In capitalist Vietnam, it's
'repression as usual' By Shawn
W Crispin
BANGKOK - Brandishing
nightsticks and electric cattle prods, about 50
Vietnamese police and security officials on May 22
stormed and demolished a Mennonite church in
Vietnam's central Binh Khanh area. Several members
of the congregation were injured, and police
arrested the pastor, Reverend Nguyen Hong Quang,
and 10 others who resisted.
Quang is no
stranger to state-sponsored religious persecution.
He recently served 15 months of a three-year
sentence for "interfering" with officials during a
similar violent incident against his church in
March 2004. While in detention, local police
frequently raided his damaged house of worship and
harassed his family, often late at night.
Vietnamese officials frequently justify
their armed attacks on
religious sites, shrines and
meeting places on the grounds that holy structures
violate state building codes, which in Vietnam's
provinces are famously arbitrary and ill-defined.
In reality, the systematic assaults are part of a
long-running and clearly ongoing government
campaign to stifle religious freedoms.
Vietnam's impending accession to the World
Trade Organization (WTO) has focused global
attention on the communist government's
substantial economic and financial reforms, which
have catapulted growth and galvanized
unprecedented foreign investor interest. Over the
past six years, Vietnam's economy has grown at an
extraordinary inflation-adjusted average of 7.4%.
At the same time, fast growth has wholly failed to
nudge Vietnam's ruling Communist Party toward more
liberal democracy. The recent leadership reshuffle
in Hanoi handed power over to a new, younger
generation of supposedly more outward-looking
communist rulers. Vietnam-based foreign investors
have expressed confidence that the new leadership
has the technocratic ability to tackle the complex
economic and legal challenges of WTO membership.
Yet it's how Vietnam's new generation of communist
leaders respond to the growing calls for more
liberal democracy, both at home and abroad, that
will ultimately determine their reform legacy.
Hammer and sickle rule Vietnam's
government is one of Asia's most repressive
authoritarian regimes. Freedoms of speech,
association, religion and the media are all
sharply curtailed. Harsh laws passed in the
paranoid aftermath of the 1975 communist takeover
- then aimed at flushing out remnants of the
fallen US-backed regime in the south - are still
on the books 30 years later, with the vague aim of
maintaining "national solidarity" and "national
security". Vietnamese citizens have no legal
recourse to challenge the state-sponsored rights
abuses they habitually endure.
The
Communist Party has been particularly tough on
Vietnam's various minority religious groups, which
they fear often have more political than spiritual
motives.
Since 2001 the government had
forcibly closed more than 1,250 mostly Christian
and Buddhist religious sites across the country's
central highlands, where in 2001 and 2004 massive
demonstrations calling for more religious and
political freedom were held. At least 100
Vietnamese are currently imprisoned on charges
related to their religious beliefs, according to
information compiled by the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom.
For
instance, Buddhist monk Vo Van Thanh Liem, who
submitted written statements about government
abuses committed against his Hoa Hao sect for a US
congressional hearing, was given a nine-year
prison term in September on the trumped up charges
of "opposing public authorities". Baptist pastor
Than Van Truong was only recently released from
two years in a lock-down psychiatric ward after
local authorities deemed him "delusional" for
handing them Bibles.
At least one other
prominent Buddhist leader is currently under
so-called "pagoda arrest"; many others, including
some monks and friars recently released from
prison, live under strict administrative controls
and travel restrictions. Buddhists and Christians
in the country's northwestern regions are still
frequently forced to renounce their faith in front
of local officials; and those found to break that
atheistic vow sometimes lose access to public
utilities or face violent reprisals.
The
country's tightly censored media has not fared
much better. The Communist Party controls all
local media, which are managed either by the
government or its affiliated organizations.
Notwithstanding those tight controls, Vietnam is
still one of the world's leading jailers of
journalists with at least six currently
imprisoned, often for online writings that have
made idle calls for more democracy.
In
March, plainclothes officers detained two renowned
writers at a public Internet cafe usually
frequented by foreign tourists and took pictures
of the websites they had viewed, which included
the banned website of the Free Vietnam Alliance
democracy group. One of the writers, Nguyen Khac
Toan, had previously served three years of a
12-year sentence for sending reports about
disgruntled farmers over the Internet to exiled
Vietnamese democracy groups.
The Communist
Party has implemented some of Asia's most
sophisticated firewall and surveillance technology
to limit access through the Internet. Vietnam's
firewall denies access to thousands of websites
that government censors consider objectionable,
with a special emphasis on blocking
democracy-related content.
Moreover, the
government continues to run roughshod over
international laws and covenants it has signed, a
signal that should give pause to foreign investors
banking on the communist authorities' will and
resolve to uphold the rule of law as mandated in
WTO rules and regulations that protect their
investments.
A Human Rights Watch report
issued in June maintained that Vietnamese
authorities "detained, interrogated and even
tortured" ethnic Montagnard refugees and asylum
seekers who returned to Vietnam from Cambodia
under a voluntary repatriation agreement the
government had entered with the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). In recent
months, more than 60 Montagnards have been
imprisoned after returning from Cambodia,
according to the US-based rights group.
A failed agreement None of these
recent abuses would raise eyebrows if Vietnam's
communist leaders had not recently vowed to change
their repressive ways.
