CALLS FOR FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, AND RIGHTS

CALLS FOR FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, AND RIGHTS

By Van Nguyen

The Vietnamese people have ever aspired since the heydays of the August Uprising in 1945 for freedom, democracy, and rights. The dream has never come true. Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong, in his remarks in the rectification of errors sessions at the Patriotic Front conference (1956) in Hanoi, pointed out in clear terms that “the grave errors and the causes that engender them result from the policies.”  He addressed changes and called for the respect for freedom, democracy, and rights. Errors are not only exposed in the agrarian reforms but also in various domains, creatting a tumult in the society. “Disunion between classes and opposition within a class are noticeable. As a result, a number of people die a tragic death. The peasant and the worker still live in misery. National industry and business enterprises suffer large losses while they had brought in colossal interests under French domination. There is, in addition, an absence of the rule of law!”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

All these errors equally result from the disrespect to the law, the contempt for the intellectuals and their specialty, and the isolation from the masses. Victorious achievements brought in following the revolution has incited politicians to act with self-satisfaction. They believe that they are uniquely able to assume the role of leadership in the judiciary, coercing it into serving politics regardless of the fundamental principles of the law. Politics places itself above the law. The “Revolution” abuses power. To give a person the death sentence without due procedure is a political measure. Politics monopolizes all activities in all domains without respect for the principles of the law, the domain of specially that resides with the judiciary. The distrust of the intellectuals becomes increasingly serious. Repression against them is imminently apparent. After ten years of its creation, the National Assembly has still failed to respond to the true aspirations of the masses. Its legislative power is nominal—to pass the policy only. The Front, which is a popular organization, also assumes a nominal role. It is allowed and encouraged to echo slogans. It is not treated democratically. Its contribution to the leadership of the country is restricted.  It   stays away from the masses, being cooped up in subjectivism. Bureaucracy, authoritarianism, and dictatorship prevail.    

A conscientious political regime should be conversant with the respect for the laws, establishing a rule of law whereby politics aptly assumes the role of leadership while promoting the high respect for the laws. Only inn this way could the regime redress its prestige and regain strong support from the masses. A true democratic country is the one in which the citizen is the master not only by the prescriptions in the constitution but also by the practices in reality. The masses have only asked for dialogue, to be allowed to present suggestions on the policy the leadership has established. The National Salvation Front, particularly its press organ, the daily “Cuu Quoc” (National Salvation), should reflect truthfully the contents of the debates at the meetings of the Front and publish on it the engagements. There should be no obstruction to the freedom of the press and expression. Not only should we recognize the rights to freedom and democracy, we should also create conditions for the realization of these rights.”  

Fifteen years after the “liberation of the South, the aspirations for freedom, democracy, and rights remained vain hopes. The Reverend Chan Tin, in his preaching’s during the 1990 Easter ceremony when “doi moi” (renovation) was under way, noted that “The Vietnamese are hoping for change. They are also fearful of facing a dramatic situation of a disintegrated society where they are stripped off the fundamental human and civil rights, which are stipulated in the United Nations Bill of Rights of December 10, 1948. The disrespect to human rights results in the breach on human conscience. They are, namely, the freedoms to speech and expression, religion, equality before the law, legal security and due process, and free movement in the society. Human and civil rights are restricted. They are not rights but privileges; they are given and stripped off momentarily. The injustices the Vietnamese have suffered for forty years cannot be perpetuated,” (Chan Tin. Preaching. April 10, 1990)

Politically, “until the present day, Vietnam has still been an undemocratic state. The people are the master of the country. That is only a slogan. The Communist Party and its administration show no respect for human and civil rights. The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam recognizes the fundamental human and civil rights of the citizen – such as the rights to speech (Art. 67), religion (Art. 68), habeas corpus (Art. 69) protection of the laws as regards life, property, and honor and dignity (Art. 70), and free movement and residence (Art. 71). There is no respect for such rights in reality. The press is instrumental in the hands of the Party. Anyone that voices opinions other than those of the State is attributed to as reactionary and sentenced to prison term. 

    For fifteen years (1975-1990), the Communist Party of Vietnam has monopolized power in the administration of the whole Vietnamese people. It ever holds dear the ideological lines of orthodox communism like other communist parties in Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, and Cuba, best-known without doubt as the countries that commit most serious violations against fundamental human and civil rights. Eastern European countries have repented. They have denounced the most atrocious crimes the political regime has practiced in line with the orthodox Stalinism. They then declare to honor the respect for human rights, religious freedom, and the freedom for prisoners of conscience. The Communist Party of Vietnam has not repented; it has only implemented the monopoly of leadership of the Party, instead. It has never put into consideration the rights of the human person and other policies and programs that need to be implemented for renovation” (Chan Tin. On Repentance. April 11, 1990).

