CORRUPTION

CORRUPTION

By Van Nguyen

    

Corruption became a serious disease following the` takeover of South Vietnam. In June 1976, after the “de facto” though shortly before the “de jure” reunification, Communist Party Secretary-general  Le Duan, once again, castigated the party cadres for bribery, misappropriation of private property, and various other corrupt practices. In April 1977, the Party Secretary-general signed a Politburo resolution to heighten vigilance against corruption. It blamed State cadres and officials for abuse of power and corrupt practices. Rectifications followed in 1977, and anticorruption campaigns were activated accordingly. Several cadres and officials were expulsed from the Communist Party. However, corruption was increasingly pervading throughout the officialdom the following years. The Party leadership perceived that the problem was   alarmingly and sought for measures to halt it.

  In September 1983, after successive anti-corruption campaigns, a new Central Department for Internal Affairs was created to reinforce the task. Nevertheless the objective was not fully defined. It primarily focused on the relief of the Party Central Committee of Internal Affairs’ anti-corruption organs from collapse. The new organ, in its turn, failed to carry out its task, nevertheless.  In the early summer of 1983, the Party Central Committee issued a clearer statement according to which Party cadres were no longer permitted to own land, especially cadres on assignments in the administration in South Vietnam--22 per cent of whom were working at the district level or higher disposed of assets in the way decreed by the central authorities revealed as insensitivity and nativity. (Leslie Homes, 1993, p.187) 

 Instances of corruption were volubly numerous. Campaigns for fighting against it multiplied. Reports in various forms on corruption and abuses of power of individual cadres for personal interests accumulated. The report in the Vietnamese media in November 1984 is a classic example of how an individual can simultaneously practice serial corruption. The director of the public security in Dong Nai Province, Captain Nguyen Huu Gioc, engaged in various kinds of corruption during the period of 1979-83. He released ‘reactionaries’ from re-education centers, and then found them posts in government offices--all paid in return with bribes. He even secured the release of a former adviser to former President Thieu of South Vietnam when the man was arrested on charge of reactionary crime in return with a bribe. He extorted gold and money from a Chinese ethnic, who sought to flee Vietnam. He even distributed cross-border smuggling permits. Higher officials knew of Nguyen’s activities and tried to expose his crimes to light. Nguyen’s response was to draw up false reports to refute accusations, claiming that they are false. (Vietnam News Agency, November 9, 1984).

The fight against corruption reached momentum. At the end of 1984, the Communist Party, at a Party conference, prepared for a major campaign for eradication of the “negative phenomena.” It was chaired by the then Head of the Security Ministry and Politburo member Pham Hung. The five negative phenomena included the four issues related to abuse of power and corruption was given careful considerations. They were specifically enumerated as smuggling, financial speculation, bribery, and loaning money at high interest rates. Again, anti-corruptions campaigns began and continued well into 1986, even within the circle of the Party apparatchik and the legal institutions, being the two groups singled out for particularly vehement attacks. Ordinary citizens were encouraged to criticize acts of retrogression via letters to the press. In one weekend, about 1,300 letters arrived at the Ho Chi Minh City newspapers. In these letters, the second most criticized aspect of life in modern Vietnam. It is mostly on the poor side of the ailing economy, as a consequence of corrupt officialdom. At the Sixth Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party, held in December 1986, the assembly tackled corruption and identified it as one of the Party’s major tasks for rectification.  (Beresford, 1988: 84).

Corruption became a national scourge, but the administration came up with no practical solution.  From the early to the mid-1980, the Communist administration intensified its fight against corruption. Nevertheless, high authorities were spared from “washing dirty linen in public.”  Politburo member Le Duc Tho, in an article in the official daily “Nhan Dan,” in May 1986, acknowledged that “in this second stage, the challenge has been faced with material temptation, bourgeois lifestyle, money, beautiful girls, and luxurious commodities. Retrogression gradually dissipates the best qualities and ethics of a revolutionary. It destroys in secret the strength of our contingent. Ideologically speaking, complex developments are being identified among cadres and party-members. Corruption, bribery, and smuggling are a phenomenon. This situation is existent everywhere and at every echelon. It causes great losses to public properties and the people’s material life. It degrades the cadres and party members, and it denudates the public’s confidence. It may be said that, in our Party, there has been no such a degeneration of virtues ever before. This is a major and serious issue.”    

