ASIA
HAND Heed the
call of Vietnam's Bloc 8406 By
Shawn W Crispin
BANGKOK - If Vietnam's
aspiring democrats finally prevail, April 8, 2006,
will go down in the national history as the
beginning of the end the Communist Party's
monolithic, authoritarian grip on power.
On that day, hundreds of democratic-minded
Vietnamese took the courageous step of publicly
declaring and signing their names to a "Manifesto
on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam", coincident
with
the Communist Party's 10th National Congress in
Hanoi.
Since then the group has grown into
a thousands-strong pro-democracy movement
popularly known as Bloc 8406, named after the date
the group first publicly called for a political
transition toward more participatory democracy.
The domestic dissident movement represents the
most potent political challenge ever to Vietnam's
ruling Communist Party, which took power in the
south militarily in 1975 and has ruled with an
iron fist ever since.
And the group is
gradually upping the ante of its activities. On
August 22, Bloc 8406 publicly declared its
four-phase proposal for Vietnam's democratization,
including demands for the restoration of civil
liberties, the establishment of political parties,
the drafting of a new constitution and, finally,
democratic elections for a new representative
National Assembly that would be charged with
choosing a new national name, flag and anthem.
The petition was publicly disseminated and
signed by representatives from all three of the
country's main regions, including former Vietnam
People's Army officer Tran Anh Kim and prominent
Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly. Bloc 8406 claims
that young educated professionals represent the
core of its membership - a stark contrast to the
Communist Party's mostly crusty cadres.
The government is obviously spooked by the
group's growing visibility and has reacted to the
perceived challenge to its authority with its
trademark jackboot harassment and crude violence.
Scores of Bloc 8406's members have in recent weeks
been harassed, interrogated and, in the case of Ho
Chi Minh City member Vu Hoang Hai, brutally
tortured. Other high-profile members have had
their telephone lines cut or mobile phones
confiscated.
On August 12, security agents
rounded up and interrogated five Bloc 8406 members
in Hanoi who had planned to launch a new online
political magazine aptly called Freedom and
Democracy. Agents later confiscated their
equipment, documents and at least one desktop
computer, forcibly putting the new publication's
August 15 launch date on indefinite hold.
Significantly, Bloc 8406 has launched its
campaign of civil disobedience while the world
spotlight is focused squarely on the country's
next move. Vietnam's communist leaders have wooed
the international community with its impressive
economic-reform credentials, casting aside its old
cloistered communist ways to embrace the global
marketplace.
Those credentials will likely
be enough to win permanent normal trade relations,
a motion that is now pending with the US Congress
and widely viewed as the last stepping stone for
Hanoi's accession to the World Trade Organization
this year. Meanwhile, the Communist Party is
preparing to put its best foot forward when
hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) summit in Hanoi in November, an event that
will be attended by world leaders, including US
President George W Bush.
At the same time,
Bloc 8406 leaders have indicated their intention
to intensify their activities during the
high-profile meetings - putting the two sides on a
potentially dangerous collision course. The new
group has acknowledged that while it may escape
direct harassment during the actual APEC event, it
fears that its members will face the government's
wrath before and after world leaders and the
international media have come and gone.
"A
favorite tactic of the communist regime is to
round up dissidents prior to international events,
use the individuals as bargaining chips before the
event, and then resume the harassment and arrests
after the regime has achieved its immediate goal -
whether it be a smooth meeting or winning trade
privileges," the group recently posted on one of
its internationally hosted websites.
The
mounting crackdown on the fledgling movement
indicates clearly that, contrary to some analysts'
predictions, the party's new, younger leaders have
no intention of undertaking political reforms to
complement their economic and financial reforms.
New Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and President
Nguyen Minh Triet have already demonstrated in
their heavy-handed reactions to Bloc 8406 that
they are as bent on preserving the party's
monopoly on power as their predecessors were.
Many Western governments and multinational
corporations are now seeking to engage Vietnam's
communist leaders to gain access to the country's
many virgin market opportunities. Yet most
investors would agree with Bloc 8406's assertions
recently posted on its VietTan.org website that
"the Communist Party's refusal to liberalize the
political system has resulted in widespread
corruption and stagnation" and that "a pluralistic
political system is a precondition for peace
stability and long-term economic prosperity".
Significantly, Bloc 8406 has repeatedly
reached out to the international community for
validation of its democratic aspirations. On May
9, a group of 50 US congressmen signed an open
letter in support of the group's democratic
initiatives. In an August 23 letter, the Bloc 8406
members recently harassed by government
authorities for planning to launch a new
publication, perhaps oddly, perhaps not, called
upon the Swedish government to "raise your voices
in protecting us".
Asian history is
littered with aspiring democracy movements that
rose only to be crushed by authoritarian regimes
while the West looked on in silence. And those
pivotal moments have had a lasting impact on the
region's democratic development. Myanmar, nearly
20 years after the military government's bloody
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, still
has not recovered from the national trauma. The
same case obviously could be made for China's
ruthless 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen.
There are growing indications that Vietnam
is approaching its own moment of democratic truth.
Unfortunately, many Western governments now
approach Vietnam with a guilty historical
conscience, and seem increasingly loath to
criticize the Communist Party's abysmal rights
record while it implements the wrenching economic
reforms necessary to transition from a command to
market economy.
But now is clearly the
time for the international community, including
multinational corporations, unequivocally to lend
their support to the daring democrats behind Bloc
8406, who clearly represent Vietnam's preferred
future political course.
Shawn W
Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia
editor.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