    The dictatorship of the proletariat has immersed the Vietnamese people in the darkness of oppression, repression, and persecution. As a result, quite a few former unflagging communists could not stand it. Many of them voiced dissent and opposition. Nguyen Ho was among the most energetic veteran resistance war fighters who out spoke out criticisms against the Communist Party. He denounced its monody of power and advocated political and economic reforms. Together with other colleagues, he founded, in 1986, the “Hoi Cuu Khang Chien” (Association of Veteran Resistance War Fighters), published ate newspaper “Truyen Thong Khang Chien” National Holding up the traditional spirit of resistance of the Vietnamese people against the Invaders) and popularizing its purpose. He was arrested as a result of his criticisms of the Party and demands for freedom and democracy. In an open letter dated June 22, 1989, Nguyen Ho bluntly judged Hanoi’s political misconduct--conservatism, authoritarianism, and violations of the constitution. He demanded more freedom, political pluralism, and multiparty. To blot out a wave of arguments that might instigate opposition inside the Party at the time more than a million Chine demonstrated at Tianmen Square to demand democracy and multiparty and, at the same time, to deter the consequences of an unprecedented political crisis taking place in Eastern Europe, Hanoi decided to silence his voice 

Nguyen Ho was arrested in 1990, having withdrawn from the Communist Party and lived in retirement. He was then placed under administrative detention in Saigon. In May 1993, he was released supposedly due to intervention by Germany Foreign MinisterKlaus Kindel.

INTERNAL CONFLICT

INTERNAL CONFLICT

By Van Nguyen

Preferential treatment of the Party leadership against the military units and personnel regrouped to the North following the Geneva Agreement in July 1954 is phenomenal. Nguyen Van Tran, the politics commissioner of Zone VII (Saigon and adjacent Ares),  noted in his memoirs (1995) bitter grievances cadres, troopers, and their family members suffered in the North before and during the Vietnam War (1955-75). As a matter of fact, negligence of their life newcomers is perverse. Adults are jobless. Children are left to famish. Chaos took place in large resettlements in Haiphong, Vinh Phu, Ha Dong, and Hanoi.  High school students at Te a (Theatre) Quarters dropped out from classes, loitering in the streets and looting shops. Discrimination is open in populated resettlements. Schools for children from the South are denied permission to operate. Dissent broke out right in the heart of the Capital of the country. As many as four thousand dissenters at Chuong My, Ha Dong, rambled the fields, destroying crops. Thousands of teenagers from families of soldiers and cadres from the South joined in protest against the communist administration during the agrarian reforms in 1856 a Cau Giay District in Hanoi.

Leading cadres and the intellectuals from the South are largely disregarded. They are seen as politically independent as they accustomed to free thought have enjoyed free thoughts of equality and liberty and cultural ways of life under French colonialism. Their interpretations of Marxism vary according to groups. Differences in opinions on the strategy for national unification following Beijing. Strategy -taking the South by force- is thoughtless; it only causes tension-surfaced. Contradictions over orthodox Maoism and methods of thinking are common among members of the body of leadership from the South. To this disadvantage, former key members of the Council of Resistance in the South such as Pham Van Bach, Pham Ngoc Thuan, Tran Buu Kiem, Huynh Van Tieng, Nguyen Van Huong, Tran Van Nguyen, Dang Minh Tru, Dang Minh Tru, Nguyen Phu Huu, Ta Nhut Tu, Ta Nhu Khue, Ca Van Thinh, Nguyen Van Chi, Hoang Xuan Nhi, Le Van Thiem, Ho Van Lai, Tran Huu Nghiep, Dang Ngoic Tot, Nguyen Van Am, Nguyen Van Hoa, Ho Van Hue, and Pham Thieu, are kept at the loose end.  Long-standing party members of prestige such as Tran Van Giau, Ton Duc Thang, Nguyen Van Tao, Nguyen Van Tran, Ung Van Khiem, and Duong Bach Mai fell into disgrace. Ton Duc Thang, Ung Van Khiem, and Nguyen Van Tao assumed nominal role. Ung Van Khiem and Duong Bach Mai suffered a doubtful death.  