In May 2005, the US
and Vietnam reached an agreement that set binding
benchmarks to pave the way for more religious and
political freedoms, including legislation designed
specifically to protect religious-based rights. As
part of that deal, Hanoi vowed to instruct local
authorities to comply with the new legislation and
facilitate processes that allowed for the
congregations they previously harassed to reopen
shuttered churches, shrines and other sacred
places. Vietnam's leaders also agreed to take on
board US suggestions for prisoner amnesties.
In exchange, the US promised to de-list
Vietnam from the State Department's catalogue of
rights-abusing "countries of particular concern",
known inside Washington's Beltway as "CPC", and
pave the way for more comprehensive bilateral
ties. Since then, Vietnam has released a handful
of high-profile religious leaders, re-opened some
churches and shrines, officially outlawed forced
recantations of faith and in March issued a decree
to facilitate the registration of religious
venues.
Still, the government continues to
ban religious activities that do not have prior
official permission. Notably the March decree
backtracked on Hanoi's original agreement with the
US, by reasserting the government's legal powers
to crack down on any worshippers who undermine
peace, independence or national unity, disseminate
information against state law or policies, or
spread superstitious practices. Officials have
drawn on these amendments to justify recent
arrests and harassment.
Over the past
year, it has become increasingly apparent to many
outside observers that Vietnamese authorities have
no intention of moving toward more democracy or
religious freedom, but have instead adopted a
policy of selective openness when dealing with
Washington, similar to the cat-and-mouse tactics
Myanmar's generals have employed in dealing with
United Nations' many failed attempts to encourage
political reform there. Michael Cromartie,
chairman of the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom, said in March 29 testimony to
the US Congress: "Unfortunately, the hope of some
that Vietnam's progress toward WTO membership
would bring about legal reform, transparency and
improvements in human rights has not been
fulfilled. There has not been a direct correlation
between economic and individual freedoms." His
testimony noted that police in Ha Giang province
broke up a January 1 Christian service when they
caught more than 20 people illegally singing.
However, the clarion call for more
democracy is steadily growing inside the country.
In April, hundreds of Vietnamese signed two
appeals, the "Appeal for Freedom of Political
Association" and "The Manifesto on Freedom and
Democracy for Vietnam", which broadly called on
the Communist Party's 10th National Congress to
loosen its grip on power and allow for more
democratic participation. The public nature of the
petition was unprecedented during the Communist
Party's 30-year rule.
A group of
Vietnamese exiles, meanwhile, has established an
underground movement of bloggers and citizen
journalists inside the country known as the Free
Journalists Association of Vietnam (FJAV), which
gathers and disseminates news over the Internet
that is censored inside the country. The group is
now trying to use legal means to establish an
independent online news publication based inside
Vietnam with help from the US's National Endowment
for Democracy.
Predictably, the government
has detained and interrogated many of the
activists, who notably included former senior
Communist Party officials, who signed the April
petition and has barred at least one member of the
FJAV from traveling abroad to attend an
international conference focused on freedom of
expression issues.
Feel good
rush The commercial rush to embrace
Vietnam's transition from a communist to
capitalist economy often overlooks messy political
considerations. US and Vietnamese negotiators last
month hammered out a new bilateral deal that,
barring progress in implementing their May 2005
agreement, will pave the way for Vietnam's
accession to the WTO later this year.
"Vietnam's [WTO] accession will show the
world that it has made the reforms and commitments
needed to be a full participant in the
international economic community," US Ambassador
to Vietnam Michael Marine said in a July 4
interview with Vietnam News. "Vietnam is well on
its way on a program of liberalization that has
yielded impressive economic progress."
Marine's views mirror those of senior US
politicians with long involvement in Vietnam,
including senators John McCain and John Kerry, who
have consistently insisted that greater economic
engagement rather than finger-wagging is the best
way to encourage more Vietnamese democracy. Even
the philanthropic-minded Bill Gates has recently
hobnobbed and discussed possible business deals
with the country's communist rulers.
To
date, though, Hanoi has clearly taken more of its
policy cues from Beijing than Washington.
Vietnam's state-led development model, albeit at a
slower, more deliberate pace, directly mirrors
China's controlled mix of economic openness and
political repression, which notably has given rise
to an entrepreneurial, but politically voiceless,
middle class.
But Vietnam's
anti-democratic record arguably should not be
readily dismissed as Asian business as usual.
Because of its comparatively small size, Vietnam
does not command the negotiating power of China's
massive markets. Vietnamese exports to the US last
year represented less than 0.5% of total US trade,
despite a 400% increase in bilateral trade since
2001. Most US investors still view Vietnam more as
a hedge than an alternative to increasing their
capital exposure to China.
Vietnam's
communists are increasingly dependent on Western
capital and markets to fuel growth and hence
maintain their grip on political power. Hanoi is
simultaneously moving to forge stronger strategic
ties with Washington, seen in the regular US naval
ship visits to Vietnamese ports, to counterbalance
China's growing military prowess.
While
there are preliminary indications that Vietnam's
new, more commercially minded leaders are less
influenced by the bitter war memories that haunted
and restricted their predecessors, there is still
scant indication they intend to look past their
economic reform agenda and embark upon a more
democratic path.
The US is uniquely
positioned to demand that Vietnam allow for more
democracy in exchange for more economic privileges
and strategic assurances. It is no longer academic
truth that economic liberalization inevitably
leads to more democracy, particularly not in Asia.
And nowhere is that unfortunately more apparent
than in Vietnam.
Shawn W Crispin
is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia editor.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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