall that the concepts of freedom and democracy developed simultaneously with the industrial revolution, the trade development, and the growth of the middle class in the city. The Asian countries are now in the process of change, and the market economy is being transformed. This transformation takes place at the very base: the family. In the past ten years, the number of divorce cases has doubled in Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In the past twenty years, it has tripled in South Korea. Apparently, the individuals are now increasingly aware of their interests. On the other hand, despotic governments are not efficacious in protecting social order. Between 1992 and 1993, the number of crimes committed by the youth and teen-agers in Singapore rose to 27%, even though the despotic government there proclaims itself the champion of preservation of morals. The Asian society is transforming from its roots. The economic development requires a class of educated city residents. Well-to-do and educated citizens will demand freedom and democracy, arising from their needs in life. That movement is not derived from the tradition of any region of culture. Rather, it is derived from the natural development of human society. Those despotic governments, which have been in power for half a century and still declare that the citizens in their countries have not been mature enough to exercise freedom and democracy, plainly avow that they themselves obstruct their nations' development and progress. That is another reason for which they should better select themselves and return the power to their citizens.

The fourth false argument is: "Despotism maintains stability because it is necessary for economic development."

Vietnamese intellectuals such as Ho Hieu and Lu Phuong have pointed out that one would commit errors by failing to differentiate political stability from social stability. A despotic government could maintain political stability on the surface of society; it fosters, at the same time, social unsuitability that has increasingly become serious, however. The stability in a police state only benefits a small number of people, the privileged class. An openness in economy coupled with an unyielding obstinacy in politics will generate two effects. Openness in economy will help a number of people to make money. Political monopoly will only create opportunity for a number of people in power to use authority to make money. As long as this policy draws out, this privileged minority will continue to consolidate their preponderant position since they will become both rich and powerful. They become rich owing to their power and influence not to their competence in competition, thus creating and tolerating corruption. Injustice will prevail, and society will become increasingly unstable. Lasting injustice and social unsuitability will impede economic development, and, eventually, they will lead to revolution with violence.

Economy develops due to such factors as the provision of economic rights for the citizens--the right to securing interests from one's own labor, the right to ownership, the right to free enterprise, and the right to sign contracts. Beginning in 1980, the experiments in China have shown that when the citizens are afforded a little freedom in earning their living, they will try to make a fortune, and, thus, the common economy will progress. Nevertheless, a despotic regime will gradually restrict all economic rights. Corruption is a form of violation of the economic rights. A person works, but another person enjoys the benefits. The despotic political regime will violate the rights to free enterprise, the right to contract (which are reserved for only a small number of the privileged and laws and regulations will change according to their own interests). Even the right to ownership could be infringed upon as a result of preposterous currency and tax policies and regulations. Without political freedom, all economic freedoms will be stripped off at any time, including the rights to use and own the property created by one's own labor and sweat.

A democratic system is a guarantee that helps set the earner's mind at ease to continue making his livelihood. When the citizens are aware that the government agency will carry out its responsibilities in accordance with the law and regulations, they will feel assured that no one will forcibly use power to change the law and regulations and despoil them of their properties. Trustfulness is a necessary quality that creates creditability and engages people in investment and in lasting transactions. Otherwise, there would only be short-term business affairs for fast interests, such as peculation in land, services in tourism, or subcontracts with foreign capitalists to exploit cheap labor. Even people with power and influence will feel insecure. They will run the economic affairs and transactions negligently. Facing the economic insecurity, they will make no plans for long-term investment in advanced industry. They will not pay much heed to advancing education, to training technical skills, and to building the economic infrastructure.

South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are taken as models of economic development of despotic regimes. There are four mistakes when using them as examples.

First, those countries developed during the time their existence as a nation was threatened. South Korea and Taiwan were anxious about a Communist invasion. Singapore was only a newly born nation. (Premier Lee Kwan Yeou cried when informed that Singapore was expelled from the Confederation of Malaysia). Surviving under such threats, the peoples in those countries united in high concord and discipline and maintained their social mores firmly--those characteristics that are absent in other Asian countries nowadays.

Second, those countries all enjoyed the advantages of the Cold War. Western countries helped them to contain communism with aid or favor. Nowadays, the Cold War is over.

Third, those countries respect the state rule of law, recognizing multipartism and allowing activities of opposing political parties. The State does not maintain monopoly of the press and publication. The State does not control unions, associations, education, professions, and religions.