There is no surprise opposition from elements of all walks of life from the South regrouped to the North surfaces during the land reform 1956-58, and hostility is felt among the intellectuals from the South during the Nhan Van Movement (Humanities) that coincidentally take place at the same time. Sources believe that the reasons for conflict are even more complex. Most communist party members from the South are not Moscow-trained. They are originally members of the Communist Party of France or the Fourth International. 

  Political cleavage between the ruling leadership of the Party and prominent party members in the South widened following the communist coercive takeover of Saigon. There should be two Vietnams according to 1973 Paris Agreements on the Ending the War in Vietnam. The withering victory of spring 1975 generated new divergences within the Communist Party. The communists from the North persistently established the unified Vietnam as planned at any cost. The communists of the South, who believed they themselves, could judge well the local situation with keen observations. The pointed out the contradictory character of political North-South conflict and solve it on the sociological plan. They believed  they could tackle the dilemma.  The two Vietnams, both the North and the South, enter the U.N.

    As a matter of fact, Tran Bach Dang, a leading communist party member of the South, expressed it very clearly to Wilfrid  Burchett. The communists of the South advocated a liberal politics with regard to the local bourgeoisie whose economic interests and patriotism they measured on their own terms and they appreciated. “One of the advantages of a state of non-reunification,” said Tran Bach Dang, “is that it would allow us to have two voices in the United Nations during a certain time.” The argument is strongly diplomatic and probably camouflaged many other things that are more concrete. In the opinion of Kissinger, the United States may set obstacle to such a double admission as it may led  to the entry of South Korea. At the same time, it would set into play an advantage for the communist leadership who would unify everything in a very short time. As a result, prominent figures in the Privy Government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam were one by one subtracted from the list of members of the Party leadership and the administration. Among them were Truong Nhu Tang, Nguyen Van Hieu, Nguyen Van Kiet, Luu Huu Phuoc, Tran Bach Dang, and others

 The burning failure of the “Nortenernization of the South” brought along with it silent and persistent growing dissidence. After a time of long brooding, this opposition was expressed in 1988 with the project of creation of a Southern club of veteran resistant’s who then came to publish without authorization four journals whose contents of opposition was marked with a radical tone. Three great revolutionaries of the South, Tran Van Giau, one of the founders of the Party in the 1920’s, Tran Van Tra, the general who conceived the plan of the victorious offensive of 1975, and Tran Bach Dang, a former well-known high-ranking cadre responsible for clandestine operations in Saigon. The club was animated an equipped  with other veteran eminent figures, notably the former leader of the unions, Nguyen Ho, the former cadre responsible for the information and propaganda activities in Saigon, Ta Ba Tong, and the director of television, Huynh Van Tieng. The argument found a very large echo in the peasantry that the southern leaders had already placed in a more liberal frame than they had for the cooperatives. Apprehended by the events that raged in East Europe in 1989, the central direction sought to divide and recuperate the movement as early as the first semester of 1990. Ta Ba Tong was convoked from duty to live under surveillance in a villa. Nguyen Ho left for refuge beside the provincial authorities of Song Be who protected him.

 The crisis seemed to febrifuge. When General Tran Van Tra came on a visit to New York in 1990 to participate in a conference organized by the University of Columbia, he stressed there are divergences in opinions on the concepts of military strategy between the Vietnamese and Beijing. In an interview with a daily of the refugees of South Vietnam “Ngay Nay” (Today) published in Houston, Texas, when asked on the literature of opposition that had propagated in the country for many years, he declared that the Party was in favor of it because it allowed opposition to exist, taking the pulse of public opinion and disclosing in time the errors to correct them.When coming to attend the congress of the French Communist Party in Paris a month later, Nguyen Thanh Binh, the Vietnamese delegate, refused to contact with the press. A firm believer in orthodox Marxism and Confucianism as well, he was content to call himself a member of the pro-communist Vietnamese elite in France by blaming Tran Van Tra for ignorance about the situation and lack “filial piety” towards the Party. (Georges Duhamel, Ibid)

        The travels and visits of Tran Van Tra, according to sources in the country, significantly reveal in one way or another act of defection or, at the least, a gesture of reconciliation between the ruling leadership from the North and the dissent faction in the South.  Agreements on a share of power and interests had been reached to pave the way for assertion to Party top leadership and key positions in the Party and administration for prominent Southerners such as Vo Van Kiet, Phan Van Khai, Truong Tan Sang, Nguyen Minh Triet, Nguyen Tan Dung and others