In August 1987, an article published in the Party’s theoretical political journal “Hoc Tap” (Studies) denounced with analysts on the indecent conduct of public affairs of the Politburo member To Huu and a number of party functionaries for their corrupt practices. Corruption remained a critical issue. Corrupt practices were exposed on the official media. Reports on the military’s misusing of socialized property in Ho Chi Minh City, for instance, was published in the daily “Saigon Giai Phong” (Saigon Liberated), January 10 1988. The publication of the case might be part of the campaign designed to bring the Vietnamese military under control. Phan Van Thanh, one of  accomplices of the Twenty-eighth Convalescence Group that used military vehicles to hinder people from escaping Vietnam in exchange for bribes-- 20 taels of gold each person. Phan was tried by a military tribunal and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. His accomplices received the sentences ranging from three years to 11 years in prison  

Complaints over social insecurity are heard everywhere, in the cities and the countryside as well. Nguyem Xuan Thieu, a high school teacher of geography and history under the old regime who retired to his home village in Binh Duong groaned: “Social corruption grieves me.  I survive poverty on my own labor.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Although old and Weak, I still labor miserably to subsist. Robbers and malefactors rule the village I raised a chicken and lost it. I raised a rabbit, it was swiped. There is no law and order. I would be unavoidably tripped off a piece of furniture by a hamlet official if he insistently wants to take it. The piece of land I am allocated is always preyed to confiscation for the State’s use any moment. Life here is happy if one is spared from theft, piracy, and corruption.  Grumbles as such are familiar to anyone with knowledge of Vietnam today. To be fair, local authorities are aware of these social evils, but turn a blind eye to it. 

Corruption linked to abuse of power is a serious problem. Georges Duhamel, a French writer, noted that “a senior Communist told city officials in Hanoi that fighting against corruption should be the top priority. Throughout the country, as many as 74 communal officials have been assigned on mission to carry on the fight against corruption. A high official with a State company has just been given the life sentence for embezzlement of $US 30,000 dollars.” (Georges Duhamel, the Post-revolution Vietnam. Doan Ket. No.338. Jan. 1988, pp. 36-37).

    The State condemnation on and the press campaigns for elimination of crimes initiated by the authorities continued all through the later years of the 1980’s. In his Lunar New Year speech of February 1988 published in the daily “Nhan Dan”, April 8, 1988, Politburo member Nguyen Van Linh listed five main tasks for 1988, the last of which was the urgency of the purification of the Party and the officialdom, weeding out degenerate and degraded elements, regardless of their ranks and positions. The daily acknowledged that “It is a matter of concern that the elimination should concentrate on party members and cadres at the highest echelon. Their indecent conduct is covered up in one way or another. Party, State, and police officials are tantamount to committing corrupt practices. Crimes as such impair the prestige of the Party and State should be brought to court. Crimes of infringements on the Party discipline and the law should be severely punished to consolidate the people’s confidence in the Party.”  On June 9, 1988, the same official daily reported that more than 500 members of the Communist Party in Cao Bang Province had been expelled from the Party while another 391 had been subjected to “disciplinary action” for embezzlement and other abuses of power. This was another achievement following the “purification campaign” directed by the administration.

  Social evils were rampant as a result of corrupt practices. The daily “Nhan Dan,” in August 2, 1988, acknowledged in bitter terms that, as of the end of 1987, there were 6,845 thefts of public proprieties valued at 1,320,700,000 dong, and 60% of the speculators were state cadres. Sixty-five percent of the soldiers discharged from military services could not find jobs. Robberies in broad daylight increased daily. Juvenile delinquency was another major problem. Previously, reports from the security police admitted that the statistics collected in 1979 revealed that 15,511 teenagers committed crimes, were addicts to drugs, and victims of prostitution.   

In January 1989, in a speech delivered at Vinh Phu, Truong Chinh heightened vigilance on the disrespect of social law and order, referring to the widespread corruption among cadres and party members. Official report on the instance of corruption in Cao Bang made a topic in the press. Members of the Party committee of the province had stolen large quantities State properties. The situation became so critical that Party Secretary-general Nguyen Van Linh unwillingly ordered a clamp-down on media reports and criticism on negative phenomena, including corruption. The active participation of the media crimes revelations had been undermining the prestige and credibility of the Communist Party of Vietnam. The measure was strongly endorsed by the Vietnamese Communist Party. It was not until its seventh plenum in August 1989 that the leadership, again, appealed to Party cadres and officials for resolute anti-corruption actions. The appeal appeared to be unconvincing, however (Le Dinh Dieu, Interview with Nguyen Minh Can. VNCR February 20, 1998).