Corruption exists, but it is an exception, not a statute and rule. That is to say, the citizens in those countries believe that their economic rights would exist for a long time and would be protected by the law. They do not have to keep useless state enterprises just because the political party in power holds on to those enterprises that are in debt to feed its party members. And, the fourth argument, which is equally very important, is that they are countries that do not suffer the harsh consequences left behind by a Communist regime, as is Vietnam.

In short, as we have pointed out, the arguments maintained by Vice-Minister Tran Quang Co have been proven to be false. On all planes--traditional, cultural, religious, and social-- and in terms of economic development, there is no reason whatsoever to obstruct the citizens in our country from enjoying human rights and democracy (Vuong Huu Bot, 1994).

THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The Movement for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights

Ever since the 1980's, the Vietnamese communities around the world have relentlessly called on the world community to press the Hanoi rule to respect freedom, democracy, and human rights. Hundreds of meetings of and conferences have been organized. They all urge the Vietnamese Communist Party to end its monopoly of power, develop freedom and democracy, and respect human rights.

On February 21, 1990, Ha The Ruyet and 23 other prominent Vietnamese founded the Movement for Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights. The Movement issued a proclamation denouncing the atrocities the Communists had committed against the Vietnamese people. They appealed to the Vietnamese overseas and in the country to sacrifice themselves for Vietnam's noble cause. Their goals were to achieve a cultural revolution founded on the traditional and spiritual values of the Vietnamese people and the progressive advances in science and technology of mankind in replacement of the failed proletarian revolution. The immediate objectives were to struggle for freedom, democracy, and human rights, specifically the rights to economic, political, social, and religious freedoms. The Movement declared to proceed towards establishing a pluralistic democracy in which the Communist monopoly of power and all forms of officialdom and feudalism will be banned.

The Nonviolent Movement for Human Rights

In 1990, Nguyen Dan Que formed the Nonviolent Movement for Human Rights after having served 10 years (1978-1988) in prison without trial. On May 11, 1991, he issued a manifesto calling upon the Hanoi rule to respect human rights, to accept a multiparty system, and to restore the right of the Vietnamese people to choose their own form of government through free and fair elections. The manifesto came at the time the waves of freedom and democracy were sweeping across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It created intense reverberations inside Vietnam and throughout the world but landed Nguyen Dan Que and many of his associates in prison.

Overseas students from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Germany, in December 1992, sent a letter to the ambassador to Germany, Ho Huan Nghiem, requesting him to relieve the younger generation from political suspicion and help build up democracy, freedom, and welfare for the Vietnamese people. The letter wrote, in part:

In early September 1991, at the Palais de L'Europe, President Anders Bjord, in his speech to the delegate from the Vietnamese Congress In Europe led by Lai The Hung, expressed his concerns over the violations of human rights in Vietnam. He recalled his meeting with President Gorbachev during the latter's visit to the Palais de l'Europe. He had reminded the Soviet president of the human rights situation in Vietnam. He promised to pass the delegate's requests to the committees in the Congress of Europe for consideration. The president believed that, along with the disintegration of communism in Eastern Europe and the ever-increasing international movement for freedom and democracy, the Vietnamese people will win back their freedom, democracy, and human rights.

In a reception by President of State Le Duc Anh on February 9, 1993, French President Francois Mitterand said to the Hanoi leadership that peace has been restored, political stability has been secured, and progress has been made. All those developments help foster openness for a new liberation in a country where religions, especially Buddhism, have prospered. However, the President linked the issues of human rights to economic development. He stressed that the economic development and the promotion for human rights must go hand in hand. In a press conference on February 10, 1993, he appealed to the U.S. to lift the trade embargo on Vietnam while urging the Socialist Republic of Vietnam "to pave the way for greater rights to freedom." Foreign Affairs Minister Roland Dumas, who accompanied the President during the visit, handed to Foreign Affairs Minister Nguyen Manh Cam a list of twenty Vietnamese priests and intellectuals who have been imprisoned or placed under house arrests due to their peaceful expression for freedom, democracy, and the rights to religious worship.

In Februay 1993, Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) introduced the AJR 7 (Assembly Joint Resolution 7) supporting the rights to democracy of the Vietnamese people. The assemblyman said that he has read and listened to reports on reeducation camps and camp-detainees in Vietnam. Camp detainees have suffered torture and malnutrition. There are also other indications that the Vietnamese people are stripped off their basic civil rights. He stressed that it is now the time for Hanoi to wake up and that there will be no trade until Hanoi releases all political prisoners.

Congressman Dana Rohrabaker (R-Huntington Beach) tied U.S.-Vietnamese diplomatic normalization to human rights in Vietnam. He entered in the Congressional Record the names of an estimated 450 political and religious leaders who are presently under detention in Vietnam. The congressman said that he would introduce legislation in the congress, and the release of political and religious leaders will be considered as a condition for lifting the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam.

During his visit to Little Saigon, Westminster, Southern California, U.S. Senator Bob Kerry maintained that as long as Hanoi does not respect human rights, freedom of the press, and freedom of political activities, there would definitely be no diplomatic normalization.

At a news conference in Hanoi in early March 1994, Dutch Foreign Minister Pieter Kooljmans of the Europe Union said that he had made it clear to his Vietnamese interlocutors that the human rights cause was one of the clauses that appeared in all the agreements on economic cooperation, and, therefore, they could not deviate from it. European officials said that this was also because of the standard human rights clause, which stated that cooperation was based on "respect for democratic principles and human rights which inspire the domestic and external policies" of both parties (Hanoi, Reuters, March 11, 1994).

During his visit to Vietnam in April 1994, Secretary of Foreign Affairs Josep Zieleniec of Zchekolovaskia raised the question of violations of human rights with the Vietnamese Communist administration. He handed to President Le Duc Anh and Foreign Affairs Minister Nguyen Manh Cam a letter and a list of 150 political prisoners. The daily "Telegraf" in Praha in its issue of April 16, 1994, said that before his visit to Vietnam the Secretary had received a letter from the Vietnam Restoration Party, an organization whose aims are to struggle for democracy in Vietnam. The letter expressed discontent over the indifference of the Zchek press regarding violations of human rights in Vietnam.

The Communist's Behavior

The journal "Le Monde," on February 9, 1993, expressed doubts on whether France's influence could affect the Hanoi administration. The paper said: Nothing is certain. The Communists do not seem to be ready to establish a democracy instituted on the principles of law and to create new civil liberties such as freedom of religion, a challenge which would bring Hanoi face-to-face with the Buddhists and Catholics. It stressed that the Communists do not want to talk about political pluralism.

Ruth Talovich (1993) of the daily "Nguoi Viet (The Vietnamese People contended that

According to Van Duc (1993), how to overcome the obstruction to freedom, democracy, and human rights by political solutions is now visible. The Vietnamese, both inside the country and overseas have continually sent petitions to the Vietnamese Communist Party asking for pluralistic democracy. Even intellectuals and politicians in the Vietnamese Communist Party, having overcome fear, voiced their minds. Nguyen Khac Vien was an example. In 1987, he strongly commented on the Party's monolithic governance of power. He taxed the Party with solely staying with the Maoist-style nationalism, ending international communism, and ceasing cooperation with the COMECON before making friends with the West. As early as January 1991, when the Seventh Congress of the Vietnam Communist Party was about to convene, he even asked the Party to give back the legislative and administrative powers to the legislature and the State. He contended that the Vietnamese Communist Party was completely inefficient and, thus, caused social disorder and no longer is able to assume the leadership of the country. Bui Tin also voiced his opinions. Hoang Minh Chinh and Phan Dinh Dieu, who ventured their ideas after Bui Tin, argued more assertively than their predecessors. All of them maintained that political absolutism must be abolished and replaced with a parliamentary system. They were all realistic. A serious illness could not be treated by a mild medical treatment or massage.

We should begin, first, with the examination of ideology as the Communists often declare. The road to an ideal society is not necessarily achieved through socialism, communism by means of the class struggle, proletarian dictatorship, or strict economic state planning as the Communists often assert. The world progress after the two world wars and regional or local wars in the modern world history, began with the Russian revolution in 1917 and ended with the arms contention after the Second World War. They have proven that communism was a failure. The road to a civilized and progressive society of humankind will be a law-based pluralistic democracy in which market economy plays a role. The arms corrival and economic competition in the time of Krutchev took its toll and determined who the victor was. The Reagan's Star War, in turn, proved that the state economy was annihilated. The bi-polarized world with the block of nonaligned states as a pad ceases to exist. A new world order is taking shape. There appear now the extreme East Block, the West Block, the North Block with mighty and rich states, and the South Block with weak and poor countries. The world is always on movement. There is nothing permanent and static. That is the law of change that the Orient has experienced for centuries (Van Duc, 25 (1993)).

Concerning the "doi moi" (renovation) program that began in 1986, Lam Le Trinh pointed out:

Early in 1991, Phan Dinh Dieu sent a motion to the Vietnam Communist Party leadership. He requested it to disengage itself from old political habits, from obsession with power and slavery to outmoded ideology. The Party should return the political power to the people and play the role of an avant-garde force and not that of an all-powerful party. It now represents only a minority in power.

On October 25, 1991, at the Centre International de Sejour de Paris, France, Vo Long Trieu, a former Cabinet Minister, commented on Hanoi's foreign policy saying that Hanoi, as always, modeled on the policies of their masters, maintaining the policy of expansionism. Following this strategy, it placed the interests of the so-called international proletariat above national interests. However, it failed to achieve its objectives due to the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Hanoi was then cornered to an impasse and sought to help itself out of danger, looking to international powers, especially the United States, for a close call. Hanoi cooperates with the U.S. in the search for the MIA/POW, expecting to establish diplomatic normalization with its former enemy and eventually saving it from international isolation.

Bui Tin observed that Vietnam still remains under a totalitarian political regime and despotic administration. The Communist clique in the Politburo executed such vile schemes as fabricating general elections with designated nominees, exerting control on the administration, and smothering free enterprise, regardless of international public opinion. He also denounced vile practices among cadres and party-members, from bribery and contraband to the inefficiency of the political regime in protecting the country against the territorial expansion by Communist China. Bui vowed to support the denunciation of vile acts and artifices of important Communist leaders in the country. Bui Doan Khanh questioned the role of the intellectuals under Vietnamese communism. There are now Vietnamese intellectuals who resign themselves to serve as henchmen for the regime, thus being accomplices to mistakes and crimes. Only a small number of them deserve to be honored. They are those activists who struggle for the freedom of religion, democracy, and human decency--the Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang and the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Prof. Doan Viet Hoat, Poet Nguyen Chi Thien, among others.

Concerning the problem of national economy, Vo Tran Tri contended that the Communist administration has failed to control the source of aid from overseas Vietnamese since foreign currencies are funneled into the hands of foreign traders in contraband. The most serious problem is the skyrocketing unemployment: 20% of the working population is out of work. It is estimated that there will be an annual increase of 6 million in population growth, thus adding weight to the poor economy. As a result, Vietnam would not escape from poverty and misery. While suggesting to the national intelligentsia inside to urge the Hanoi regime to carry out radical reforms to save the country from poverty and misery, Nguyen Huu Chung asserted that, without a sound policy, Hanoi would not be able improve the lamentable economy but enrich a number of corrupt cadres and party members, instead.

Nguyen Tu Mo, President of the Free Vietnam Alliance, at a conference at Ramada Inn, Garden Grove, California on November 28, 1991, advocated that Vietnam needs solutions to the questions of freedom, democracy, and human rights. Citing himself as an eyewitness, he indicated that thousands of people were arrested on political grounds and have never received trials. Returnees from "reeducation camps" were rearrested for "being dangerous elements to the regime." Intellectuals voicing political viewpoints other than those of the Vietnamese Communist Party such as Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, Buddhist monks Tue Sy and Tri Sieu, were convicted of "crimes" and imprisoned to mislead public opinion. The urgent needs for solutions to freedom and democracy for Vietnam are a must. It must achieve the twofold goal: to terminate deadlock situations in all areas of life of the Vietnamese people and open up opportunities for all to build up the country.

The failures in every aspect of the people's life, Nguyen asserted, are inherent in the incompetence of the Vietnamese Communist Party and its leadership, their inability to build solidarity among various social strata, and their obstinacy in pursuing a centralized economy founded on Marxism-Leninism. It has led to the corruption of the spiritual and moral lives of the people and created a new social class of privileges as opposed to the absolute majority of the Vietnamese people who live in poverty and misery. Two urgent issues are then to be solved: to build up a democratic political regime and to revive national economy. To disentangle these issues, freedom and democracy for Vietnam should be founded on pluralistic and multi-party political systems and market economy, creating conditions for free and equal opportunities for all citizens, organizations, and political parties to propagate their ideals within the framework of the law and the respect for the basic human and civil rights, promote social opportunities, and develop a market economy.

On November 1, 1992, from Phan Dang Luu prison in Saigon, Doan Viet Hoat sent his appeal to the Vietnamese Communist Party leadership urging them to change their policies. He wrote, in part: